[Text: Gen. 33] “The Same Old Story”

If you were asked, “Can you earn the favor of God?” I have a feeling I know how most of y’all would answer. Most of you would say “No!” and might even quote what the Scriptures say (paraphrasing Ephesians 2:8-9), “We’re saved by grace through faith in Jesus and even our faith is a gift from God. It didn’t come from me, so I can’t boast like it did!” You don’t have to read very far in the Scriptures to hear that truth and it just keeps coming up.

So, why is the truth – that rebels are redeemed through the grace-filled work of Yahweh alone – why is that repeated so often in the Bible? Why does it come up in the covenant with Abraham where God shows He alone will bear the curse for breaking their relationship? Why does it come up again with Isaac and then with Jacob here? Why is it so vividly seen in the Exodus as God breaks the power of Egypt and carries Israel out of bondage and oppression and into His very presence? Why does it come up in the Prophets as Ezekiel promises God’s people that Yahweh himself will give them new hearts that aren’t like their old rebellious hearts; rescuing them from themselves and their sin? Why is it the theme of the New Testament after Jesus arrives, Yahweh himself who came to rescue His people? The simple answer to why the Scriptures tell us again and again that we are saved by grace is this; we forget. And even if our mind hasn’t forgotten, then our hearts forget and begin to go back to trying to earn the favor of God (if, of course, we even see the need for Him at all).

So today I want to do something a professor once challenged me to do (although I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve been trying to do this all year). He said, “Dare…to be boring.” He wasn’t talking about speaking in a monotone voice or droning on about the minutest details, but he was saying there are times when what we need is not a clever reading of the passage or a new truth that turns the world upside down. What we need is the old truth that has already turned the world upside down – the Good News that Yahweh has come to us in the person of Jesus to rescue us and there is nothing that we’ve done to earn it. That is the truth that captured the hearts of Jesus’ disciples. And they were martyred proclaiming and rejoicing in the free grace that is given to sinners in Jesus. That is the truth that transformed a graceless church during the time of the Reformers as the Church rediscovered the beauty of a Gospel that says, “You are worse than you can possibly imagine and are more beloved by God than you could ever dream because of Jesus.”

So, read this story with me and look for the patterns of grace that will ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus and then let’s pray to the Father together, that the truth of the Gospel will never cease to woo our hearts, though we’ve heard it a million times.

[Read and Pray – Father, you have written to us as a Lover to both break our hearts over our running from you and mend them again through the work of your Son and Spirit. Speak again through your word and capture our hearts through the redemption you have already worked and the promises of more grace to us in Jesus. Bind our hearts to his, Father, and let us never tire of being loved so deeply that our Lord and God died to make us his own.]

Chapter 32 ends with the sun rising on Jacob limping away from the place where he saw God face to face. Yahweh had broken him so that He could bless Jacob, extending grace to him that Jacob had done nothing to earn, grace, which in fact, Jacob had done so much to NOT deserve. Now Jacob lifts up his eyes and sees Esau, whom he fears, coming with 400 men.

Last week we saw how he’d prayed to Yahweh, confessing that he did not deserve the least of all the works of steadfast love and faithfulness his God had shown him and pleading the promises of God as his hope for rescue from Esau’s anger against Jacob’s sin twenty years before. Jacob had prayed and then he had sent gift after gift to Esau from a distance thinking, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”

I think I got something wrong last week. I said the gifts Jacob sent to Esau were Jacob simply doing what was within his power to be reconciled to his brother. I’ll stand by that, but where I think I got it wrong was how much trust he was putting in the gifts versus how much he was putting in His God. From his own words, it sounds like he was doing his best to earn the favor of Esau rather than trusting Yahweh to take care of him through the same grace Jacob has experienced all along.

That’s why after Jacob sent the gifts, Yahweh had come down in the form of a man and wrestled with Jacob and brought him to the end of himself, the place of hopelessness in himself, before blessing Jacob and giving him a new identity. And it is in that event where we see the LORD demonstrating the pattern of redemption through undeserved grace. But then the story goes on…

So, Jacob sees Esau coming with 400 men and he has nowhere to go. If he’d wanted to run away from Esau, he couldn’t at this point because Yahweh had put his hip out of socket. So Yahweh leads him again to the place of helplessness so that when Jacob is rescued, Jacob will know that it came by grace once again.

Jacob arranges his family, showing special preference for Rachel and Joseph by putting them in the back. (That theme of Jacob’s preference of Joseph will be important later in Genesis.) But Jacob himself is different than he used to be. He isn’t behind everyone (like when he was giving the gifts). He isn’t the sneaking, proud younger brother anymore. Now he goes in front of his family and will be the first to meet Esau, whatever may come. Now he bows humbly in front of his brother seven times.

He bows? But didn’t the promise of God say that the older will serve the younger? Didn’t the blessing of Isaac to Jacob say, “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over you brothers and may your mother’s sons bow down to you…” Yes, those things are still true and they will come in God’s timing and way, but not before the grace of God works still more on Jacob. God will raise Jacob up in honor and keep the promises to him and his offspring, but not before he has brought Jacob down into the depths of humility.

