Let's start with the Word of Prayer. Come, Holy Comforter, thy sacred witness bear. In this glad hour, you who almighty art, now rule in every heart and never from osteopor spirit of power. You pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, our text is found on page 11 of your bulletin. There's an outline on pages 12 and 13, and there are discussion questions on page 14 that you can use for further study if you are so inclined. But listen now, if you will, to what God Himself says in this portion of His Word. Now Jacob lifted his eyes and looked, and their Esau was coming. And with him 400 men, so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two maids. And he put the maids' servants in their children in front, Leah and her children behind in Rachel and Joseph last. Then he crossed over before them and bowed himself to the ground seven times until he came near his brother. But he saw a ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept. And he lifted his eyes and saw the women and children and said, who are these with you? So he said, the children whom God has graciously given your servant, then the maids' servants came near they and their children and bowed down. Rachel also came near with her children and they bowed down afterward Joseph and Rachel came near and they bowed down. Then Esau said, what do you mean by all this company which I met? And he said, these are to find favor in the sight of my Lord. But Esau said, I have enough, my brother, keep what you have for yourself. And Jacob said, no, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then receive my present from my hand. In as much as I have seen your face as though I had seen the face of God and you were pleased with me, please take my blessing that is brought to you because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have enough. So he urged him and he took it. Then Esau said, let us take our journey, let us go and I will go before you. But Jacob said to him, my Lord knows that the children are weak and the flocks and herds which are nursing are with me. And if the men should drive them hard one day, all the flocks will die. Please let my Lord go on ahead before it's servant. I will lead on slowly at the pace which the livestock that go before me and the children are able to endure until I come to my Lord at sea. And Esau said, now let me leave with you some of the people who are with me. But he said, what need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my Lord. So Esau returned that day on his way to seer and Jacob journeyed to Sukah, built himself a house and made booze for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is Sukah. So let me ask you, if any of you had to wrestle with God in your life where things weren't so good in your relationship with God and you had to work through some things and you had to talk to them about some things that were bothering you. Many of you know that I kind of hit a wall last spring and burned out whatever you want to call it. And the session graciously let me take a month sabbatical where I went away and there was one day in particular where I think I was really wrestling with God over some issues and I'd kind of like to read to you some of the thoughts. I wrote them down today and as I read them I asked you to go easy on me and when you're writing stuff down you're not always as careful as you might want to be or that sort of thing. But I think it's your main to both Jacob's life and I think it's something we can identify with. So this is what I wrote. What am I looking for in my relationship with God? And what does God say about it? By the way I understood that as I'm talking to God as I'm writing out what do I want? What do I expect in my relationship to God that whatever I write down I'm really going to have to test against the word of God. I understood he's God and not me and he calls the shots and not me. But I wanted to write honestly what I wanted and this is what I wrote. It was in three bullets and then some commentary afterwards. The first thing I wrote was reconciliation. I think this word may contain more than I am accustomed to thinking about in a fully reconciled relationship. There is a level of trust. I am not afraid of what the person might be thinking about me. I am not afraid they are judging me. And I suppose I am not judging them. And there is a mutual acceptance in human relationships. This requires a willingness to overlook faults and idiosyncrasies. The second bullet was friendship. And I wrote there is a sense of affection or attraction. I don't mean this in sexual ways. That is there is a desire to be with the person or at least to spend time and enjoy things together. In human relationships we enjoy things like sports and entertainment, meals, conversation. We don't have to be the same. Conversation is important. We learn to accept our differences and our different points of view. I suppose in a good relationship