Please, as we go to the Scriptures, keep in mind that this is God's word that I'm reading to you. And so listen very carefully to hear what God says in this reading of his holy word. Jacob heard that Laban's sons were saying, Jacob has taken everything our Father owned and has gained all his wealth from what belonged to our Father. And Jacob noticed that Laban's attitude toward him was not what it had been. Then the Lord said to Jacob, go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you. So Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to come out to the fields where his flocks were. He said to them, I see that your Father's attitude toward me is not what it was before, but the God of my Father has been with me. You know that I've worked for your Father with all my strength, yet your Father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me. If he said the speckled ones will be your wages, then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young. And if he said the streaked ones will be your wages, then all the flocks bore streaked young. So God has taken away your Father's livestock and has given them to me. In breeding season, I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked speckled or spotted. The angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob, and I answered, here I am, and he said, look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked speckled or spotted. Where I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you, I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land. Then Rachel and Leah replied, do we still have any share in the inheritance of our Father's estate? Does he not regard us as foreigners? Has he not, not only has he sold us, but he has used up what was paid for us, surely all the wealth that God took away from our Father belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God told you. Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels. And he drove all his livestock ahead of them, along with all the goods he had accumulated in Padain Iran, to go to his Father Isaac in the land of Canaan. When we look at the Bible in its entirety, we see that it is primarily a book that tells us about God, who he is, what he's doing, how he has made promises and is faithfully keeping his promises. We also see when we think about what the Bible's message is, what its main message is, is that God is keeping his promises and he is working through people. We've been studying Jacob in the series on Jacob and Joseph. We have seen God doing just that. We have traced out that promise that he made that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. And that he just as God spoke to Abraham and Isaac, so he spoke to Jacob, that he would be, Jacob would be the man God chose to cause the Holy seed to go through his line so that the promise he'd the Messiah would come through the line of Jacob. We have seen and saw last week that God blessed Jacob in so many ways, even though he was not worthy of those blessings, even though he deserved God's punishment, God having set his love on him and having made promises to him, kept his promises. Now I was not able to finish last week's sermon, didn't even try to. We talked about that at the beginning. And so really today is the second half. And I want us to think about Jacob's dysfunctional life. We've seen, and I hope we feel secure in God's love that God by His mercy and grace calls us to be His children, and that, sorry, don't be distracted by the noise and behind the screen. We have seen that God has blessed Jacob and the Lord willing, we feel secure that God's mercy and grace that is loved toward us is based on God's goodness and not our own worthiness. And I want us to think about how the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, how the grace of God works in our lives to change us and to free us in Christ Jesus so that we reflect the image of God and love one another and show one another grace in the same way that God is dealt with us. And to do this, we want to look at Jacob, the man of God's own choosing, and by way, really of just kind of a quick overview, consider his dysfunctional life, and then talk about how do we break free from dysfunction? So let's do this quickly. Jacob was raised in a dysfunctional family. We saw this primarily in chapter 25 verses 24 to 34, that's where it tells us that his father loved Esau and his mother loved him, and he stole his brother's birthright, or took it, you remember the story, the Lord willing. In chapter 27, we see this dysfunctional family all over again when dad plans to bless Esau and only Esau, he only calls Esau, I'm ready to die and so on and so forth. He shows that personal favoritism, he shows his just wanting to care for Esau to the neglect of Jacob. We saw his mom's dysfunction, how there is disunity in the marriage. She hears the father say something, her husband says something to one son. She assumes what he means and goes and talks to Jacob, doesn't deal directly with her husband or with her son for that matter, but says, look, we're going to lie, steal and cheat so that you can have the blessing. Disfunctional family, chapter 27, but also some in chapter 25. Jacob married into a dysfunctional family, he not only came from a dysfunctional family, he married into one, that was very clear from chapter 29 verses 1 through 30, that Laban was a cheat. He deceived Jacob from the get-go with the wives and proved to be someone who was disreputable and unscrupulous, just dysfunctional in the way he not only treated Jacob, but in the way he treated his