That is the way of grace. First we are led into the depths of humility before God lifts us up in joy.

I wonder if Jacob thought that he was as low as he could go back when he was running for his life 20 years before only to find himself deeper when he was under Laban’s oppressive rule…and deeper still when he was running from Laban as a fugitive…and deeper still when he sat alone in the night before wrestling with God. Even though Jacob never knew how deep he could descend through his own sin and the consequences of living in a sinful world, Yahweh knew and would be faithful to lift Jacob up.

And God does lift Jacob up. Verse 4 shows the meeting of Jacob with the man whom he had feared for the past 20 years, the man whom he had wronged, the man from whom Jacob could not have earned forgiveness though he gave Esau all he had.

V. 4 - “But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” In a beautiful display of love and acceptance and forgiveness, one that may have been the model upon which Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son, Esau comes to Jacob and shows that there is no rage left in him.

And everything that is pictured in two brothers embracing and weeping is explained in the next verses. Esau has some questions; “Who are these with you…and what do you mean by all this company that I met (referring to the droves of animals Jacob sent as gifts)?” And in his answers, we hear that Jacob understands that what has been shown to him is the un-earned, free grace of his brother, yes, but ultimately of Yahweh.

Who are these with you, Jacob? “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”

What do you mean by all this company (talking about the gifts) that I met? (Now, here we hear a confession and a declaration from Jacob’s lips) “Brother, they were me trying to find favor in your sight.” Jacob doesn’t deny the actions were meant to incline Esau’s heart toward Jacob. It was his best effort to earn Esau’s favor.

But listen to Esau’s response and hear how Yahweh has been at work in this man of rage and vengeance. As Esau responds saying, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself,”(v. 9) it seems that Jacob is hearing the truth that it’s not about what you can earn through giving gifts or even through displays of humility. It’s about grace and being freely given what you can’t earn or deserve. Jacob hears his brother’s words and has felt his arms of acceptance around him and it seems that that truth begins to sink further in.

Jacob’s reply says, “If you really have freely accepted me, please accept these gifts anyway…because seeing the un-earned favor you are showing to me like now is seeing the face of God, like seeing what I’ve been receiving from my God all of my life.” In seeing love instead of rage in Esau’s eyes, in feeling his embrace instead of cold steel in Jacob’s body, in seeing tears on Esau’s face instead of Jacob’s own blood, Jacob understands that he could never earn what Yahweh has freely given to him.

And that is why he still presses the gifts on to Esau. No longer are they a way of earning his favor; Now, they are free gifts of gratitude to God. Jacob says in v. 11, “Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” I don’t think I’m overstating this by calling Jacob’s words and actions here “worship.” He is showing his deep thanks to Esau for his forgiveness by giving him the gifts, but in the words “God has dealt graciously with me” we hear what is going on in his heart.

For all the works Jacob has done, for all his best efforts to appease both man and God, for all his attempts to earn favor through vows in the past and obedience in the present, Jacob admits that they haven’t earned him anything. He is forgiven by Esau because Yahweh is gracious toward him. He is alive and home because Yahweh is gracious toward him. He is secure in this covenant relationship with God Almighty because Yahweh is “Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6)

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But then, in a move like I’ve done on so many occasions, the grace shown to Jacob, confessed from his own mouth, is quickly forgotten and he returns to some old patterns of living. We see Jacob as a living example of a truth so eloquently written millennia later by Martin Luther. Luther said that believers are “Simul Iustus et Peccator” – “At the same time righteous and a sinner.”

While Jacob was (for a number of reasons) right in not wanting to go to Esau’s home, which was outside of the Promised Land, it was not right for Jacob to lie to his brother. Jacob refused Esau’s invitation, making excuses but also implying he would come to Esau in Seir, although his actions show he intended to do nothing of the kind. Jacob wasn’t wrong to want to go into the Land God had promised to him and his family, but it was disobedient to lie about it.

But the greater display of Jacob’s sinful forgetfulness is what happens next in vv. 17-20. After Jacob heads west (leaving Esau to go South alone), Jacob comes to Succoth and built himself a house and settled there for a little while. Then he came to Shechem and bought some land. Yes, he was within the Promised Land, but he was not where he said he would be, doing what he said he would be doing.

When Yahweh had met Jacob 20 years earlier at Bethel, Jacob heard the promises of God and responded with a vow, saying,

“If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.” (Genesis 28:20-22 ESV)

But now instead of returning to Bethel and building God’s house as he’d promised, Jacob is at Succoth and Shechem building his own house and buying his own plot of land – land which Yahweh intended to give to him.

Instead of fulfilling his lawful vow to Yahweh, Jacob allows the lure of Shechem, a prosperous city in that day, to woo his heart into staying where he shouldn’t be and doing what he shouldn’t be doing. He’d wasn’t thinking about the free grace of God and he wasn’t thinking about the obligation he’d put himself under. Even though the passage ends with Jacob claiming Yahweh as his God and worshipping him publicly at that altar, in itself a good and right thing to do and a partial fulfillment of his vow, we see in Jacob the recognition of Luther – “at the same time righteous and a sinner.”