one is able to learn the other's point of view from their standpoint or presupposition. They can articulate it clearly and then challenge it. Part of friendship is loyalty or faithfulness or steadfastness. The word hesed and the Hebrew carries all that and really more. The third bullet I put was joy and satisfaction. I think closely connected to this is a level of commitment. The Hebrew word shalom is what I am thinking of here. I want the sense of wholeness, of fulfillment, or joyful satisfaction. I wrote about what I was looking for in my relationship to God I wrote when I consider these things. My first reaction is God promises all of these things. My second thought is that they belong to the already not yet. That aspect of scriptures where we are promised things and have them but they're not in their fullness yet. I myself have sometimes more and sometimes less that sense of reconciliation. I also see that there is two sides to the relationship. It is not enough for God to fully do all these things. I believe he does. If I am untrusting, if I judge God, do I say it? If I don't overlook his idiosyncrasies and even in my writing I knew enough to put a parenthetical statement and did. I said the only way I can legitimately say this is to mean those aspects of God that I find less than desirable. Anyway, if I don't overlook his idiosyncrasies, then God might be willing to reconcile and express trust and acceptance. But the relationship will not enjoy the fullest measure of reconciliation because of my irreconcilable behavior. I can be unfriendly as well. If I acted in an unreconciled and unfriendly mannered toward God, even if he is responding and acting toward me in a fully reconciled and friendly manner, I will not know the joy and satisfaction in the relationship. There will not be any sense of Shalom. To demand or ask God to give joy when I am acting this way cannot be given, perhaps should not be given. How can I expect to have any sense of joy or satisfaction or Shalom if I judge God or am being unfriendly toward Him? I wrote about these kinds of things, about the level of reconciliation and what that looks like, and how it can be something that grows, and another reflection I had as I thought about it is, I said, you know, even I'll just read it. Another thing I see is that my human relationships can be causing me such grief that I cease to practically live by faith. That is, I don't feel reconciled to God, or I feel reconciled to God, but there is a high level of grief, distress, discomfort, because of not feeling reconciled to another person, and it inhibits that sense of peace, that sense of friendship, that sense of Shalom, that sense of being reconciled with God. You ever been there? I wrestled with God that way. I think we saw last week in the text that Jacob wrestled with God literally, but I think spiritually he was struggling. We know that there was a lot of fear in his life, and we know in his particular case that he had a relationship and a strange relationship with Esau, and God was forcing his hand in such a way that Jacob had to be reconciled to Esau, and he feared losing his life in that situation. I've created a bit of a diagram, I suppose you can say, and it's all filled out in your bulletin, but I've put it in different pieces for the outline, where we can talk about estrangement on one side and reconciliation on the other side, and the arrows are supposed to indicate that we can be more or less estranged for someone or more or less reconciled, that there's levels of estrangement and levels of reconciliation, and as we think about Jacob and Esau, and our estranged relationships, it's gonna look something like this, that there's someone who's offended. Esau was offended at what Jacob had done when Jacob had deceived his father and dressed up in such a way that he smelled and felt like Esau and lied and stole the blessing, Esau was offended by that, and he wanted to kill him. There was distrust in an estranged relationship, it's not just that you know the person, you know what they normally do, and you don't trust them to, or you trust them to do the bad thing that they've got the habit of doing, but in an estranged relationship, we begin to judge their motives and we don't trust them about anything. We enter into kind of a win-lose situation where we want to win and we want them to lose, we want us to be exonerated and defended and declared righteous and we want them to be humbled and shown to be what they really are and to humble themselves maybe a little bit of groveling and asking forgiveness. There's impaired communication, in their case, they hadn't spoke for 20 years. Sometimes in a less significant situation where there's not death threats, it's just that awkwardness that it's a keeping of size, there's the keeping of information and we talk in terse comments. We become self-righteous, self-justifying. We avoid or attack in our estranged relationships.
