The sermon this morning comes from Genesis chapter 33. The setting we have here is, we remember God created the heaven and earth good. Man blew it when he committed his crimes against God. He fell into sin and the world falls into death. From this place God calls a man forth, Abraham, and says, come, come out. Come out from the heathen nations. and I'll make you a great people and in your seed all the descendants of the earth will be blessed." This is the idea that he's moved out, he's made something special, he's made something new and from here the church is going to blossom from his family. Abraham has a son, Isaac, who is seen as the child of promise and was a child of promise. From here he has a son, Jacob, who Jacob was a twin and Jacob was a deceiver and he was a thief. He would take anything that he could get from someone Well, he had stolen from the wrong man in earlier chapters. He had stolen from his brother, tricking him and deceiving him. He deceived his own father as well, and had to run away for his own life. Well, at this point, he's been gone over a decade, and now he's coming back. In his travels on his way back, he actually came face-to-face with a manifestation of God, and wrestled against him, and had his hips so injured that he would be limping for the rest of his life. So we come to this man, Jacob, His name has been changed to Israel at this point. And as he comes, we see what he finds on his way home. Then Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau, who was his brother, Esau's brother was coming, and 400 men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel, and the two maids. He put the maids and their children in front, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. But he himself passed on ahead of them, and bowed down to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. Then Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept. He lifted his eyes, and saw the women and the children, and said, Who are these with you? So he said, the children whom God has graciously given your servant. And the maids came near with their children, and they bowed down. Leah likewise came near with her children, and they bowed down. And afterward, Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed down. And he said, what do you mean by all this company which I have met? And he said, to find favor in the sight of my Lord. But Esau said, I have plenty, my brother. Let what you have be your own. Jacob said, No, please, if now I have found favor in your sight, then take my present from my hand, for I see your face as one sees the face of God, and you have received me favorably. Please take my gift, which has been brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have plenty. Thus he urged him, and he took it. Then Esau said, Let us take our journey and go, and I will go before you. But he said to him, My Lord knows that the children are frail, and that the flocks and herds which are nursing are a care to me. And if they are driven hard one day, all the flocks will die. Please let my Lord pass on before His servant, and I will proceed at my leisure, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me, and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my Lord at Seir." Esau said, Please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me. But Esau said, What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built for himself a house and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the place was named Succoth. Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, which he came from Tadan Aram and camped before the city. He bought the piece of land where he had pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for one hundred pieces of money. then he erected there an altar and called it El Elohi Yisrael. Pray with me. Father, as we look at what could be considered a dusty piece of history, and wrongly so, Father, or even a fairy tale, wrongly so, help us now to approach this word as the very words of life and sharp and active and living Father, may we embrace your word and we plead with you through your Holy Spirit to do your great work on our hearts. Help us, Father, now to seek your face. Help us, Father, to find you. Father, help us to respond appropriately to what you have said, to who you are, and to what you have done. Father, so that your name will be made great in our lives. Father, so that you will be glorified. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. When I was a child, one of the Disney cartoons I saw affected me greatly, and that was Bambi. It might sound ridiculous, but that is an amazing piece of propaganda. After seeing Bambi, I despised any man walking down the road with a gun and wearing orange. I thought that the deer were the good guys and the hunters were the bad guys. One of the scenes that really had impacted me from it, and forgive me if I don't remember this exactly if you're a big Bambi fan, but the scene was the hunters were coming and all the creatures of the forest were terrified. There were these little birds and they were hunkered down in the weeds and as they were there the music was swelling. And they are terrified as the hunter is coming. And they hear the footsteps coming, crunch, crunch. And one of the little birds is about to lose it. He said, I got to go. I got to fly. I got to get out of here. I can't stay here. And another one of the birds is saying, no, no. Just be still. Just be quiet. And it'll be OK. But the bird is getting more intense. He says, no, I have to fly. I have to fly. I have to go. I have to fly. He says, no, no, stay, stay. And the bird loses it. It goes flying. BOOM! You hear the shotgun blast, and feathers come floating to the ground, and every child goes, GASP! The danger in