daughters. What an atrocity that he would use deception to marry off his older daughter. You get this sense there was no love loss, though she was desperate to get married or at least longing enough to go along with the deception and we saw how she wanted that. There was sibling rivalry between these two sisters that he married, manipulation, these sorts of things. He raised a dysfunctional family, also, I'm sorry, he married into a dysfunctional family number three, he raised a dysfunctional family. We saw this a little bit in chapter 29 verses 31 to, chapter 30, 39, 31 to 30, 24, where there's these doing wives and concubines and who can have the most children and the names of the children and all this sort of thing. It comes up that way, but when you get to chapter 37, you see that the dysfunction is in full bloom, that Jacob is just like his father and that he shows personal favoritism. He loves Joseph, the young son from Rachel's first born, to such an extent that the brothers hate him so much that they want to murder him, that's pretty dysfunctional, but they reason that hey, he's our own brother, we shouldn't call him, let's sell him because he's our brother. Now there's a little bit of reforming of the ways I admit but so he raised a dysfunctional family. He could go even a step further and say that he worked in a dysfunctional workplace, chapter 31 points that out, the end of chapter 30 and 31, the cheating on the wages, these sorts of things show a dysfunctional workplace, he's got a demanding and deceitful boss, it's an every man for himself, work atmosphere, there's hostility in the environment, you know, Laban's attitude is bad, his son's attitude is bad, he quits without giving notice, these sorts of things, I would even go one step further and say that it would appear to me that Jacob follows God with a dysfunctional faith. I think Moses is pointing that out to us, even in the text we read today, this is why, verse 1, Laban's son see what Jacob has done and they have a bad attitude toward him. Verse 2, Laban's attitude is bad toward him, by the way, that's face, his face was turned away, it's the opposite of the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, the ideas that you see God's beautiful smile, there's a blessing in that, that's an important thing to remember, when we see someone that we love, we can bless them with our countenance. It's anyway, verse 1, the Laban's son's, verse 2, Laban had a bad attitude toward him, verse 3, I feel God calling me to go, now I think God was involved in that, but it would appear by that that there's some sort, if that was it, maybe not, maybe it's just the way the text goes, but when he talks to his daughters or his wives, Jacob talks to his wives out in the field, there's this mix of what he's done and what God has done, and when he talks about the vision and what God said to him, there's at least ambiguity about the streaked and spotted and speckled animals, maybe there is some plundering going on, we know that God will tell his descendants, the nation of Israel to plunder the Egyptians, but there's a lack of clarity in what the message to the angel gives as far as what he should do about it, and we saw how he wasn't very faithful, he's doing white magic or some sort of weird thing with the wood and stripping the bark and all that sort of stuff, and not taking good care of a Laban's flock, but then he mixes God into it, and so it's like hide your sin, show the other person's bad sin and call God to be on your side, and then when the wives talk, and Laban's daughters say, their piece, let's look at our circumstances, this is what our dad did, this is how things have worked out, you know what, whatever God's calling you to do, we're good with that, and I think it's easy for us to have a dysfunctional faith to where we look at our circumstances and we don't like them and all of a sudden we want to do something, we make a decision and then look for a proof text, we can have a dysfunctional faith like that as well, so we see that he's a dysfunctional person, and the question is how do we live a healthy life, how do we break free from dysfunction, because there's a sense in which we can say, the whole Bible is all about that, that Jesus came into the world to save dysfunctional people or sinners, you look at the dysfunction, you look at the definition of a person and you say, oh yes, there's the direct correlation here, there is something connected to that, well how do we break free from that, how does God set us free, I realize that there's no way I can cover this in one sermon, I still hope that we have a conference that addresses breaking free from destructive dysfunction in the next year or two, I'm open if you, if this strikes a nerve for you or if this captures your interest, if you want to talk further about it, maybe meeting one-on-one or live group or putting together a study to think about this further, but let's make a start on how do we break free, okay, what should Jacob do, what should we do, well number one, or the first principle, two principles, three key elements, things we can do, three key elements to freedom, the first principle is learn to identify dysfunctional acts, we've pretty much done that with Jacob's life, haven't we, we talked about the personal favoritism in his parents, family and his marriage and his children's life, there's a theme that goes that way with that personal favoritism, and we could talk about how, you know in my mind, I don't see anything in the scriptures that forbid us from connecting with one child in a way that we just