Reconciliation looks completely different when we look at reconciliation, but we see that there is forgiveness and you'll notice that on the overhead, there's also forgiveness in the middle, I had a definition for that and I took it out not that it's not important, it is, it's just today we're gonna look at reconciliation more than forgiveness, but I have to say, at least this, that we sometimes confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. We sometimes think if I forgive them, then it's done. And that's just not true. It's not true when we say I forgive them, I just don't wanna have anything to do with them. I want to avoid them, they're bad and I can't trust them. That's not, there may be a level of forgiveness and I understand there's some dangerous people who really want to hurt you that you have to avoid. But when we think about reconciliation, we need to understand that forgiveness is merely the starting point. In fact, if we were to put numbers, we would put from forgiveness towards a strange, but negative one, negative two, negative three, depending on how estranged you are, and from forgiveness to reconciliation one, two, three, and positive numbers, depending on where we are in reconciliation. There's forgiveness, there's trust. Again, in a human relationship, I think about my relationship with Sarah, my wife, I think I have the closest relationship with her than with any other human. We love each other and we know each other, we know our weaknesses, we know our faults. And yet there's something in the relationship where we trust each other despite those things. We may anticipate being short-tempered or this or that or the other thing, but there's a level of trust. The relationship would be defined better as trust, the trust of the motives, the trust of the heart, a trust of the person moving towards you rather than the distrust of a stranger, not judging, not being judged, accepted, overlooking faults, friendship, affection, attraction, desire to be with a person that has said that loyalty instead, fastness, that joy and satisfaction. We've got those relationships, too, don't we? There's joy. And sometimes when it's a reconciled relationship, when we've moved from a strangement to reconciliation, that sense of joy is even sweeter than the relationship had known before. I want us to think about this. I want us to think about this in terms of Jacob's relationship to God and to his brother Esau. And I think we can reflect in our own lives about our relationship to God. And those people we may be estranged to in our lives. So let's consider for a moment, Jacob's relationship with God and his relationship with Esau and Jacob's relationship with God. I think we can say that it's good and growing, right? Now think about it. I want us to think about this from the standpoint of how God has dealt with Jacob. At least let's start there. You remember, if you've been here for the series, and if not, I'll explain it to you, that 20 years earlier, Jacob had deceived his father and stolen his brother's blessing. And when his brother found out he wanted to kill him, well, he had to flee, and so he left. And he went to his uncle's house, and that's where he was for 20 years. And when he left, one of the early nights after he left, God appears to him, and he speaks. And God says to him, I am the Lord, the God of your father, Abraham, the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and the east to the north and the south. All the peoples, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. In verse 15, I am with you. And we'll watch over you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Isn't that profound? Isn't that that aspect of God being reconciled to Jacob in just sheer grace? Sheer grace, Jacob has been a scoundrel. Jacob has just sinned. In fact, when he deceived his father, he took God's name in vain. And he said, his father said, how'd you get the game so fast? And he lied, he took God's name in vain. And he said, oh, your God, your Lord, the Lord, your God, gave me success. And then God speaks to him. There's no, you sinned against me. There's, you're unworthy. There's, Jacob, this is who I am. And here's my promise to you, and I, I myself am with you. I myself will keep you wherever you go. I'll be with you, I'll keep you and I'm gonna bring you back and I'm not leaving. I'm gonna do what I promise. That is a reconciled relationship from God's standpoint, isn't it? It's entirely by grace. Entirely, God speaking into his life, loving him and treating him as one who is reconciled, one who is a friend, one in whom God takes delight. Jacob, of course, even in that instance, Jacob's response shows sense of alienation from God when he says, wow, God does all this with me, then he'll be my God. If that's what he meant, it doesn't seem to know him so well. But over the 20 years, when you read through the account in Genesis, over the 20 years, you see that the Jacob makes a ton of mistakes, but toward the end of those 20 years, he starts seeing the hand of God in several ways and in several places, so much so that by chapter 32, the preceding chapter, when he has to go see his brother, he's on, he can't get away from it, he prays. And this is how he talks to God. Oh God, of my father, Abraham, God of my father, Isaac. Oh Lord, oh Lord, who said to me, go back to your country and your relatives and I will make you prosper. Listen to this, this is verse 10. I am unworthy of all the kindness. And faithfulness, you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. The relationship's good, it's growing. Jacob is the one who's changing. He's seeing the hand of God. And when we look at what he says in verse 11 of the chapter, we're studying what he says to Esau, it's profound. Esau says, I don't need your gifts, I got tons of stuff. We made joke about it, it's like Warren Buffett giving Bill Gates a gift, it's like, what's the need? This is Jacob's response, please. Take my blessing that is brought to you because God has dealt generously with me because I have enough. God has dealt graciously with me.
