Ordinary People

Gen 27: 41-28:

There was a movie that came out a few years ago called Ordinary People. I didn’t go to see it. I don’t usually see a movie unless my wife has watched it several times first to make sure it has no tense spots in it that will get me riled up...

It was a movie about a “typical” family living in the suburbs of Chicago. The film begins after the older of the two sons has been killed in a drowning accident caused by his own foolishness. The younger son is wracked by guilt, so that as the story unfolds. he finds himself unable to cope with life. The Mother is domineering. The Father is weak in character. In the end the younger son attempts suicide and the father leaves home. Its just a typical ordinary family.

As we look at the life of Isaac’s family we probably can see some similarities. Look with me at Genesis 27:41-28:9

And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob. And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, [purposing] to kill thee. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget [that] which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these [which are] of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me? And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan.

Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.When Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob, and sent him away to Padanaram, to take him a wife from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying,

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Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan; And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram; And Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father; Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife.

Do you ever wonder as you read these records if God really is at work in this family and other bible families? Does this seem like the sort of family through which the Messiah ought to come? Isaac is weak, but not only that, unlike the dad in Ordinary People he is in direct opposition to God’s express will in the matter of his son’s future. Rebekah is also domineering. But she is also willful and scheming, even to the point of staging an elaborate hoax on her nearly blind and apparently dying husband.

Esau is sensuous and secular. Jacob is a cheat . We have already seen this about them but now, as the old saying goes, “The Plot Thickens.” or as one commentator said The plot sickens....

I mentioned last time that Esau’s tears were selfish and not repentant...this proves that for sure...here in verse 41...we find him ready to murder his brother Jacob. And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob Luther says “some repentance! He is angry not only with his brother but also with his parents and with God himself whose blessing alone it is and from whom alone it could be expected.”

Rebekah is unchanged in all this...when she hears that Esau is bent on killing Jacob she determines that he better hit the road and go live with her brother Laban. But how to get Isaac to agree to that? She decides to play o Isaac’s fears that Jacob might marry a Hittitite wife. so even in her desiring a safe thing for Jacob, she once more goes about getting it in a deceptive way.

She probably was ticked at the treatment which the local gals that Esau married may have given her...And even in the best marriages there are mother in law problems. but if she doesn’t like you watch out...

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Jacob is a pawn, hated by Esau and manipulated by His mother. He is going to become a man as a result of the next 20 years spent in the school of hard knocks. But even at 75 plus he isn’t a man yet....He is a weakling.

The only person in whom God seems to be working now is Isaac. earlier he had been weak and willful but God had shaken him to his foundations and now he is determined to please God. Jacob obtained Isaac's first blessing through trickery. Now Isaac willingly blesses him and in even stronger terms." May the Lord God almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of people. May he give you and your descendants the blessing of Abraham so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham.(28:3-4) The wording of this blessing picks up the language of God’s blessing to Abraham back in Genesis 17 and on Isaac in Gen 26...It show that Isaac had come to value the covenant of salvation and was at long last acknowledging the sovereignty of God in the matter which was unfolding.

What a family huh? The only explanation that this “ordinary family” is a family in which God is at work is the fact that God is a God of great grace.

This brings us to our thoughts for today, there are two main thoughts and then a breath of hope.

There are important lessons for us in the scriptural record of this family’s life, and one of the most obvious is that you might as well get used to it...God will have the last word. His will will triumph ultimately no matter how bad we try to mess it up.

You know there are people who sin and say “its all working together for good. And somehow act as if God is using their sin...they have a very shallow and limited view of a HOLY God. Oh, God does get glory regardless, but His great desire in the heaven lies is to get glory as his feeble creation does it his way, by his word. He says “offenses must come, but woe to the one who brings them.”

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God’s will will triumph and it is for us to conform to...as a blacksmith bends a bar of metal on an anvil and creates something useful. But if we do not want to do things God’s way, do not want to be conformed to his will then it is like beating a piece of wood against the anvil. the anvil does not move or alter, the wood is splintered and broken.
We can see that contrast in the diverging paths of Esau and Isaac. The start out as partners in secrecy. They are both set on passing the blessing to Esau in defiance of the revealed truth of God. But Isaac is changed. God changes him He comes to see that it is God and not he who is all powerful, and he surrenders to God’s will. when He comes to bless Jacob the second time he is most anxious that it be El Shaddai, God Almighty, who is to keep and prosper him. El Shaddai, the name of God revealed originally to Abraham when he was 99 years old and God was promising him a son. A son to be born though both he and his wife were long past bearing. With God all things are possible. The will of this God is done. Isaac has learned this in the matter of the blessing that he was going to give to Esau but gave to Jacob instead. Now he commends the blessing of this all powerful God on his departing son.

Esau shows the other aspect of the anvil. He too has been walking contrary to God's will, failing to submit to God. But He comes to HATE Jacob, which in the final analysis is hating the God of Jacob as well. And he decides to take the matter of vengeance which belongs only to GOD into his own hands.

He in essence is saying" I will kill your precious pet, then what’ll become of your blessing?” Luther notes that “this is the malice of the devil who it even then trying to destroy Jesus, offspring of Jacob’s line.”

