Good morning. It is good to be here. If you missed it earlier, my name is joe johnson and I am the R. U. F. Campus minister at Mississippi State. That is our denominations campus ministry outreach to campus. And I have the joy of doing that in Mississippi State. I am wearing my maroon tie this morning after a loss because I trust in God's promises and grace for us despite what happened last night. But I love being here for a lot of different reasons. Y'all are a supporting church and send us students and call me often and ask how ministry's going. I'm very grateful for that. So it's great to be here in person and I will be here for a number of weeks coming up. I also love being here because I attended here once from when I was about six months old to six years old. And so it's always great to be back here and to remember God's promises and how he worked in this church and still works in this church today. And also, I love, as someone who preaches away a lot, I love that y'all are about 25 minutes away from my house, and my wife does too, who couldn't make it again this morning, but she will probably, she's gonna make it soon, I hope. People tend to like me better when my wife and my children are here, but they are at Grace Press this morning in Starkville. We're gonna be in Genesis chapter 25 this morning, if you have your Bibles, Genesis 25. And since I will be here for a little bit, a little more regularly, I wanted to at least pick something for us to go through together. I know I won't be here continuous weeks, and this might be kind of hard to wrap our minds around, but I thought it might be fun to look at the book of Genesis together, but really just the life of one man in Genesis, which is the life of a man named Jacob. Jacob is the grandson of Abraham, and Jacob has always been a fascinating person to me in the Bible because there is a duality to this man. That on the one hand, he is the grandson of Abraham. On the one hand, he's in the family that God has decided to work in and through at this time. He is the one who heard stories from his grandfather, stories from his dad about how God worked. And so Jacob really is someone in the world right now, at the time of his living, who knows more about God than almost everybody. And if there were anyone in this world right now that would follow God, that would show a life of faith, that would trust his promises, it should be the grandson of Abraham, whose promises God gave him now rest on Jacob. But at the very same time, the other reality about Jacob as you read his life is you are constantly underwhelmed by who he is and how he lives. That Jacob, in the words of Sinclair Ferguson, really is a scoundrel who cheats, who lies, who manipulates, who rebels. And yet the story of Jacob, which really does go through the rest of Genesis, is not a story of how to follow this man as an example. but a story of how gracious the God that works in his life is, and how it's the grace of God that wrestles Jacob down to the ground, literally and throughout his life, to change him, to save him, and to actually make him a useful tool in his king's hand. And Jacob's life answers the question, if God can use someone like Jacob, can he use people like us? And so we're gonna go to the very beginning, the origin story, the birth of Jacob, and then the first time he cheats. This is Genesis chapter 25, starting in verse 19. This is God's word. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham followed Isaac, and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean, of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban, the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer and Rebecca's wife conceived and the children struggled together within her. And she said, if this 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. When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. And 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 60 years old when she bore him. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game. But Rebecca loved Jacob. 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. And Jacob said, sell me your birthright now. Esau said, I'm about to die of what uses the birthright to me. And 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 on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. Amen. The grass withers and flowers fade, but the word of God stands forever. Let me pray and ask for God's help. Father, we need you. We are your people. This is your word and desperate for truth. We are. And so as we walk through this passage together, your word, your true and living word, help it mold and shape our hearts by your spirit and help us Jesus to see you more clearly and find you more beautiful. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. A number of years ago there was a conference held at a major university in Great Britain and the conference was titled the UK Conference on Comparative Religions. And what they were doing was they would bring in leaders from around the world of different world religions, put them on a panel and discuss for two days how the different world religions were similar and how they were dissimilar. And during this conference, one afternoon, the topic finally got to the question, is there anything about Christianity that makes it unique among the world religions? And as the esteemed panelists were talking and discussing, a very famous man walks into the room. And the man's name was Clive Staples Lewis, C.S. Lewis, who was a professor at that university at the time. And there was sort of a murmur in the crowd that the famous professor was there. I'm still not exactly sure why he wasn't invited to speak at the conference, but his office was in the building. He heard a lot of noise, and he simply wanted to know what was going on. And when he walked in, the panelists saw him and said, Dr. Lewis, you actually could help us here. What would you say makes Christianity unique among all the world religions? And Dr. Lewis apparently took off his glasses, furrowed his brow, and simply said, oh, that's easy. It's grace. Grace makes Christianity unique. And he walks out of the room. There was a little bit of laughter, a little bit of talking about it, thinking that he just wanted to give a simple answer and get out of the room and go to his study and move on with his day. But then as the panelists began to discuss that answer, what they realized was that he was right. That though there is elements of grace in different world religions, no other world religion puts grace at its theological center like Christianity does. that Christianity is not a religion that says here are 10 steps to get to enlightenment. It's not a religion that says here's how you build up karma in your life. It is not a religion about how man gets to God, but the good news of how God came to man, of a holy God who rescues his sinful and broken people, that the very middle of Christianity is the idea that God relates to us solely by his grace, and we are undeserving. the story and moral of Jacob's life is almost nothing to follow. He shows elements of faith. He has faithful moments. But what we really see highlighted throughout Jacob's life is the astounding and relentless grace of God for his people to bring about his purposes here. And so what we need to see is that the sole basis of our relationship with God is grace. and to miss that is to miss something fundamental about Christianity. The sole basis of our relationship with God is grace, and to miss that is to miss something fundamental about Christianity. And so I want to learn, even from the beginning of Jacob's life, three things about grace this morning, three things about grace, that we are called to rely on God's grace. that we are also called to be humbled by God's grace, and we are called to value God's grace, to rely on it, to be humbled by it, and to value it. So first, to rely on God's grace. I am just sort of plopping us into Genesis 25, so I wanna set a little bit of context here. What in the world is happening? Well, Abraham just died. the patriarch of the family, the grandfather, the one God called out of nowhere, a pagan man in a pagan nation, and called him to be his own, and then bestowed Abraham all of these promises. A promise of a nation that's coming that would number more than the stars, a promise of a land, a promise of a people who would be a blessing to the rest of the world. And yet, it was on the basis, the promise, rested on a son coming. the son that they had to wait for for a long period of time. But Isaac did come and now the promises were upon Isaac. But Isaac and his wife are still waiting for where is that nation coming? Where will the line continue through? And we're faced in Genesis chapter 25 with a familiar problem within this family and actually throughout the Bible, a couple who are waiting on a child who doesn't seem to be coming. a barren couple who are waiting on the son, the promised son, that God's promises would go through. All of it rests on a son coming and he's not coming. And so Isaac, the son of Abraham, has a choice. He could do what his father did. He could take a shortcut. My wife's not getting pregnant, the son isn't coming, and so my father did something where he got a son in a way that God told him not to do. Or the second choice. which is to rest and wait upon the promises of God. And how did Isaac make that decision? I have to think it's this, that Isaac grew up with Abraham as a father. He knew the stories. He even lived through some of the stories. He was the son that was set on the altar to be sacrificed to God before God comes in and gives a substitute sacrifice. That is not a memory that you forget. He heard the stories of what his mother and father did. He heard how God worked through his family and began to learn what it means to have faith, to rest and to rely on the promises of God. And so what does Isaac do? He does the hardest thing you could ever do as a Christian. He has to wait upon God. He goes to God in prayer to pray for his wife, to pray for a son. And the amazing thing is this, God answers that prayer, his wife becomes pregnant, there's two babies coming, it's all amazing. But did you see how long it took? 40 years when he marries his wife, 60 years old when his sons were born. 20 years of waiting. We really do have to see those numbers of the Bible. It's incredibly important. We can read through it really quick and it all of a sudden seems like Isaac didn't really have to wait that long. All he really had to do was pray. But that's 20 years of prayer. 20 years of disappointment. 20 years of wondering where is God, where is the son? 20 years. That's older than the majority of my students. 