Foundations of Our Faith: The Story of Genesis
11/30/2003 - The Story of Jacob
I've been thinking a lot about names this week because the character in our story today gets his name changed. Every one of us has a name. And most of us have the same name that we were born with, unless we changed it when were married or for some other reason.
This week I came across a number of famous people who changed their names to create a different image for themselves. Let's see if you can match their original name on the left with their famous name on the right.
Robert Allen Zimmerman is Bob Dylan. Francis Gumm is Judy Garland. Henry John Deutschendorf is John Denver. Marion Michael Morrison is John Wayne. Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra is Meg Ryan. Reginald Kenneth Dwight is Elton John. Paul David Hewson is Bono of U2. Eileen Edwards is Shania Twain. Terry Gene Bollea is Hulk Hogan of WWWF fame. Norma Jeane Baker is Marilyn Monroe. Isidore Demsky is Kirk Douglas. David Kotkin is David Copperfield. Richard Starkey is Ringo Starr. Steveland Judkins is Stevie Wonder. Charles Carter is Charlton Heston.
This morning the character in our story has a name change. Only he doesn't change his own name to create a new image for himself. God changes his name to reflect a change in his life. He's born with the name Jacob, which in Hebrew literally means "he grasps the heel." But by the end of his life God changes his name to Israel, which means "he struggles with God." Do you ever struggle with God sometimes? I do. Are you struggling today? If you are you're going to like Jacob. His life was full of struggles that we can relate to.
If you have your Bible turn with me to Genesis 25 where his story begins as we continue our series through Genesis called Foundations of our Faith.
Jacob was Isaac's son and the grandson of Abraham. Together, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are called the patriarchs, the fathers of our faith, the pillars on which God built the nation of Israel.
Jacob was a schemer, a deceiver. He always had a plan. He was the upwardly mobile patriarch who would step on anybody to get what he wanted. He was the man who cheated his brother out of millions of dollars by stealing his right to the family fortune. He was a guy who always had an angle. Someone has said that Jacob was the kind of person that if he followed you into a revolving door somehow he'd come out first!
His story is similar to many of our stories. He starts out ignoring God in his life. He doesn't have time for God. He's too busy trying to get what he wants out of life. But when life starts to fall apart and he gets real desperate he starts bargaining with God. "God if you do this, then I'll do that," he says. And finally, by the end of the story we find him trusting God with his life. He has lots of ups and downs, but in the end he's worshiping.
In Hebrews 11:21 we read, By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
Jacob finished well. He still had faith at the end of his life. Even though his life was full of failure. I like what Teddy Roosevelt once said about failure, "Far better is it to dare mighty things to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory or defeat." Jacob didn't live in the gray twilight. He knew victory as well as defeat. As do most of us.
Our story starts before Jacob is born. His parents, Isaac and Rebekah, have been struggling for twenty years to have a child just like Isaac's parents Abraham and Sarah struggled. They can't figure it out because God had promised to make Isaac into a great nation. Then finally God answers Isaac's prayer and Rebekah gets pregnant ... with twins no less.
Look at Genesis 25:21-26, Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, "Why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the LORD. 23 The LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." 24When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. 26After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
The babies jostled each other within her. The twins are a handful from the start. Jacob and is brother Esau fight in the womb even before they're born. And when they're delivered Esau comes out first and is named "hairy" because he's covered with fur and Jacob is named "heel grabber" because he's grabbing Esau's heel trying to pull him back into the womb so he can be the firstborn.
God tells Isaac and Rebekah that these two boys will become the heads of two nations who will always be struggling against each other and that the older brother, Esau, will always serve the younger brother, Jacob. Which was a major role reversal in a culture that always gave the highest privileges to the firstborn.
In fact, the apostle Paul uses this as an example of God's grace in Romans 9:11-12 when he writes, Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad-in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls-she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
Jacob's name "heel grabber" also means "deceiver" and we see that deception come out in his next encounter with Esau. Look at verse 27, The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom which means 'red.') 31 Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright." 32 "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" 33 But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.
Esau grows up to be a hunter. He's the jock. He loves the outdoors. Jacob is just the opposite. He likes to hang around the house, cook, and help out his mom. Jacob has this tight relationship with his mother. They spend a lot of time together talking in the kitchen. While Esau is tight with his dad who loves to eat the game that he brings home from the field.
And one day Esau returns home from the hunt famished and asks Jacob for some of his famous beef stew. And immediately Jacob sees this as his golden opportunity to steal the birthright from Esau. You can only imagine that his mom must have told him all about the prophecy that Esau would someday serve Jacob.
Now you have to understand that in that culture the birthright was huge. It guaranteed that the firstborn son would get twice as much of the inheritance as any of his siblings. And Isaac was rich. So we're talking about a big chunk of change here that Jacob is asking for in exchange for a bowl of stew. So he's shocked when Esau says, "Why not? You can have it? I'm so hungry I'm going to die anyway if I don't eat!"