God knows our weakness and how prone we are to try to earn what He freely gives or still run from him after grace has been shown. But so great is His grace that He tells us about it over and over in His Word and shows us so fully in His Son, Jesus, that it becomes one of the cries of the Church throughout history – Sola Gratia!, By Grace Alone our salvation comes through the Lord!

But there were some, even in the New Testament church, who forgot and thought that they could earn the favor of God through keeping all of God’s rules for how life works best. They thought, “If I keep the rules, then God will have to give me His favor and I’ll stand in His presence, before His face, justified.”

But the Apostle Paul writes to them with words of terrible warning and radical comfort. He tells them that man cannot see the face of God by trusting in what we can earn for ourselves. But when we look in faith to the face of Jesus, then we are already in the presence of God and stand there fully justified because of Jesus. Paul says (in Galatians 2:16),

A: “…we know that a person is not justified by works of

the law

B: but through faith in Jesus Christ,

C: so we also have believed in Christ Jesus,

B’: in order to be justified by faith in Christ

A’: and not by works of the law, because by works of the

law no one will be justified.”

Paul structured this as a chiasm, which in this case means that the last phrase mirrors the first statement, the next to last phrase mirrors the second statement and the central phrase is highlighted. The central statement is “we also have believed in Christ Jesus” to highlight the way of grace versus the way of earning the favor of God through works. He says that what you do can’t earn you any good standing before God. If you want to stand in the presence of God without fear, with a clean conscience and great confidence, then you’ve got to put all of your confidence in Jesus Christ and rest in him. If you receive what Jesus freely gives, then, like Jacob looking at Esau’s face, you know that grace triumphs over our weak efforts at earning the favor of God. And grace triumphs because of the surpassing worth of Jesus and his death and resurrection.

That is the good news we call the Gospel.

It’s the beautiful, humbling, truth that I am worse than I can possibly imagine and am more beloved by God than I could ever dream because of Jesus. It’s the old truth that lays low even the best of humanity but also raises up even the vilest sinner out of the depths and carries them into the heavenly places. It’s the truth that stirs our hearts to give gifts to God and men, not because we need to earn favor, but because we already have God’s favor set on us through Jesus. It’s the truth that is repeated over and over and over again because I need to hear it over and over and over again. It’s the truth that will endure through the end of this age and into the eternal age to come as we sing to our Lord and our God songs of love and gratitude for grace given to undeserving sinners.

The Gospel is what we run to when we, like Jacob, find ourselves to be a boiling mixture of faith and unbelief, when disobedience corrupts even our best attempt to obey, when we vow to worship at Bethel, but find ourselves worshipping half-heartedly in a place that is a little more comfortable. We run to Jesus and his good news of forgiveness and more grace now and promises of future grace

If we didn’t need grace, if we were able to rescue ourselves through earning the favor of God on our own, then answer this; why did Jesus die? If we are strong enough to rescue ourselves, then God the Son died for nothing. But, if our weakness leaves us as sinners even while we are saints in Christ, then his death does a more amazing work than we have yet realized. No, Luther was right. While resting secure in Jesus, we are at the same time righteous by God’s declaration and sinners in need of more grace.

But God is not shocked by our weakness. He overcame it by his power. He is not angry over our sin anymore. He poured out all of his anger and justice on Jesus on the cross. His face is not twisted in disappointment toward you who rest in Jesus. His face, his countenance is lifted up and He aims to bless you and keep you in peace in Jesus. It won’t be the tithes we bring that earn his grace. It won’t be our work in the nursery that earns his grace; not my preaching, not your devotional life, not our prayers and not even our tears of repentance that earn the favor and forgiveness and love of Yahweh. Jesus alone has already won all this for you and he did it by a work of pure grace.

That is the grace that recreates us and makes us new. Because Jesus died and rose we are forgiven and are now able to forgive. Because Jesus died and rose we are precious to him and are able to be small and humble in the eyes of the world, especially in the eyes of those whom we have wronged. Because we have been blessed by Jesus, we - like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, like the Apostles and all your fellow saints in history – because we have been blessed by Jesus, we are able to be a blessing to our families and our community with our gifts and service, all the while praising the un-earned grace of God that has been given to us.

[Transition to the Lord’s Supper] Just as the Word of God proclaims His grace to sinners over and over again, so Jesus has given us this meal to be celebrated over and over again until the grace promised, delivered and still promised by Jesus comes in full when Christ returns. This is the visible proclamation of the Gospel we have just heard. This is the sign that God gives grace to sinners because of Jesus’ death on the cross and this is the sealing of that grace upon the life of the believer in Christ. This is the comfort for we who are ”at the same time righteous and sinner“ that Jesus’ righteousness, received by faith, will cover over all your sin to bring you safely to the Lord at last in great joy.