Honesty, Rest, and Returning to God
The Blessed Life
Genesis 27 exposes a family tangled in deception, fear, and self‑reliance. Jacob lies, Rebekah schemes, Esau rages, and Isaac trembles—each character mirroring the brokenness that runs through all humanity. As the sermon notes, “all you see at every turn is lies, anger, deception everywhere.” Yet beneath the chaos lies a deeper truth: God’s purposes stand even when His people fail. Jacob receives the blessing not because he is worthy, but because God chooses to redeem unworthy people and make them His own. This message confronts our impulse to chase blessing apart from God, to hide behind façades, and to work ourselves into exhaustion trying to secure what God has already promised. It calls us back to honesty, rest, and the only One who can transform children of the devil into children of God.
Genesis 27 and we'll start at verse 1. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so he could not see, he called Esau, his older son, said to him, my son, and he answered, here I am. He said, behold, I am old. I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver, and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, and prepare me a delicious food, I'm my food such as I love, and bring it to me. Now Rebecca was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went into the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebecca said to her son Jacob, I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, bring me game and prepare me delicious food that I may eat and bless you before the Lord before I die. Now therefore my son... obey my voice as I command you. Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat so that he may bless you before he dies. But Jacob said to Rebecca his mother, behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me and I shall seemed to be to him mocking and bringing a curse upon myself and not a blessing. His mother said to him, let your curse be on me, my son. Only obey my voice. Go bring them to me. So he went and took them and brought them to his mother. And his mother prepared delicious food such as his father loved. Then Rebecca took the best garments of Esau, her older son, which were in in the house and put them on Jacob her younger son and the skins of the young goat she put on his hands and smooth part of his neck and she put delicious food and the bread which she had prepared into the hand of her son Jacob. I will finish off our reading from Genesis 27. Obviously wanted to split it up primarily for the most part it's just a very long passage but it is all one story so it's good to read together. So we're starting in verse 30. And as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, Esau his brother came in from his hunting. He also prepared delicious food and brought it to his father and he said to his father, let my father arise, eat of his son's game that you may bless me. And his father Isaac said to him, who are you? He answered, I'm your son, your firstborn Esau. Then Isaac trembled very violently, said, Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me? And I ate it all before you came, and I have blessed him. Yes, and he shall be blessed. As soon as Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, Bless me, even me also, oh my father. But he said, Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing. But Esau said, Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me these two times. He took away my birthright and now behold, he has taken away my blessing. Then he said, have you not reserved a blessing for me? Isaac answered and said to behold, I have made him lord over you and all his brothers I have given to him for servants and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son? Esau said to his father, have you but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Then Isaac, his father, answered and said to him, behold. Away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be. Away from the dew of the heaven on high, by your sword you shall live and you shall serve your brother, and when you grow restless, you shall break his yoke from your neck. But Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, the days of my mourning for my father are approaching, then I will kill my brother Jacob. But the words of Esau, his older son, were told to Rebekah. So she sent and called Jacob her younger son and said him, behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, arise, flee to Laban, brother in Haran, and stay with him awhile until your brother's fury turns away, until your brother's anger turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send you and bring you from there. Why should I be bereft of you both in one day? beautiful. Now, one of the things that I loved about that last song is one line it had in there, where it said, you are God alone, not dependent on any mortal man. Because thank the Lord for that, because I'm probably going to screw something up today, and then we'd all just be in a pile. So, thankfully, let's pray to the God who helps us. Hopefully, He will teach us something today. Father, I need your help. We need your help. Lord, without You, we can't really learn anything divine. We need these things to be revealed to us. so we ask now, Lord, that as I speak, Lord, that You would speak, Lord, that by Your Spirit, we would hear these things in our hearts and we'd be changed, transformed and made different, made new, renewed, being renewed by the transforming of our minds, transformed by the renewing of our minds. So Father, we pray You would do this and You would do more in Jesus' name. Amen. Now. Derek started our series in Genesis, going through Genesis 24, talking about the blessing of marriage, particularly