So essentially he sells a bowl of beef stew to Esau for millions of dollars. And God is so upset with Esau for doing that that in Hebrews 12:16 we read, See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. God calls Esau godless for rejecting the birthright, because it was like leaving God completely out of his life. Something Jacob and Esau are both doing at this time in their lives, ignoring God.
But not only does Jacob steal the birthright, he steals the blessing as well. Fast forward to Genesis 27 and we find that Isaac is old and almost completely blind. He knows he doesn't have long to live so he wants to pass his special blessing on to his eldest son, Esau. And he wants to do it over a hot meal. So he asks Esau to go out and kill his favorite game and bring it to him.
Rebekah eavesdrops on the conversation and hatch's a quick plan to steal the blessing for her favorite son, Jacob. She knows that God said Jacob would be the head of the clan after Isaac dies, but she won't trust God to make it happen and instead puts together her own plan to make it happen by deceiving Isaac.
So Jacob does exactly what his mom says. He dresses up like Esau, complete with hair, fur, odor, and stew, goes into blind old Isaac and pretends he's his twin brother. And Isaac falls for it and gives him the blessing. And by the time Esau comes back with his pheasant under glass his dad has already given his blessing away to Jacob. And Esau goes bananas and vows to kill Jacob.
Look at Genesis 27:41-45, Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob." 42When Rebekah was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, "Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you. 43Now then, my son, do what I say: Flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran. 44Stay with him for a while until your brother's fury subsides. 45When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I'll send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?"
And so Jacob takes off and runs from the Promised Land to hide out with his uncle Laban, six hundred miles away. And he'll spend the next twenty years of his life living in fear and paying for his decision.
What's sad about this whole thing is that none of it had to happen. God was going to give the birthright and the blessing to Jacob in his own way and in his own time. He promised to. Jacob didn't have to scheme and deceive to get them. But he couldn't wait for God. He didn't trust God. He ignored God and now he's running for his life like a scared rabbit and will spend the next two decades looking over his shoulder for fear that Esau will track him down and kill him.
When we ignore God we end up doing the same things don't we? We can spend a lot of our lives scheming and deceiving, trying to get for ourselves what God has promised to give us if we just trust and wait on him. And when we take things into our own hands we can make such a mess out of our lives.
So Jacob runs for his life to Haran to live with his uncle Laban. And on his way there he hears two voices. The voice of his past that says, "You blew it. You're on your own. God's done with you." And the voice of God saying, "No I'm not. I'm with you. I still have a plan for you." And these two voices are going to continue to clash in his mind and it will take Jacob twenty years to sort them out. But before he does he moves from ignoring God to bargaining with God.
Look at Genesis 28:10-15, Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. 11When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15I am with you and will 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."
In this amazing dream often called "Jacob's Ladder," God promises Jacob that he's not done with him. He shows him the picture of a stairway to heaven with angels taking prayers up to God and bringing blessings down. God identifies himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac and affirms his promise to make Jacob into a great nation, to give him the land, and to bless the world through him. He will watch over Jacob, keep him safe, and bring him back to the Promised Land. It's an awesome promise!
Often God will do that for us even when we're ignoring him. He'll do something to get our attention even when we're on the run. But look how Jacob responds in verse 16, When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." 18Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19He called that place Bethel though the city used to be called Luz. 20Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear21so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God 22and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
Jacob has this dramatic, personal encounter with God and how does he respond? By bargaining with God! He still can't trust him. He still can't accept him at face value. So he tries to cut a deal. "God if you stay with me and if you watch over me, if you feed me and if you cloth me, and if you bring me back to my father's house, then you will be my God!"
How often we do the same thing? First, we ignore God and do our own thing. And then when we start to mess up and life begins to go south and we feel out of control we start bargaining with God and say, "God, if you get me out of this jam, if you rescue me, if you get me a job, if you get me a husband or a wife, if you take this addiction away, if you heal me of this disease, if you give me kids, if you make me hit the lottery, whatever, then you'll be my God!"
But God doesn't work that way. He doesn't do deals. He's done the "deal" by giving us his son Jesus Christ. He's already shown us how much he loves us and given us plenty of reasons to trust him. God doesn't like to be bargained with. But he'll hang with us, even when we do. And so instead of getting exasperated with Jacob he continues to work with him, as he will with us.
So Jacob moves to Haran and when he arrives there one of the greatest love stories of all time unfolds. He sees some shepherds by a well and across the field a beautiful woman is walking towards him. And it is love at first sight.
Look at Genesis 29:10-12,When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and Laban's sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle's sheep. 11Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. 12He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.
Jacob arrives in Haran and a whole new chapter of his life opens up. And over the next twenty years three things will happen. He'll get married. He'll have children. And he'll build a very successful business. Sounds simple. But nothing is ever simple for Jacob.