He gets it. In his relationship with God, he understands something of the mercy of God that Ascens are forgiven. In Ascens overlooked, Romans 3.25 talks about how God did that because Christ would pay for them. He understands that God has accepted him and has a feeling of affection, of worth of desire to be with him, to talk with him and to hear his prayer. We have to say the relationship is totally and completely by grace, that God is gracious to him, that God is showing him favor. So what about the relationship between Jacob and Esau? How would we describe it? Well, I think when we read it and we see the kissing and the not killing, we can say there's significant progress. Your pastor has a profound grasp of the obvious. That's true, isn't it? Huge progress. Look at, I've printed on your outline and we'll look at it, it's on the overhead as well. Look how he talks. When he first sent messages in chapter 32, when he first sent messages, he said to his brother through the messengers, I have oxen, donkey's flocks, male and female servants, I have sent to tell my Lord that I might find favor in your side. I've already outlined it for you, that I might find favor in your side. I think what Jacob is trying to say is, look, you don't have to worry about me taking your stuff because I've got tons of it. Now, I don't know if Esau here is of it, here's that way or not, seeing how he comes with his 400 men in appearance, it looks like he's coming to attack, but Jacob's thing is, I've got plenty, believe me brother, I just want to find favor in your side. And when Esau asked, what do you mean by all this company, which I met, he says, these are to find favor in the side of my Lord. And again, in verse 10, when Esau says, not only do you get, he says, no, please, if I have found favor in your side, then receive my present from my hand. And as much as I have seen your face as though, I had seen the face of God, and you were pleased with me. And again, in verse 15, let me find favor in the side of my Lord. This verse 10, where he says, I see you like, I've seen the face of God, it should take us right back to the wrestling match of chapter 32 when it was all said done. And Jacob names the place penile, and he says it's because I've seen God face to face and my life has been preserved. He didn't kill me, I saw him, and he didn't kill me. And now I'm before my brother, and he didn't kill me either. And I've humbled myself before him. I've seen him as being exalted and big in my eyes. I feared him greatly because I thought he would kill me. He uses this word, let me find favor in your eyes, literally, in your sight. I've got to do some language with you. I know the Hebrew and Greek won't bless you, but hopefully the whole process will. The Hebrew word here is hen. Let me find, hen, let me find favor in your sight. I'm sure you're not blessed by that, but nevertheless, I'll keep blessing you, and sooner or later you'll feel it, all right? The Greek word, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, we call it the Septuagint, the Greek word is carous. You know that word, some of you might be blessed. We translate that word, carousin, the New Testament, grace. Let me find grace. Now in the New Testament, most of the time, when we translate the word, carous, or grace, we translate it, or we interpret it as being unmerited favor, right? Maybe the acronym, God's riches, a Christ expense, or something like that. But usually, when down and dirty, short definition is unmerited favor. Just, I'm sure you've heard that, I'm sure I've used it myself. It's often the way we talk about it, and I think the way we often talk about it is this. Unmerited favor. Unmerited, I don't deserve it, I'm not worthy, I'm a sinner. How could anyone like me, right? And we got a backwards. Look at Jacob, and what does he say? Unmerited, yeah, you can't miss that. I mean, it's the poster child, but it's favor. I like you. I like you. God says to him, I like you, I am with you, I will bless you. It doesn't depend on your behavior, I have already accepted you. I love you, I like you. It's favor. How does God look at you? Favor. You who are reconciled to him. Yeah, it's unmerited, not of us deserve it, and it's okay to acknowledge that, but that's not worthy accent, where the emphasis is. Not when we're talking about our relationship to God, but in our relationship with people, how do we deal with each other? Merited favor. How's that we deal with one another? We have to send gifts to one another. Big gifts to one another. We have to bow down seven times before the people we offended. We have to call them my Lord, and I am your servant. Isn't that the way we treat each other? That's the way Jacob is with his brother, Esau. And for good reason, we all too often. Favor one another, according to gifts, talents, abilities, what can you do for me? What have you done for me? And we all too often are estranged from those who have hurt us, who have sinned against us, who have offended us, who really need to grab them. That's why we talk to him the way we do, right? Dear brother, you shouldn't have said that. Yeah, whatever. How is it that Jacob has changed so much? The way Jacob talks to his brother is just amazing to me. And I think the big reason why he can talk to him this way really is found in verse 11. When Esau says, I don't need your gift. And Jacob says, please, take my blessing. Take my blessing that is brought to you because God has dealt graciously with me. And I have enough. You know, it's a gutsy thing to say. He says, take my blessing, blessing, blessing. That's what he stole was the blessing. That would be enough to just set Esau off. Ah, he said it again, he stole it. But no, Esau can see that Jacob has humbled himself