marriage in its right place. How does a beautiful and God-given thing, he was showing us a picture of things done rightly and done with godliness. But then Isaac, not Isaac's story, Isaac Felden, came along the next week and ruined it all for us by showing us what it looks like when sin comes in. He showed us how sin Favouritism comes into a family and begins to ruin everything. And so you see, this is really the shift in the story. We have been through the story of Abraham, we spent weeks doing that. The story of Isaac's quite a short one, to be honest. Now the main focus is on Jacob, as he's known the deceiver. Jacob's name in Hebrew means deceiver. um And so now we are following the narrative of him and his family. And that's where we'll be until the very end of the book of Genesis. And so we'll be following the story. You see, first when we began in early Genesis, this kind of particularly in the first six chapters, we were getting this bird's eye view of what sin does. We literally watch in the space of three chapters as we watched from literally just Adam and Eve eating some fruit, being thrown out of garden to literally everyone's killing each other, running off after brides they shouldn't. And then Noah comes obviously we have a big flood. It all happens very quickly, but to just show you on a general view what sin will do to this world. But then God wipes it clean, He starts again. The only problem was He didn't get rid of all the humans. And so, we still fell into the same pit again because sin is still here. But now we begin to zoom in. No longer are we looking at sin on the grand scale, but we've begun to zoom into one family. We see the failings of Abraham, of Isaac and now particularly we're seeing as it worked its way through Jacob, through Rebekah and then through the twelve, sorry, sorry, Jacob Esau and then eventually through the twelve sons that Jacob will have in a couple chapters time. And because you see, the Bible is a story, a story about how humanity was made, was united to God and now we're kind of good after the third chapter and then the whole time, it is a story of how humanity runs away and yet God continues to run after us. But you see, we are desperately trying to separate ourselves from God. That is the story of the whole Bible because we really, really want this paradise, right? Do you know why the Garden of Eden was called Eden? Because again, in Hebrew, it means paradise. We want this paradise. All of us are always trying to improve our lives because we are hoping out there at some point, I'm going to arrive at this metaphorical mental paradise. Finally, everything will be right in my life. That's what humanity wants. We just don't want God to be in the paradise. And look, we've been trying this road for about, I don't know, at least a couple thousand years now. And yet, I think all of us have agreed, I've done this survey before in church, we all think this world seems to be going down a downward spiral, it's just getting worse. Look how far technology has come, and yet we still think we're doing worse? We're not doing very good, apparently. Even with all the progress in technology, medicine, diplomacy, everything, every day we feel like we are going further and further down. And so you particularly imagine the fact, it seems like every day you open the news, there are some new incredible thing being made or built. But why are we always saying that nothing about this world is improving? Why does it always seem to keep getting worse? It's because for all the improvements that we make in this world, there's one thing that keeps deteriorating, decreasing our distance between us and God. Technically, it's not decreasing, it's increasing. But the relationship between us and God of all of humanity, it is so desperate to run away from God. That is why we're like, man, seriously, like people live to 85 now. Like that was untold of a couple of generations ago. We have medicine. You can actually, you have a million options normally when you're put in a predicament now. Back in the day, it's like, sorry, you you got cancer or something. say goodbye, is that stundusted? But now we have all these options and yet we're still seeing it's going downhill because we are separating ourselves. from the person who made us. If anything, we're using technology to actually become our own gods. But anyway, and so ever since, understand this though, that ever since Jesus' resurrection, the end times have begun, right? The end of this world is drawing near, and it has been for the last 2,000 years. Satan knows that, he's getting ready. That is why we've seen some of the greatest climactic evils we've ever seen, right? People are just running around acting like their own gods, right? Let alone what the most powerful people in this world do. It's just ridiculous on this stuff. But understand that before the climax in any story, there is always a buildup. There is always a beginning. There is a place where it starts. And so that is what we are looking at. Through the story of Jacob and his family, we will see that we also have a part in this buildup. That we are part of this story where the evil of this world will climax. will come to the top epitome of its point, but we'll also see how God redeems every part of it, even all the mess that we make. So, four points that we will explore in this story. Deception versus honesty, working versus rest, we are all children of the devil and children of God go to God. All right, so first one, deception versus honesty. Now, if there is any more blatant element of this story that we have just read, It is deception. It is lies. There is, sorry, there's no more overarching theme than that in this story because all you see at