can't connect with another child and maybe have a special affinity, I don't think that's the problem at all, I think it's the neglect of the other child, that was certainly true in the way Jacob's parents raised him and in the way Jacob related to his children, now when we think about, we could go through and again line out all these dysfunction, let me give you something more, more just big picture on this, it's very easy to say identify the dysfunctional acts, it's very hard to do it, very hard, we are most of the time, wine to our dysfunctional ways, I don't know if Jacob in this part of his life, the text I read today could say, I see a pattern in the way I relate, that when there's some sort of conflict, I go into dysfunctional mode and I get deceptive, I steal, I twist the truth, I just don't deal directly, I don't deal straight, I don't, I don't practice faith, I don't look to God by faith, I don't know if he could do that, it's hard for us to do that, you know what makes it worse is other people seem to be able to see our dysfunction a lot easier than we can, okay so quit looking at your own life and think about the person you're married to or your parents or children or whatever, you know what their flaws are, don't you? You know what the bad news on that is, that's by the way, one reason we need one another, we need the gospel and God's grace to make us love one another so that we help one another not attack one another with our dysfunction, but it is one of the reasons why we're called into the family of God, into fellowship, it's one of the benefits of life groups and these sorts of things, but the bad news is that even though people around us and especially those closest to us can see our dysfunctions, our sins, our disobediences, they don't see it with clarity, have you ever noticed that someone's mad at you maybe they're pointing something out in your life and they're not doing a good job of it and there's something there but they don't have it quite right, it makes it awful hard, I think it's incredibly important if we're going to break free from just destructive dysfunctions in our lives to the level we have them that we learn to identify, you know there's a we should, the way we're going to be able to do that first and foremost is we feel free in Christ Jesus, we understand that God loves us, he knows all about us, he knows all the days of our life, he knows how we will die, he knows every sin we will ever commit, not only the things past but the things to come and he has set his affections on us and he has promised to bless us, we who are reconciled by faith in Jesus Christ, we're totally comfortable and free in Christ, if we feel that we can at least begin to make a decision, I will look at my life, I will be open to dealing with the stuff in my life, that's being open to the grace of God. Romans chapter 2 and verse 4 talks about do you not know that it's the kindness and patience of God that leads you to repentance and repentance is just seeing the truth about ourselves and dealing with it, turning to God with it, identify the problems, okay but this principle in and of itself has no power to change your life, it's a step but we have to go further to this next principle which is incredibly important, this second principle is huge, it's life changing when we get it, it is, learn to respond to God by faith, not the dysfunction of another, you know the world would be a great place if everyone else was perfect, an understanding of my situation but it's not that way, we all have our dysfunctions and often what happens is we respond to what the person did or what we perceive that they deserve rather than say okay God is in control of every aspect of my life, how does he want me to respond to this, what does it look like for me to love this person the way God commands me to rather than the way they're treating me, how do I respond to God in the moment, in this situation, in this critical problem, how do I respond to God, not the person, that's the gospel too, we live for God, we come to God, we believe that he's the one who rules our life and as long as we keep treating people as they deserve, we will be locked in our dysfunction because one good deserves another, you cheat on me on my walls, I'll cheat on you with your livestock, that's how it goes, you talk to me that way and see what you get and so there's wives who withhold conjugal rights, there's men who give the silent treatment and won't say a word, there's there's bickering, there's fighting, there's little things, jabs and barbs and the comments that we make rather than dealing with things directly and we stay in our dysfunction, you know in every I've been a pastor now 20 years, my bachelor's is in biblical counseling and every marriage counseling situation I have ever been involved in, this has been a problem and one of the biggest goals is to help each of the people in the marriage relationship see that they need to stop responding to their spouse and start responding to God, it's huge, it is the exercise of faith that is hard but it's what he calls us to do and when we do that he sets us free, let me just give you one scripture example that kind of highlights that we are to live on the basis of who God is and respond to him in the moment rather than the sin of someone else, Psalm 37 you can read the whole thing, I'm just going to read a few of its verses, this is how it starts, do not fret because of evil doers, do not be envious toward wrong doers, they will quickly wither like grass and fade like the green herb, here's how you're supposed to live, verse 3, trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart, commit your way to the Lord, trust also in him and he will do it, verse 7, rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him, do not fret because of him who prosperous in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes, cease from anger, forsake wrath, do not fret, it only leads to evil doing, there it is live on the basis of God, respond to God in the situation, the only way, well there's only one way we can do that, we'll be talking about it in the rest of the message in these three key elements to freedom, these two principles, we've got to be open, we've got to be open to the the gaze of God, whether it's him speaking directly to us through his scriptures or through a brother and sister or even someone who doesn't know the Lord who's pointing out something in our lives, we may not get a clear picture from someone when they're trying to point out our sins, but there's probably some truth there that we ourselves can tease out and learn something about ourselves, even when it's not well presented to us. We commit ourselves to doing what God says in these three key elements, but these three elements we're going to talk about are key, I'll give you all three at one time and I'll make it easy for you, faith, truth and love. That's the three, one, two, three, faith, number one, truth, number two, and love, number three. We've looked at faith already, without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Again, if you think about Hebrews, the whole chapter 11 of Hebrews where this verse is found is all by faith, by faith, by faith. This is how the heroes of the faith live. They were offlawed heroes, but they live by faith. We've talked about what faith is just by way of review. Faith is always relational, first to God and then with one another. Faith is always responding to God. Does he love me and do I love him with all my heart? When we are absorbed when we are comprehending and apprehending the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God and are flailed up with the love of God, there's an overflow that helps us to love other people and we can by faith love other people by responding to God and not them. And we know what love is like because God is the one who tells us. Did you notice our call to confession? It was from Leviticus. It has in it the second great commandment. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. As we look at it this morning, I was again, just by looking at it amazed at how almost every one of the commands that was in it touches something in Jacob's life, either the way Laban treated him or the way he treats other people. Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another. Do not swear falsely by my name. The Lord helped me to get this animal, this game for you. I am the Lord your God. Do not defraud your neighbor, rob him. Do not curse the deaf. Okay, that one doesn't so much. Put a stomach block before the blind, blind dad who can't see blinded by the veil, that sort of stuff. Do not show poor partiality going down some. Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so that you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one another. One of your people but and there it is. It's a summation. But love your neighbor as yourself. That takes faith. It ties faith and love together. But if we don't hear God speaking to us as to how we are to respond in faith, we will not hear this is what love looks like. And so we've talked about this too. Let me just remind you, that's one of the reasons why we always talk about. Meet with God every day. Develop your relationship with Him. It doesn't come natural for us to think in terms of God is with me every moment of my day. That's a spiritual discipline that we develop by reminding ourselves in our devotions, in our day. When you if you are one who prays before every meal, I know that that becomes a road and we just say it but it's a great time to stop and think you know what God's the Lord of every conversation at this table where we eat. God's involved in all of our life and here we are just taking a second to reflect on that. And not that become part of the way you live. Oh, that we were able in the midst of when someone lies, cheats or otherwise hurts us, just often say let's pray for a second and remind ourselves that we live and respond to God. What does love look like? So there's faith. It's always relational so much for being short on that. It seeks its will and ways. We've looked at that already. If we don't live with Him in the mundane, we are less likely to live by faith in the extraordinary crisis. I just said that in my illustrations. Faith see God for who He really is. Otherwise you will never think His way is more important or better. You'll never submit the longings of your heart to Him and be satisfied to sacrifice your will and your way for His will and way if you're not walking with Him by faith. Number two, love. Look what it says about love. This is from John 8 where it tells us so Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him. Look at this. He was saying to the Jews who believed in Him. These are His children. These are and they believed in Him. If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples, truly disciples of mine. And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. Something very interesting about this passage. Again, He's talking to believers, those who have believed in Him and yet the very next verse says, where Abraham's descendants have never been enslaved to anyone. How do you say