So the will of God will triumph, but there is another lesson that we need to see here and it is that the Way of deceit will turn bitter.

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If we go God’s way, God will bless our path. We will be like trees planted by the rivers of water that yield their fruit in their season and whose leaves do not wither (Ps 1:3) But if we decide to go after what our desires say we need or want, if we selfishly proceed away from God’s revealed plan, then we will never find full satisfaction no matter how well we think we are succeeding.

There were three results of their deceit that Neither Rebekah or Jacob anticipated in their rush to get what they wanted, Isaac’s blessing.

FIRST: Rebekah lost Jacob; as near as we can see in the bible she never saw Jacob again. I think this is a pathetic note in the narrative. Rebekah is still in charge, still stamping her willful designs on history, she hadn’t learned yet that it is God and not people who writes history. Prov 19 :21 says “many are the plans in a man’s heart but it is the Lord’s purpose which prevails.” calling Jacob to her she pleads with him “Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget [that] which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? (vv 43-45)

Rebekah thought that Jacobs exile would be short lived. She expected to call him back after a visit. But the day of that summons never came. Jacob was absent from home for two decades, and in those decades Rebekah died (Gn 35:27)

Rebekah is not mentioned again in Genesis except in one passage that says she and other patriarchs and their wives have been buried in the cave of Macpelah near Mamre(49:31).

When Rebekah told Jacob to run and go to Laban's home in Padan Aram for a few days, she thought she would be paying a small price for her sin. BUT GET THIS....the cost of sin is always much greater than we imagine it is going to be. Actually the thing she feared most happened...she “lost both her sons in one day.” Jacob left never to be seen by her again, Esau went off in a huff to live in the hills of Seir or Edom(gen 32:3).

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What is your greatest desire? You will lose it if you go your own way instead of God’s way. The one who tries to keep his life shall; lose it, the one who gives it up for my sake and the gospel’s shall find it(Mr 8:35)It is by losing your life that you find it, It is when you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness that all these other things are added unto you. .(Matt. 6:33)

So she lost Jacob..the second result of Rebekah and Jacob’s scheming is that Jacob, the deceiver of his father, was in turn even more cruelly deceived. Recall that when he met Laban’s daughter Rachel he fell head over heels? And agreed to work 7 years for her to marry him? And recall his shock when he awoke the day after the consummation of this wedding to find Leah in his en..and by this deception he had to work 7 more years for Rachel?

The second time he was deceived was after he returned to Canaan and his other sons led him to believe that his favored son Joseph had been killed by wild animals when they had actually sold him into slavery. LISTEN do not take it lightly when God lays down the principle “all who draw the sword will die by the sword(Matt.26:52). If you live by lies you will be lied to. If you hate you will be hated. Paul expressed it as the teaching of the two ways:

Romans 2:6-11; God will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no favoritism with God.

Being a believer does not exempt you from the laws of God’s righteous and impartial dealings in history.

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In fact the judgments of God are even more severe on those who belong to his household. The third result of the deceit of this “mother child duo” is that from a position of affluence and means and influence (as heir of the accumulated wealth of Abraham and Isaac) Jacob was demoted to a position of servitude. It is always that way...Those who have come to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as saviour-and who know the glory of the immortal God-are destined to be kings and priests forever and to reign with Christ. But that destiny is not compatible with willfulness. It cannot coexist with our sin. we will be wretched if we pursue our own way...But there is a third thought in this whole story

The WILL of God will triumph...the Way of deceit will turn bitter...But as we started we talked of an ordinary family...

There is hope in God...and in this hope these ordinary people...this ordinary family grows into an extraordinary family. This family was an ordinary family in he sense of it pursuing its own ways with worldly wisdom. This was true eve though it was a household in which God was working and through whom the Messiah would eventually come. what I want you to note is that we as Christian families are called to be not ordinary but extraordinary people in whom the power and Grace f God are evident.

Ephesians 5: 22-6:4 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife [see] that she reverence [her] husband.

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6:1 ¶ Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Would you like to know a household of people who behave like that? A wife who cooperates with her husband and respects him? A husband who loves his wife as much as he loves himself and who is concerned for her growth and purity? children who obey their parents? Fathers who encourage their their children and train them in God’s ways? I know some..and many others who are not like that yet but are headed that way. what is it that produces such extraordinary people? Chiefly it is the death of self, which is achieved when the members of a family surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. we live in a me first age that puts personal gratification before all other good and destroys a lot that is good in chasing after this goal. For the Christian who has put Christ first above self, the self will is broken...it is then and only then possible every day and in each situation of life to put others ahead of self. In pursuing this goal we have one example: Jesus; he is the one to follow .Why?

He didn’t have a me first attitude but rather: Made himself nothing, taking the every nature of servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross! (Phil 2:7-8)

If we are willing to do that, then we are on our way out of the realm of Ordinary people, to becoming extraordinary, peculiar people as God desires us to be...and we are seeing the transformation of our families by Jesus power in them.

The fruit of Esau’s anger was his plan..his vengeful selfish plan to kill. How about you? will you stop and look inside a moment and ask whether your life is characterized by self-gratification, or by Christ-like service for others, particularly in your family? May God give you the ability to draw each breath for him and for those others.