that situation, the intensity in that situation, I have to run, I have to go, I have to get away. But there's a voice that says, no, no. No, no, be still. No, wait, stay where you are. and it's going to be okay. You see, there are dangers that rise up against every one of us. And there's always this temptation to run our own way, to do our own thing, to rescue ourselves from circumstances. There's this voice that says, no, no, be still and trust in your Lord in this. We see here Esau has ended up in this situation. He had wronged his brother. His brother had decided to murder him. This is the reason he ran. And as he's returning with his wife, wives, with his children, he sees a man who had decided to murder him coming towards him with 400 men. I don't know about you, but there are certain things that I feel like I could deal with in my life. We read stories of martyrs, people who laid down their lives for Christ, and sometimes I think I could do that. But when the situation has changed, when things are shifted, and I imagine if I am in a situation where my wife is there, and the lives are being threatened, how then would I respond? Or worse, what if I'm in this situation and my children are there? And lives are being threatened. How will we respond? In those times, will we trust in the Lord? As we look at this passage here, we see Jacob, Israel, in this situation where the enemy is coming. There is no cavalry that's going to come to rescue him. No earthly cavalry, anyhow. He's in a position and he's in a place where he must trust in God in the face of this danger. He must trust in God's promises in the face of danger as his wives, as his children, as the very promise of God for the whole nation is being threatened. And you, yourselves, face the same dilemmas. Is your very life being threatened? Generally, no. But as each sin comes before you, You make a decision for yourself. You make a decision for your family. You may be making decisions for your children as you decide how to face these dangers. So the call for you this morning, in the face of dangers and in the light of God's promise, faithfully give Him your worship through the midst of it. Next, as we begin, look with me at verse one. I'm going to call upon you now for this first step in our journey to expect to face dangers. Then Jacob lifted his eyes and looked and behold Esau was coming and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. Now Esau, as I said, he wanted to murder his brother, this information comes in Genesis 27 41 so Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him and Esau said to himself the days of mourning for my father are near then I will kill my brother Jacob I don't know how real that hits you I don't know if you've ever had someone actually wanting to kill you I don't know if you've been in a situation where you deserve to be killed I have been in that situation where I deserved to be killed and I remember stepping out of a doorway late at night with my head down a little bit and carefully looking one way and the other thinking someone clubbed me right now. I know I deserve it. The fear that comes with knowing our guilt, knowing our crimes, Really, what do any of you deserve any less? As you consider your rebellion against the throne, as you consider your crimes against the Father, maybe even crimes against one another, the things that we deserve. So, there is this judgment that looms over us, as these things that we deserve, these punishments, these penalties, these afflictions that we deserve, on top of the physical things that we deserve. There is also this stark warning in 1 Peter 5.8, Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. That's if you're walking the Christian life, you have these enemies. Christ also warns His Church, He said, Do not be deceived. I did not come to bring peace, but I came to bring a sword. He warns us that our enemies will be the members of our own household that will be pitted against one another. We will have enemies in this world. He also warns us that we will indeed be hated. We will be hated. Now there's the question, are you? If not, there's also the question, why not? If you can live in a world that isn't rebellion against the kingdom of God and walk casually and nonchalant through it and nobody sees and has any issue with you, are you walking in accordance with God's word and are you being who you're called to be? One of the kindest men that most of us know would be James Diamond and I've seen him in a situation where he was hated, he was despised, he was mocked and ridiculed. He invited me to a Phillies game here in Pittsburgh. He wore his Phillies jersey. He was not well thought of. Why? Because he was out of his environment. He was not in Philadelphia. He was in Pittsburgh. And Pirates fans hated him and mocked him. If you are a child of the Most High, if you are a resident of the Kingdom of Heaven, Can you walk in a world where Christ is rejected and not be hated? So how? How? How do you get by? How do we get by walking through this world as if we're wearing pirates jerseys? Nobody recognizes that we don't belong here. One recognizes that we are something different. See, there is danger, and there should be danger, and danger isn't something that we flee. See, there's right danger. There's good danger in some circumstances that we're supposed to stand in and stand for. Standing for the kingdom of God. Not hiding and acting like everyone else, but standing for truth so stand firm in the world and in the face of conflict. Now, as we deal with this, most of us realize that this is not a comfortable way to live. It's not a pleasant way to live, necessarily. But there's a place beyond comfort. Next, we'll read verses 2 and 3. I call upon you to give your life for the