and Jacob can say because God has been gracious to me. That's where it is. How do we reconcile the way God reconciles by knowing how God has reconciled himself to us or us to him? That's why Paul prays in Ephesians 1 that the eyes of our heart, that our sight, that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened so that we may know what is the hope of this calling, what are the riches of his inheritance in the saints and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us. That's why he prays in chapter three that we would know the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God and be filled up with all the fullness of God. It's because when we understand how God has graciously dealt with us and we're caught up in that, we can be reconciled. Now, I need to say that this is a fallen world. It's desperately broken, not everyone is reconciled with God. There are those who refuse to be reconciled with God and burn in hell as a just punishment for what they have done. And likewise in our life, there are people who will refuse to be reconciled with us. I think that's why the Apostle Paul will write in Romans chapter 12 verse 18, if possible. So far as it depends on you, be a peace with all men. So where are you? Where are you in your relationship with God? Have you been reconciled? You know often when we're reconciled with God it always starts with forgiveness and we often are confused. We think it's that we're seeking God or something and we are the ones who ask God to forgive us and to come into our hearts and to cleanse us. And we don't realize that it was the spirit of God who led us to hear that we had offended God and that God was calling us so that we heard it and we realized that we needed to confess our sins. It was actually the gracious initiating hand of God that called us to be reconciled and we just responded by faith and repentance and we asked God to forgive us and we by faith believed that he did, that he did forgive us that he gave Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Do you believe that? Are you reconciled with God? Do you know that God delights in you? That he accepts you, that he doesn't judge you? I mean, he did it the cross when he punished Jesus on the cross, he was giving full vent to his anger that you deserve. But he sent him there because of the heart of it, he loved you, and he pursued you, and he delights to be in your presence and to have you in his presence. The friendship is there on his part, the joy and satisfaction is there on his part. He has joy with you. And that what Jesus taught to that, even the angels rejoice when there's a soul save when we come to know him, he's delighted. Do you believe it? Trust him? willing to put away your judgments against him? Where are you in the human relationships? I understand that there are those, let's say, negative 10 relationships where the person refuses to be reconciled to us, but you know the spirit of Christ in you calls you to be reconciled to everyone who will be reconciled with you. Where are you with that? And not just in the negative 10 relationships, it's often the negative 1, 2, and 3 where people are just annoying and get on our nerves and we want to avoid them. Where are you with that? Remember, spirit of Christ was in you. And the very aspect of knowing his love, the height and death and length and breadth of the love of God which surpasses knowledge must move you to pursuing reconciliation with all who will. So we come to the table today. It is the supreme sign of God's initiating love and reconciliation, reconciliation, reconciliation work.
We renew it, we renew it, we touch, we taste, we handle these signs and symbols of God's unfailing love and the cost of reconciliation. One of the things we do at this church is we take the bread if we're communing and to take the cup and we hold it until all have been served so that at least symbolically we commune together. Maybe escape you, we live in such an individualistic me and my NIV kind of world that may escape you but that there's a symbolism to the spiritual reality that we are God's family, God's body, God's covenant community. And we're commanded to be reconciled to one another and to lead the way in the ministry of reconciliation. Where are you? Do you hear him calling? Let me read to you the words of institution. While they were eating Jesus took some bread and after a blessing he broke it, gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body.
When he had taken a cup and given thanks he gave it to them saying, drink from it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. We come to the table of the Lord today, all of you who are members of any church that preaches the gospel, all of you who have been reconciled to God by faith in Jesus Christ, you've accepted Jesus as paying the cost of your sins and being the one who is calling you to be reconciled to God. If you've been reconciled you're welcome to the table. But if you haven't been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, if you think there's another way if you think you don't even need to be reconciled we would ask you not to take the bread or the cup because just as it represents the body and blood of the Lord Jesus it's the body and blood of the Lord Jesus for his disciples and those who receive him receive the elements and say yes. I receive Jesus. He is my righteousness. I'm reconciled with God. So if that's not true we just humbly ask that you observe past the elements by without breaking that symbolism. We've asked you and should be reconciled. That's great. Father that you would favor us without our gifts, without our bowing down, without our calling you Lord and humbling ourselves just that you would send Jesus to die for us. Certainly as we know you, we do humble ourselves. We do bow our hearts. We do call you Lord because you are and our hearts are filled with thanksgiving because you have saved us by your grace. So let this bread and this cup represent to us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and let it be that covenant renewal signed for us that you have forgiven our sins and have reconciled us to you through Christ. And this day of Father moving our hearts of willing is to be reconciled. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen. Well the others please come and as I've already stated if you are communing with us today please the bread is passed by a brass to you. Please take it and hold it until all have been served so that we can commune together and we'll do the same thing with the cup as it's passed out.