every turn is lies, anger, deception everywhere. Because we see it as Jacob is trying to steal the blessing from his older brother, Esau, right? Because Isaac is, you know, Isaac's getting a bit old. It's actually funny because he lives for another 43 years after that, so he's not very perceptive. But anyway, he says, all right, I'm a bit hungry. Time to go bless that firstborn son of mine that I love so much. And so he sets out. Rebecca overhearing this says, Jacob, you must go and you must take this blessing from your brother. And so we will watch now. This is basically watching someone dig their own grave, what we're going to see. As routinely, every time he's presented with an opportunity to not keep going with this ruse, he keeps going further and further, further and deeper into deception. So you take this, three things. We see that in the story, Jacob has one, sorry, not Jacob, Isaac, so his father, has one good sense out of five senses, right? He can, actually two, sorry. He can hear and touch, technically, right? Wait, sorry, no, I'm messing this up. Sorry, he has four good senses. Right, he has one bad one, which is that he cannot see. And so Jacob knows he's good there. He doesn't have to worry about the fact he obviously doesn't look like Esau, but he has to fool him in three other areas, right? So his smell, his taste, and his touch. We see this, he wears his brother's coat so that when... Isaac smells him, he smells like Esau. We see he prepares food just how Esau likes it, well, his mother does that for him, just how Esau normally makes it. Then we also see that they cover him in goat hair to mimic the fact of, you know, Esau's very hairy skin, hairiness, whatever. Anyway, but you see how just one lie, him coming in to say, I'm Esau, suddenly has to come with all these other lies as well? You see how he's thinking, we've got to fool my father with this, or we've got to add another part here. Suddenly, how far do you think he's in? Maybe waist deep at this point? He could still pull himself out. He hasn't yet walked into his father's presence yet. He could be, ah, get this goat hair off me. It's all sticky, yada, yada, yada. Right. But there is one thing that he cannot fake, one sense that he must get past his father, but yet he can't do it. That is the reality of his hearing. Jacob does not sound like his brother Esau. And apparently he's not very good at impressions either, because Isaac can tell straight away that it's the voice of Jacob. And so given this one final confrontation, there's one final time where he confess up and say, I'm sorry, Father, it's me. His father couldn't see, he could have said, oh, Father, it's just me, just walked around and walked back out of the tent. He could have left it at that. But three times his father asks him, is this Esau? And he says, yes, it is. Then he asked him another time. He says, how did you get this so quickly? He invokes the name of God saying, it's actually God who helped me to get this food so quickly. That's why I was so quick because God gave me success. And then again, he touches his arms. He feels it in his hair. says, is it really you? He says, yes, it is Father. So three times he has to confess and lie. So again, digging deeper and deeper. He's probably up about chest-tight here now. Now, I think all of this paints a very clear fact. One, when you start with one lie, many more follow after it. And also, I think to show just the reality of how stupid lies are sometimes, do you really think that Isaac didn't know it was Jacob? Why would you keep asking over and over and over again? You know, I remember once I did a play in high school. We did Fiddler on the Roof. There were four different characters or character groups. You had the sons, the daughters, the mommas and the puppers. Now, lucky me, even though was in grade 10 because I was tall, I got to be a pupper. But of course, that meant I had to look like one. So they had to glue fake hair on me because I still can't grow a beard very well. But even then, was far worse at it than I am now. Now, I should have brought the picture with me. I have one. But do you think when I walked out with that beard on, my mother went... Whoa, who's that? You look 55 years old. No, she said that looks like a 15 year old with goat hair stuck on him, right? It was pretty obvious that it was still me. I don't think that um Jacob's mother was any better at dressing him up. I think Jacob, sorry, so many names in this. Isaac knew that it was Jacob. But this is just again, showing the stupidity of lies. The fact that particularly doesn't take much to see through. You see, Jacob is doing all of this, why? Because he wants that blessing. He wants the blessing of God over his life. Because you see, this is a promise that's been passed from Abraham down to Isaac, and now it is to be passed onto the firstborn son. That they would be the promised one who would inherit the whole land. All these promises could only be passed to one son. Jacob was the secondborn, but he wanted it for his own. But you see, here is the hard part. He wants the blessing, but he doesn't actually want the one who is blessing him, not his father, but God. This is what we call as we want the gift, but we don't want the giver. He's happy to get the blessing as long as God is out of the equation. You see, it's funny and actually to get the blessing of God, he's acting disobediently against the one he wants the blessing from. And so you see, there's just this goal, there's a straight road and every time he's just wiggling around it taking. And you see, this is how all of us are. All of us, all of humanity has this natural bent. We like the stuffs God has made. We just don't like the fact that He wants to have a relationship