20 years of waiting. And that's actually a pattern in how God works with his people throughout the Bible, isn't it? His father and mother had to wait for him. Him and his wife have to wait for their son. We even see the New Testament start with a couple who are waiting for their son to be born. And that's just the pregnancies. But what about 40 years in the wilderness of God's people waiting to enter the promised land? What about 500 years by the end of the Old Testament prophecies to Jesus arriving? 500 years of silence waiting for God's man to show, to crush the head of the serpent. We really are, as a people, awaiting people. And that doesn't mean we're lazy. It doesn't mean we don't work. It doesn't mean we don't do things for the Lord. But the hardest work we're going to have to do in our life is simply to wait for God to come through on his promises. And the reason that's so hard, the reason why that requires so much faith is because waiting in and of itself is a giving up of control. I hate waiting. I hate waiting in my car for my family to come because we're gonna be late to everything that we do. I hate waiting on a phone call that I need. I hate waiting. Because I like being in control. But actually one of the greatest tests of faith that we're ever gonna go through in our life is to wait a long period of time for God to do something. For God to come through on his promises. Where is he calling you right now to wait? To wait through a difficult and painful season that you really just want relief. But maybe what God is saying is, wait upon me. Maybe to wait through a difficult season of family issues, of wayward children, of worrying about our children, worrying about our extended family, worrying about our aging parents. And maybe what God's calling you to do there, maybe actually the answer to that prayer is, in this season you are to wait upon me. That maybe Jesus has taken you somewhere where you really did not want to go. And to do things that you really did not want to do. and that actually maybe he's there to say, be faithful and wait upon me. Because why does God work like that in his people? Why does he make them wait for their sons to be born? I think it's God making the point in our hearts that we cannot do this on our own. that is actually all on his promises, his grace to us. Think about how hard this lesson was for Rebecca. We know Rebecca. Rebecca is a hard worker. She filled the jugs of the camels. She's a very involved mother and a couple chapters we will see she works hard to get things done and here all she could do is to wait and trust that God would do what he said he was going to do. Isn't that what we're called to do is the church to wait As news pours in, as morning comes, wondering, God, where are you? What are you doing? That we actually are waiting in anticipation for the new heavens and new earth to be revealed, for God to be at work in his people, to see more people converted and coming into God's covenant community. We're called to wait with anticipation. He will do what he says he's going to do. Do we rely on his grace? But then second, we are to be humbled by his grace. We are to be humbled by His grace. So we have a pregnancy, and it's a very uncomfortable pregnancy for this woman, because it feels like there's two people battling in her womb. She's in so much pain, actually, that what she prays to God in English doesn't make much sense either. If this is thus, why is this happening to me? In Hebrew, it actually makes less sense. What this is showing is that she's in a great deal of pain and confused. And I remember when my wife was pregnant with my second born, my son, she could barely walk her last trimester because my son was rocking and rolling in there. And this could be very scary. And I'm sure at some point she thought this was going to kill her. And so desperate, she went to the Lord to inquire what was going on. And this is the word that the Lord gave 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. There's two pieces of information that God gives to her, and the first is that your womb is the first battlefield that these two people will fight on, but it certainly will not be the last. Giving a preview of how these two brothers will interact and really even in the first couple of chapters of their life, we're going to see them go to battle against each other, and this will last decades. But it wasn't just to give her information of what these two boys are gonna be like to prepare her as a mom. The other piece of information actually is even more shocking. That one will be stronger than the other, but the older, the older's going to serve the younger. Now this is a huge piece of information for people in this time because the older son was everything. If they knew twins were coming, they knew it was the firstborn son, even if it was by a few seconds, it was the firstborn son that all of the family's hope will rest on. It's the firstborn son who will be the hope of the future of the family. It's the firstborn son that will get the lion's share of the inheritance. And for this particular family, it's the firstborn son that all of the promises of God rest upon. He will be the next patriarch. He will be the one the line will go through. And here's what God says. He's actually going to choose the