kingdom. Verses 2 and 3. But He put the maids and their children in front, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. When he had first sent the wives and the children out on their own, I was really annoyed and I was frustrated. I was like, oh, there's an army coming in there. Go ahead, kids. Go ahead, wives. You go ahead out first. And he stayed back. And that was when he wrestled with God and after that gets his hip popped out and then we see what he does. But he himself passed on ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother I can't imagine facing 400 men. I had this imagery in my mind of him, his children that he loves, and the children that love him, his wives that love him, and he's the one who protects them and has taken care of them. And there they are, lined up, and out there, these 400 men, and you see this man limping past them. You see the eyes of his children on him, the eyes of his wives on him as he marches forward to go face an army on their behalf. We see here a picture and it brings to mind Christ as we are his children, as we are his bride, as there was the very wrath of God coming against us he put on humanity and he walks past each of us to go and stand and take the wrath that we deserve the heroic gesture that we all long to see the love that we all long to see for ourselves and also on some level that the hero that we would all long to be the kind of lover that we would all long to be. The kind who would sacrifice everything, the kind who would lay down everything to rescue children, wives. What we have here is a picture of Christ that we love and that we are rescued by. Also a picture of the one that you are called upon to follow. as each one of us is called upon to lay our lives down and follow Christ. As each one of us is called upon to take up our own cross and to follow Him. You see, the Christian life is not one that is light and easy. From time to time I feel like I'm knee-deep in spiritual war. Anything else would be easier, I think. But yet, this is what we are called to. Called to this battle. Romans 5.8, it says, "...but God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Again, this idea of life laid down to rescue. John 15.13, "...greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." And we have this direction for ourselves from Luke 9, 24. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. Giving up your life to have life. We've got this wrong picture in our culture. We have this wrong, wrong picture in our culture where we think the chief end is our comfort. Our chief end is comfort. Our chief end is to have the things that other people have. Our chief end is to get what we truly deserve. But you are called upon to follow Christ. Did He get what He deserved? Not in this life. Not in this life. I struggle and I wrestle with the things that I have and the life that I have because it's too comfortable. Our lives are too comfortable. Perhaps the houses that we live in, perhaps the cars that we drive, perhaps the friends that we keep, the battles that we fight or the battles that we don't fight. We live as if our chief end is to get a good job, to have enough money, be able to tithe and it doesn't hurt. But really, our chief end is the glory of God. That is achieved as we love as we have been loved. Lives laid down, comfort given up and sacrificed, pointing to Christ all the while. You see, this is about daily decisions made with the kingdom in mind. Daily decisions made with the kingdom in mind. Do I buy this car with the kingdom in mind? Do I take this job with the kingdom in mind? Do I answer this phone call with the kingdom in mind? Are there people we would rather not talk to? Do I talk to this person in the grocery store with the kingdom in mind? Are there so many people that I would avoid? Do I give up this day for prayer with the kingdom in mind? Do I give up this evening for prayer with the kingdom in mind? Do I watch this television show with the kingdom in mind? Or do you love with the kingdom in mind? A life of self-sacrifice is a life of love committed to the eternal good of one another, which is what was demonstrated on the cross and what each of us are called to. lies of self-sacrifice. Why? Why can I ask you to give up your life? Look with me again at verses 2 and 3. He put the maids and their children in front, and Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. But he himself passed on ahead of them and bowed down to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother. I would think assembling this multitude, assembling these sheep You know, he could have taken off and he could have run the other direction. There was something bigger at stake than his life. There was something bigger at stake even than the lives of his wives, even than the lives of his children. Because there had been a promise given. A promise where he and his family and his children were just one rung in a ladder, one stone in the sidewalk. moving on and going to something great and beautiful, something majestic, something powerful, something that fills the whole earth. In Genesis 3, 14 and 15, the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, this is back at the fall, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go and dust you will eat all the days of your life and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel." This is God's promise that I will not leave you in the sin that you are in and I will send a seed, this is an offspring to rescue the world. This promise is stated again in Genesis 22, 18. This idea of the seed can actually be traced all through scripture. God said to Abraham, Abraham, in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. This idea of the seed, the offspring coming, and the children of Israel. The seed comes from there. This promise is traced through there. In Galatians 3.8, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles, that is us, the heathens, those who were not Israel, justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. You see, without these descendants of Abraham, without these offspring, the Christ would not come, and the world would not be rescued, the world would not be saved. You see, we trust God's promise in Christ. We lay down our lives trusting in the promise of Christ. trusting that God is going to win. We are on the right team when we labor in love, when we labor putting our own lives down, because God will indeed fulfill His purposes. We see this promise traced back from Genesis chapter 3 and its fulfillment in Revelation 20. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also. and they will all be tormented day and night forever and ever. We see in Genesis 12-3, and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse. And again in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. How do you lay down your life? Knowing that when the fall hell happened, God promised that He would deliver the world. through the seed, and that is through Jesus Christ. You who trust in Christ, you who trust in Christ, your labor is not in vain. You mothers who love your children well, your labor is not in vain. You husbands who love your wives well, your labor is not in vain. You who go in the highways and byways and proclaim the gospel, your labor is not in vain. You who love the assembly here, your labor is not in vain. All that is done for the glory of Christ will indeed bring glory to Christ. We have this promise that we are delivered if we trust in the Son, so we push forward. Next, give God the praise for the blessings that you have. Look with me at verses 5 through 7. He lifted up his eyes and saw the women and the children and said, Who are these with you? So he said, the children whom God has graciously given your servant. And the maids came near with their children. I love the picture. See this in your mind. These brothers who were at war with each other. We thought death was going to come. Here they stand, arm in arm, after they have both been weeping. And one said, who are all these? These are the children that the Lord has graciously given me. In a group with a mother. and they bow down. Another group with a mother come and they bow down. Another group comes and bows down. And there they are, these blessings that God had graciously given. James 1.17, every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of light with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow You know that every good thing that you have in your life is a gift from God. Every good thing. We don't permit the idea of luck in our church. You don't have anything because you're lucky. I told you the story of a father who was outside with his son, and the son says, Dad, I noticed we were really lucky. He says, really son, why are we so lucky? And he says, well look, we have this, and we have this, and we have this, and he's pointing out all these blessings that are in their family. And the father said, yes, unfunny thing I've noticed. The harder I work, the luckier we get. None of these things are just come by luck, or come by chance. The reality is, every good thing that you have is a blessing from God, a gift from God. We should count it as such, but beyond these physical blessings, Ephesians 1, 3, as we heard a couple weeks ago, or maybe it was last week, I have no idea anymore, but as I read this morning, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. I had friends in my teenage years, they were very spoiled, very spoiled children, and I was at their house one year for Christmas And as they sat and they opened up their presents, they just shredded things. And they would look at the present and say, hmph. And they would set it aside and they'd grab another one and shred it. It was a brother and sister looking, hmph, and set it aside. And I watched in bewilderment, because we had to read the card first. And then you had to thank whoever gave it to you after you opened the present. Well, it was just, hmph, hmph, hmph. And then they were done. They looked around. They looked at their parents and said, is that it? Is that it? And they both had this sense of indignation towards their parents. Is that it? That's all we got? And they were angry. And I remember my stomach churning as I was extremely uncomfortable in this setting. And the parents got all apologetic with them. What is this? Where am I? It was this madness. Sadly, Sadly, when we are not content with what we have, as He has told us, He will never leave us nor forsake us. We are that. We are that. Is that it? Is that it? Is that all you have for me? Is that all you've given me? The tragedy is, we say that in the face of every spiritual blessing that we have in the heavenly places. You laid down your Son and you have rescued me. You gave the life of your Son Christ. You poured out your blood to save me, to give me eternity. And we say, is that it? This life? This husband? This wife? This job? Is that it? When given every spiritual blessing on top of every physical blessing that we have. Give God the praise for every blessing that you do have in your life. Now this brings us to a certain posture in life and certain ways that we're supposed to look and certain things that we're supposed to do. I call upon you next to distance yourself from the enemies of God. That is, to flee fellowship with the ungodly. Look at verses 12 through 17 again. Then Esau said, Let us take our journey, and go, and I will go before you. But he said to him, My lord knows that the children are frail, and that the flocks and herds which are nursing are a care to me. And if they are driven hard one day, all the flocks will die. Please let my lord pass on before his servant, and I will proceed at my leisure, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me, and according to the pace of the children. until I come to my Lord at Seir." Esau said, please let me leave with you some of the people who are with me. He said, when he is there, let me find favor in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built for himself a house and made booze for his livestock. Therefore the place is named Succoth. There is a passage from 1 Corinthians 15.33. Children, you do well to remember this. 1 Corinthians 1533, and you college students, teenagers, would do well to remember this. 1 Corinthians 1533, and you adults, and you old people, would do well to remember this. 1 Corinthians 1533. Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Bad company corrupts good morals. We see here Esau. Doesn't Esau look like a nice guy here? Esau had been ripped off. Esau had been deceived. Esau had been cheated. Esau then shows up and grabs his brother and weeps on him. He embraces his brother and says, keep your stuff. Don't give it to me. Hey, let me give you some of my fighting men to take care of you. Esau looks like a sweet guy. Esau looks like a nice guy here. We see in other parts of scripture Esau is a villain. Esau is sexually immoral. Esau is the exact kind of person that we are called upon to stay away from. Someone who would call himself a brother, but is sexually immoral. We don't have the luxury to affiliate, to fellowship with nice people who are sons of hell. The truth is, sons of hell can be nice people. They can be kind to you, they may even be respectful to you, but they can also lead you down a path to deep, deep sin. We do not have that luxury as we would trust God in the face of our dangers. We would be tempted to call on them for rescue, for peace, for deliverance, and they will give the wrong peace, the wrong rescue, the wrong deliverance, they will give the wrong counsel, Now, this isn't saying that we never associate with them. The scripture actually tells us that there's a way that we are to associate with them, and that is to proclaim righteousness. I may have told this story before. When I was first saved, I was friends with a family of Hindus, and the children were atheists. They had thrown off every religion. And, I had taken the daughter to church a few times, and her Hindu father said, well, Micah, since you have taken my daughter to your church, why don't you come to our temple with us?" The idea terrified me. I did not know what to do for certain. My pastor had recently preached a sermon, Seven Ways to Know What to Do or What Not to Do. He had these seven questions that you had to go through and ask. It was stuff that was kind of helpful. Would you want to be doing it when Christ came back, for example? Stuff like that. As I thought through, and I thought through all my reasoning, What I came up with was, if I am going into that setting intentionally to be an ambassador for Christ and to share the gospel with people, I'll go. And it was the most nerve-wracking and disruptive thing that I have ever seen. I actually saw people bowing down to idols and burning incense and singing to these statues. And it felt like the eyes were staring right through me through the whole thing. And I shared the gospel. I shared the gospel with the Swami. I shared the gospel with the family that took me there. You don't have the freedom and luxury to hang out with heathens unless you're going to share the gospel. Unless you're going to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, this bad company is going to corrupt your good morals. Otherwise, you're not an ambassador for Christ. You're just another guy at the Pirates game. But our jersey Our robe is the righteousness of Christ. Our mission is His glory. Our mission is His praise. Next, look with me at verses 19 and 20. He bought the piece of land where He had pitched His tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, for one hundred pieces of money. Then He erected there an altar, and called it El Elohi Yisrael, that is, the mighty God of Israel. We see that God brought him and preserved him and cared for him. And what is his response? His response is worship. His response is worship. As we look through the scripture, as we look through the Psalms, so often it all comes together and it comes together in the assembly with a love for church. That is a love for the people of God, a love for worship. We saw it in the Psalms that we sang this morning. And deliver Israel. And deliver Israel. We see in other places, and I will proclaim your righteousness in the assembly. Worship. Worship is what is called for for you in the midst of your trials, in the midst of your danger, as you trust in the promise. So who will you be? What will you be? What is the appropriate response to trials, to danger? Is it to run? No. It is to stand firm and steadfast in the promises of Christ. and it is to worship Him even through the midst of it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your good word. We thank you for your truth. We thank you, Father, for every blessing in our lives, all the ways that you have cared for us, all the ways that you have loved us. Father, please apply this word to our heart even now. Help us to look at our relationships and see what should be kept and what should be thrown off. Father, help us now to look at our levels of comfort and see how we should lay our lives down for you and your kingdom. We pray, Father, that you will be glorified as we praise you in the midst of dangers and trials and we point others towards salvation in your Son, Jesus Christ. It is in His name we pray. Amen.