you will become free? I'm not blind. I'm not in bondage. I'm not struggling with deceptive, destructive dysfunctions. I'm free to which Jesus says in verse 34 through 36, truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever but the sun does. So if the sun makes you free, you'll be free in D. Now you son, daughter will have Christ as in you than the spirit of adoption is on you. Yes, you are and you are set free. The conversation goes on and he talks about the blindness of their heart and how it's the devil that blinds our eyes, that blindness, that disability that keeps us from seeing our sin, our dysfunction. But what does He say? Abide in my word. Isn't that it? Abide in my word. You will know the truth. Let my word abide in you. You'll know the truth and the truth will make you free. That's why we encourage life groups. That's why we encourage personal devotions. I understand that you can merely be religious and read the Bible in a religious way crossing yourself at the proper places, whatever and not meet with God. But how are you going to hear from God when he speaks in his word and you don't read it? And if you struggle, I know in our day and age that the majority view is at least in our country is that truth is relative, that there's no such thing as absolute truth. But that's an absolute statement. How can you use an absolute ... I won't go down that road again. If God's word is true, if God, the creator of the universe is spoken, then He tells us what reality is and He tells us what real freedom is and it's according to His word. It may be a long process for us to become free, but that God loves us enough to accept us right where we are. He blesses us when we don't deserve it, but He loves us too much to leave us where we are. He draws us to share in His holiness and reflect His image. You trust Him. You know His truth.
If you do, then He will set you free, but I want you to see that both of these things are connected to His love. Faith, truth and love are inseparably connected, just two verses on this concept. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor un-circumcision means anything. Paul is arguing in Galatians that you don't have to be circumcised to be saved. Just like we would say, you don't have to be baptized to be saved. You're saved by grace and these things, their signs of what God has done, but they don't hold the reality. The reality this God saves us. He kind of is brushing that off, but this is the statement. But these things don't mean anything, but faith working through. Love. Faith working through love. It's not just faith. It's faith working through love, so He can say to Timothy in the pastoral pistol first Timothy, but the goal of our instruction, the goal of teaching the truth of God, is love. Love from a pure heart and a good conscience, NS and CER, faith. They're tied together. They're tied together. It's when we know the love of God, when we walk in the love of God, when we have the security that God loves us, loves us still, when we are secure in that, we can begin to by faith according to the truth. Love those who have heard us. And isn't it ironic that people we don't care about can't hurt us, but those we love the most hurt us the deepest. If you do these things, you will be free. Problem as you can't. Not on your own strength anyway. Jesus could. He did. We've noted that week after week that by faith, He came to earth to do the will of God, by faith. He knew the truth and He taught the truth, and He Himself was set free, and He set free those who trusted Him. By faith in knowing the truth, He obeyed the Father so much that He came here and loved us while we were yet enemies. He came to earth and lived in a hostile environment, until He was ultimately put to death. We put Him to death. We would have been that right there with Him, and our sins are certainly the cause of His death. And so He Himself had perfect faith, perfect truth, perfect love, and that's the gospel. God gives us Jesus Christ. We received Jesus Christ, His perfection. And God says, I reckon that will do for you. I'll account that to you. I'll accept you on the basis of Jesus, and because He died, I'll accept that death as covering my wrath and full. Believe me, I poured it out on Him. It wasn't just the Romans and it wasn't just the Jews.
So you need Christ, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthened you. You mean I can stop being deceptive and responding, yelling, silent treatment, whatever? Yes. In Christ, you can do all things. You mean I can learn to break the dysfunctional habits that have lasted in my family for years? Yes. You can do all things through Christ who strengthened you. I have struggled with my temper all my life. Are you saying God can change me? Yes!
You can do all things through Christ who strengthened you.
I never share my feelings. I'm afraid that people will hurt me, and I've seen that they have. Are you telling me I can be open? Yes! You can do all things through Christ who strengthened you.
How we need to be set free. We ask God that in your mercy you would give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in our knowledge of you so that we can know what is the hope of our calling, and what are the riches of your inheritance in the saints and the surpassing greatness of your power toward us. Oh God make us to know the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of God and to be filled up with it so that you do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to your power that works within us. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.