one that you never saw coming, that God is going to choose the one that no one else will choose. Will he choose the older one? No. And as we see the two boys grow up, we see, will he choose the hunter who is a leader and who is a manly man? No. Will he choose the one whose father sees him as his favorite? No. God actually chooses the younger, the weaker, the one who will have a morally questionable life for a little while, and the one who no one would have picked. What this is getting at, and Paul actually picks this up in his letter to the church at Rome, is this is getting at the controversial and maybe complicated doctrine of election. It's God who chooses his people. It's God who makes this decision. That God does not choose his people on the basis of what they may do for him one day. He doesn't choose in his people something that he sees within them that's worth it. No, no, no. God chooses his people by grace alone. Unmerited favor alone. And he does this throughout the Bible. God is constantly choosing his people. He chooses Noah. He chooses Abraham. He chooses Moses. He chooses David. No one even thought to invite David to the choosing ceremony because no one thought the youngest son would get picked. And then Jesus comes in his earthly ministry and what does he do? He chooses 12 insignificant men from insignificant backgrounds to bring about his church. God is a choosing God, an electing God. And actually what this should do in us is deeply humble us. that my relationship with God is not on the basis that Joe Johnson's so great. My relationship with God is not on the basis that I've done great things. My relationship with God is that I am a sinner who does not deserve to be saved, but Jesus set his love upon me to redeem me, to make me new. But some of the irony in this, this little caveat, some of the irony in this is people of the Reformed faith can be tempted to be a little arrogant about our theology. And I'm guilty more than anybody else. And I've always thought that was a strange thing. Because people who believe in reformed theology believe that they do not deserve to be saved. It's only on the basis of grace alone that God saves us, elects us, and makes us new. That I don't deserve it, but God does it. And somehow we become prideful that we know that fact. And yet, the Colossians passage we read earlier, which I can't believe we read, actually roots certain virtues in the doctrine of election that you would never see coming. That what Paul does is he says God's chosen one should look like what? God's chosen one should look like compassionate hearts, kind, humility, meekness, patience. That actually what knowing the grace of God should do in us is to humble us to a point that we see Jesus as bigger than we could ever imagine and ourselves as smaller than we could ever know. that he becomes greater, that we become more in awe of him, of what he accomplished for us. And that part of what Christian maturity may look like is to repeat what Paul said right before he died, that he calls himself the chief of sinners. And I've always wondered about that passage, does Paul really think he's the chief of sinners? I actually think he did. Why? Because Paul knew Jesus so well. Paul knew the holiness of God so well. Paul knew God so well that he could not help but look at himself and say, I'm way more of a sinner than I could have imagined, but only by the grace of God. Are we humbled by grace? Are we humbled by knowing a holy God? And actually what I think that leads us to is to be people out of an overflowing heart of the love that Jesus gave us to love others around us that are difficult to love, why? Because even on our best day, we made it harder for Jesus to save us. That if that's the love he bestows upon his people, how could we then not give it to others? Are we humbled? Are we in awe that Jesus would even participate in the life of someone like me? It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Grace. But then lastly, we were to value his grace. We were to value, we were to rely on it, we were to be humbled by it, but now we are to value it. We see the first moment where Jacob cheats. Comes pretty quick, right? We don't even get his childhood, we don't get what he was like as a six year old, we get immediately the first terrible thing that he does. And the story is very strange. We don't know how old these boys are, but we know Esau is out hunting, doing the thing that he loves the most and what his father delights in. And he comes in and his younger endorsement brother has cooked some stew. And what we see Esau say is, I'm starving, I'm about to die, can I have that bowl of soup? And what does Jacob do? Ian Duguid was so good, so precise on this, that it's as if Jacob had a plan all along. But his brother comes in and asks for a bowl of soup and immediately Jacob is, well give me your birthright. It's as if this was like an elaborate operation. Jacob really wanted that birthright. And what's a birthright? We don't really talk like this much anymore, but the birthright is the standing of the firstborn son in the family. It's the inheritance. And in this family, it's the promises of God going through the firstborn son. And so what we see here, no one comes out looking good in this story. What we see here is two men showing how to not value the promises of God. And