with us and the stuff He's made. We just don't like Him as well. You see, we want the happiness, we want the prosperity, but we don't want to listen to God because He requires honesty. See, just think about this. The reality is, Mon people are striving, like I've already said, we're all striving for this Eden, this paradise. Because all of you guys are constantly, you you get to a New Year's Day, right? And you're like, are my New Year's resolutions. Some of you are smart enough to know that doesn't really work, so you don't bother. But all of you are all thinking, there are a things I could change in my life, a things that could be a bit better. Because all of us have this picture of an ideal life that we're heading towards, that we want. and everyone is going that way. I need the right salary, I to live in the right part of town. You should live on this part of town, not the other side over there. Just, say that because I own a house here, but you know, it's a good part of Well, better yet, I have to get the right opportunities for my children. I have to set up everything right. This picture in my head, it has to be just right. Social media has just made this even better and more of a great example because just look at the reality of what people post on social media. All of you, even if you're not that active on it, will still have some form of it most likely. You you see people posting pictures of their grandchildren, or the happy family, you're going on vacation. I don't know, maybe people put their pace slips up if they're doing really well. I don't know if people actually do that, but what kind of pictures do people put up there? The ones they want people to see, the ones that portray the idea of the life that people, you know, that they think people want to see, that they want people to see. The reality is when you're having an argument, with your spouse and you throw a tub of butter at them, are you gonna upload that? No, right? Are you uploading your child's report card when it has like three failed subjects on it? No, you only upload the one with all the A's, right? Because we want to paint a picture of what looks good. We wanna portray the idea that we have the perfect life and the great thing about social media is you can do that and hide the bad stuff, hide the stuff that isn't going so well. But it's funny, we paint this picture where people think, Man, they lived a blessed life, man. And like I've fallen for that, man. Some people's just feeds look amazing. But we are hiding the real suffering that all of us face. Because all of us live in a broken world. And this is the hard part. We all want life, but God only blesses those who seek Him. Not those who want the blessing apart from Him. And so we cannot receive this blessing while hiding behind a facade that we have it all together. The reality is, if you're trying to live apart from God and then saying you have it all together, you're living a lie. You need that guy to breathe. So you definitely don't have it all together without him. True blessing requires us to drop the mask to accept with brutal honesty how weak we are. Just think about this, right? These are the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus says. These are the people He says are blessed. blessed are the poor in spirit. So those who basically think they've got nothing in themselves, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. God is giving his blessings to people who are weak, to people who say that they don't actually have it in themselves, and have strength to make a perfect life for themselves. People who says, God, I suck. That, those are the kind of people that God blesses. because those are the kind of people that are honest with themselves and honest with God. So we cannot hide in the darkness, but we must be honest with our weaknesses before God, even before others. You think about who is the more blessed person? Is it the one who hides the fact that he drinks continuously all day and all night? Or is it the one who fesses up? Who has to deal with the pain of confessing his sin to others, but yet through that actually finds freedom from his alcoholism. Not saying being honest is easy. but it does lead to true blessing. There might just be some pain on the way. That is why we hide away. That is why we don't want people to see the other sides of our lives because it is painful, it is shameful, and it hurts. But you see, the way of honesty is painful, but it brings the sweet taste of forgiveness and it removes guilt and shame. And so you see, that's our first part. The fact that we are to pursue honesty, not deception, but in honesty, true blessing is found. So then point two, we are aiming, so working versus rest. We are aiming for rest. Yeah, that's what we want. Now you see, one of the strangest realities about this story here, particularly when we read it in context, sorry, Isaac, Jacob wanted this blessing. You know what the funny thing was? His mother had been given a promise about 30 or 40 years beforehand that the promise would actually be His anyway. The blessing was going to be His. The goal was already there. It been decreed by God. Nothing can stop it from happening now. So they had this direct promise, it came from God. And it came from the God who had birthed Isaac through a 90 year old woman. So I'm like, he's probably a guy you can trust, because he's a bit powerful. Sorry there. He had the very first sign of an obstacle. Oh, now we got a God's, I don't know what he's doing there, so maybe we should just rely on ourselves a little bit here. Don't know what God's doing. And so they resort to their own self-reliance instead of trusting God has a plan. Just because it doesn't look like it's going the