First of all, he falls in love with Rachel and asks her father for her hand in marriage. But unfortunately for Jacob, Rachel is the younger of two daughters. And the tradition in that culture was that the older daughter had to marry before the younger.
Look at Genesis 29:16,Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful.
Rachel was a knockout. She was the more attractive of the two sisters. In fact, her name means "little ewe lamb" while Leah means "cow eyes." So Jacob goes for the little lamb, not the cow and bugs his uncle for her hand in marriage until he finally gives in.
Look at verse 18, Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel." 19Laban said, "It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me." 20So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. And all the women went ohhhhhh!
Laban agrees to this deal with Jacob thinking that seven years would give Leah, his oldest daughter, plenty of time to get married first. But she doesn't. And so the wedding day finally comes when Jacob can have Rachel, the love of his life, all to himself. And he can't wait!
Look at verse 22, So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her. 24 And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant. 25 When morning came, there was Leah!
Can you believe this! Has anyone here ever had that happen on their wedding night?! Don't raise your hand! How in the world did Jacob not know he was sleeping with Leah and not Rachel? Hello! Well, it was night wedding, very dark in those tents, he may have had a little too much to drink, and those veils are pretty thick! I don't know how it happened! But when he woke up and looked over it wasn't the "little ewe lamb" it was "the cow!"
Verse 25, So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?" 26 Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work." 28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. 29 Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. 30 Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
Did you ever hear that saying, "What goes around comes around?" Well that's exactly what happened to Jacob. Just like he tricked Isaac to get the blessing, so he's tricked by Laban to get the bride. Jacob had met his match.
Now the competition for kids begins. And it gets real ugly. Jacob becomes like a stud horse in his own family. At first, Rachel can't have kids, but Leah is pumping them out on demand. Then they start bringing their handmaids to him so that he can get them pregnant. And so instead of being a blessing in his life, his babies are a battle. And he had a lot of them in his lifetime, twelve boys and one girl. Things are not going well at home for Jacob.
And things aren't going well at work either. His business is growing but that's causing conflict too. Look at Genesis 31:1-3, Jacob heard that Laban's sons were saying, "Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father." 2 And Jacob noticed that Laban's attitude toward him was not what it had been. 3 Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you."
Twenty years of struggle in Haran and Jacob is exhausted. He's trying to make life work on his own. He's not calling on God. He's just doing it himself. Until God finally says, "Enough! It's time to go back home and face your past. And to do that you're going to need me." And Jacob is scared to death, because he knows that Esau is waiting for him. But facing his past is exactly what he needs to do to finally learn to trust God.
And all the way back home Jacob is thinking about one thing. And it's not the mountains he must climb, or the desert he must cross, or where to get food and water. He's thinking about Esau, gun drawn, ready to kill him. So he sends out messengers to try and locate Esau and this is what they find.
Look at Genesis 32:6-8, When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." 7In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. 8He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape."
Jacob hears the distressing news, four hundred men are looking for him, and so he quickly does what he does best, comes up with a scheme, a strategy, a plan to deal with an attack from his brother. But then he does something that shows us he's finally learning to trust God.
Look at verse 9, Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,' 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. 11Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. 12 But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"
Finally, after all these years we read that Jacob prayed. For the first time Jacob is not just trusting in himself and his schemes, but in his God! Which is where God wants to take all of us. He wants us to pray and to trust him and to face our biggest fears asking him to save us and protect us and prosper us.
Look at verses 22-32,That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. 28Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." 29Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." 31The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel and he was limping because of his hip. 32Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.
Out of the darkness Jacob gets jumped. For all he knows it's Esau ambushing him. He gets into this all night wrestling match. But it's not Esau. It's God. Jacob wrestles with God in human form. And when the match is over he finds healing. God cripples his body in order to heal his soul. And from then on, for the rest of his life, he will walk with a limp that will cause him to depend on God instead of himself.
Jacob isn't wrestling with Esau or with the devil. He's wrestling with God. He's wrestling with submitting his life to God's control. He's wrestling with letting go of his efforts to make things happen and embracing God's will for his life. All of us in our walk with God will come to those Jabbok moments when we will wrestle with God's will in our lives. And like Jacob those moments cause us to face ourselves, to face our fears, and to face our God. And God is not above wounding us in some way if it will cause us to trust and depend on him.
Jacob passes the test and God changes his name from Jacob, "deceiver," to Israel, "one who struggles with God." And the next day, to show him his power God completely changes the most frightening of circumstances. Esau runs to Jacob, not to ill him, but to embrace him.
Look at Genesis 33:4, But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. Go figure! Over those twenty years God had been working in Esau's life to turn his bitterness into forgiveness. That's what God can do when we trust him. He can change the most impossible circumstances and bring amazing reconciliation.
It's an incredible story. Where do you see yourself? Are you ignoring God and trying to work things out for yourself? Are you bargaining with God, saying, "If you do this, then I'll do this?" Or are you putting your life in his hands and trusting him completely?