I wanna first start with Jacob. Because it's interesting, there's some argument that can be made here. That Jacob is really trying to accomplish what God promised, right? He knew the promise, I'm sure his mom told him as soon as he was able to understand. Actually, God told me it was all going through you. You are the one the promise is going to rest upon. And so Jacob, probably thinking his brother's gonna show some resistance to that, decided to take matters into his own hands to do what God called him to do. but we see the way that he does it is incredibly sinful. As Ian Duguid again says that what Jacob does here is he takes Satan's shortcut, not relying on God coming through on his promises, so taking it in his own hands to get it done. In other words, what he turns his relationship with God into is something to accomplish for himself, to grasp and to take and to conquer for his own name. And fools his brother and actually destroys his family for the next couple generations. But it's not just Jacob who shows us not how to value God's promises. It's also Esau. Esau is sometimes defended here, that maybe he was dying, that maybe he was in the most vulnerable position, that he really needed sustenance to survive, but there's really no evidence that that's even possible. That what most commentators agree on is that Esau just threw away everything for a bowl of soup. acting rashly, actually throwing away the promises of God just for his next meal, and then he moves on from there. How can we do that as well? To throw away the promises of God for simply the thing that we want next. Joe Novenson used to tell a story about a missionary. who was in a third world nation, had lived there for a long period of time, but when he first got there, he was walking down the streets, these dirt streets of this city, and he saw a group of children laughing and playing some sort of game. And so he wanted to go over and see what they were doing. In his mind, it looked like marbles. There was a circle kind of drawn in the dirt, and they were throwing what seemed to be rocks at other rocks in there, and they were all cheering and laughing. And he was amazed at what he saw when he came closer. that it wasn't rocks and it wasn't marbles. But what these boys were playing with were things that they found in a cave. They were playing with massive diamonds that would go for tens of thousands of dollars in America. And what they were doing was they were playing marbles with diamonds. And I remember Joe Novos and actually saying, isn't that what we do? That we play marbles with diamonds that we throw away the promises of God for the next best thing. We don't value what he's called us to do. We don't value what he's given us as his people. We can throw it all away for the thing that we might need next. But we get to the end of this passage, and the question in our minds is like, this is kind of a hopeless passage. I mean, Abraham just died, and this is who God's gonna leave in charge? This is who God's going to work through? Who do we choose, Jacob or Esau? But really what this passage makes us do, is to yearn for something greater than Jacob and Esau. We see too much of ourselves in them. What this makes us do is to yearn for the one who does not undervalue his birthright as the son of God, and so values his people that he came here himself to claim them, to be his people, to make them sons and daughters of God. What this passage makes us do is to yearn for the faithful one who will save a faithless people and make them holy. What this makes us do is to yearn for the one who's coming in the line of Jacob to actually come through on God's promises. The encouraging thing is this. God uses people like Jacob. He wrestles them to the ground and he disciplines them and he sends them through all sorts of things in the school of faith so that Jacob and our eyes can base solely on God to be amazed by who he is and to be utterly changed by the work of God in our life. And as we walk through these stories together, we will see Jacob go through ups and downs. We will see Jacob have faithful moments and failing moments. And what I so often think is when I read his story is this seems a lot like me. But the amazing thing is the relentless grace of God that chases this man down and actually makes him holy and makes him useful in the hands of his king. And if God can do that with Jacob, he can do that with us. Let me pray. father in heaven. Lord, we we confess that we don't rely on your gracious promises, desiring to take matters into our own hands. We we confess that we're not humbled before you. We confess, Lord, that we don't value what you've given us. But Lord, teach us. mold us and shape us. Give us eyes for your kingdom. Help us to be blown away by the gospel that's true and hold it near and dear to our hearts. Father, make us people who are good at waiting upon you. Help us be people who have an overflow of love for those around us to show the world, Jesus, what your love is really like. and help us be people who Jesus value you more than anything else. Your opinion, your ways, your kingdom. We thank you that you save people like us. The church is not a place for perfect people, but a church is a place for people with a perfect savior. Fill our hearts with worship. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.