way you expected doesn't mean he's not in control. Now, Jacob still received a blessing in the end, obviously. He literally cheated out from under his brother. But the funny thing is, he would have got it anyway. So what has he gained from this little adventure of his? His brother hates him and wants to murder him. As does his father, he doesn't want to murder him but he's just angry with him. And I highly doubt that his mother and father's marriage is very stable after something like this. So all those many blessings because he decided to cheat and lie his way to something which is already his. And so you see the reality is God's already given us many promises, promises which are already ours. But a lot of us spend a lot of time working and making extra work for ourselves that we have this whole mountain of work and it's completely pointless and often leads to more trouble, more division and more guilt. Anyway, because think about this. God has already promised each and every person who believes in faith, salvation from every sin, you'll be delivered from it. Right? You will be a perfect person because you have faith in His Son. Better yet, you'll have an eternal inheritance in a world that doesn't suck so much like this one does. And better yet, even in this world, you'll have daily provision, everything you need. Every door will be open for you that you need to have opened. And yet, what do we do? We exhaust our minds. We strive for security. We strive to make ourselves feel right before God, because every morning we wake up or every evening we're sitting there, I haven't really done enough today. I haven't... I didn't read my Bible, I didn't do this, that, and every other thing, and we're piling ourselves on a load of guilt. Why are doing all the devil's work for him? You see, we do all this. We know God provides for us daily, right? Literally every bird out there isn't storing up food like we do, but yet they are fine. I even sit here and think in my 20s about how I have to prepare for my retirement. I've got 40 years to die before I even hit that point. Why am I so worried about it? But you see, I just do. I even know that salvation is by faith and yet constantly I'm worried about whether I am worthy enough to be loved by God. Yes, I know the truth, but yet the worry continues to be there. Because you see the moment that circumstances shake us. When we're going good with God, we kind of understand, oh yeah, I'm saved by faith. But then suddenly I step into a sin, a sin that particularly convicts me and I'm like, what do I have to do to make it right, God? As though He's never sent His Son to die in my place. You see, they shake us, these circumstances, and they make us rely upon our own riches, our own righteousness, our own works, our own resources, all these things. and we work ourselves to the bone to manufacture a security that was already freely offered to us. Just like Jacob, we go the long detour, piling on shame and guilt when we don't even need to. The hardest thing about the gospel is that it's so easy. The good news of Jesus. see so often we wrongly think that God is faithful to his promises because of something good in us, but we need to remember this 2 Corinthians 1 verse 2. For all the promises of God find their yes in Him. Him not being you, being Jesus. So you see the answer, the reason why God is faithful to his promises, why he says yes, I will fulfill that to each and every one of us, is not because he's looking at you, it's because he's looking at his son. So every promise is secure, not because of what we've done, but because of what Jesus has done for us. So when I pray for vision, when I pray even for, know, God just helped me to preach this Sunday. I'm not saying it because God, I'm gonna do a really good job, but you might just need to finish off the top, right? You know, let's do a little bit extra. I am hopeless. I can do nothing. Seriously, I'm sitting up here talking for a couple of minutes. What could that possibly do to change you guys? You guys are reading news articles all the day you don't get changed to that. What am I gonna do? but I pray in a God who's powerful and who has promised that his Holy Spirit will work. And so you see, we receive these blessings by realizing we are unworthy of them and then trusting in the one who makes us worthy, trusting in the one who died in our place, who took all the unworthiness and then gave us his perfection, his righteousness, his worthiness to inherit the blessings. So you see, you cannot... earned the blessed life, the perfect life by working. It's freely given. Don't have to pay anything, don't have to do anything, just have to trust in faith. Sin doesn't get you to the blessed life quicker, it just takes you on a long painful detour. So if you want to do it, go have fun, but don't say I didn't tell you so. But anyway, moving on to our third point. You see, We are striving here. We want this blessing of God, but the sinful bent in us says, well, I can lie about it. can build up these lies and make it look like I've got the blessed life. Because in reality, I know I'm actually never gonna get there and I know I don't have it, but I got to at least portray it to other people. And we think if we keep that up, maybe eventually, know, fake it till you make it, right? And you'll get there. Doesn't actually happen. And better yet, we work and work and work and work to try and make this perfect life when realizing it's on offer freely. So seeing these truths in our life, seeing how we all do these things brings conviction. But this story also shows how God redeems our weaknesses. You're not just left with the fact that you guys are doing a very good job. I want you to observe something. Throughout scripture, there are two types of offspring that the world has. There are children of the devil and then children of God. Now, the shocking discovery is God's chosen people aren't actually all that different from the godless nations. So, all the people, all the believers who walk around, they're the unworthy ones, they're the godless ones. But surely the ones in the people of God, they're better, right? And here you have a people, a family picked out by God from among all the families in all the world. And they're just like everyone else. What is up with that? Well, here is a very important truth. You see, the godless nations, unbelievers, they act like their father, the devil, by running away and rebelling. But here is the hard thing. As Jesus speaks to His own people, the chosen people of God, John 8 44, you're of your father the devil, your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. And when he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. So the devil, Satan, whatever name you want to give him is characterized by two different things, lies and murder. Basically, he'll try and feed a bunch of lies to you and if that doesn't work, he's just going to try and kill you basically. you see the funny thing is every character in our story mirrors one of these traits. Rebecca and Jacob, they act liars and deceivers. Okay, apparently they're children of devil as well. Esau expresses a deep desire to murder his brother, murderer. Maybe Isaac's a little bit redeemable. Granted, he doesn't necessarily fall into one of these two traits, but the whole reason he wants to give the blessing to Esau is because he likes his cooking and because he's his favorite son. He's completely not paying attention to the fact that he is not that Jacob's that great, but he's so pretty bad too. All right. He's not exactly a star candidate. But anyway, you see, the people of God do not have any better morality than the people outside them. We are no better than them. We are all children of the devil. We are just as broken as the world around us. Because you see, every single person falls under the wrath of God. Don't we already know this? Romans 3 23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Okay, so we're all children of the devil. But Matt, you said there are two children, there are two offsprings, there's children of God. So if we're all children of the devil, kind of by nature, how exactly does that all work out? How do we become part of God's family then? Galatians 4 verse four to five, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son Jesus, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that this is the point part, so that we might receive adoption as sons. So you see, we enter into God's family, not because we worked for it, not because you were born into it, through adoption. What does adoption require? You've got to make yourself look as cute as possible, but the reality is, unless the parent chooses you, you're staying in the orphanage, all right? So God, and this is the most important thing, God isn't gathering good people into his family. One, because there is none. All of us fall under the wrath of God. So what is he doing? He is taking bad people and turning them into his children. Genesis shows God blessing people who in no way deserve it. Purely why? Because he just chooses to. And you see, this is the most amazing thing. There are so many philosophies, so many religions, so many ideas out there about how to live this perfect life. Because all of us know we need to change. We're not quite perfect yet. We need to change on the inside. And so, so many different things are offered up for us. You know, don't know, pump iron 24 seven and you'll finally be the person you want to be. Finally find the right job. Finally have the right retirement plan. just pick the right God or religion or whatever. Right, go and... fly off to Thailand and go worship Buddha for a while. I don't know. All these different options out there. But you know why none of them work? because none of them are like this and because the reality is the God behind all of them doesn't have any power because they're dead. There is no God but the one God. You see, all the other gods will say, again, fake gods, but all the options out there will say, come, come work hard enough and maybe you'll change. This is the difference of the Bible. Come, because reality is you can do anything on your own. Come to the person who can actually do something. for you. This is why God doesn't make you a part of the equation. That's why He says you don't actually have to do anything except believe in me and faith because you can't do anything. Every other religion, every other philosophy out there will say, work hard and maybe you'll make something of yourself. That will never work because they all deny the reality of who we are, which is people who hate God. But God says, come as you are, lay it before me and I'll redeem the mess you have made. And so you see this comes around to this point, okay, we believe in faith in God, I've become a child of God. So what do we do now? Children of God, verse, fourth point where it is, children of God go to God. Now you see, the devil's great trick isn't that he creates something that is enticing to us. You see, the devil can't actually make anything. God is the one that created nothing out of something. He's the one who made all creation. The devil can only tempt you to take what God has made and misuse it. Use it for ends that it wasn't made for. You see, and this is the reality, Satan is perfectly happy for you to enjoy the things God has made. He doesn't care about that. As long as you don't acknowledge that God is the one who made them and thank Him for that. As long as you're not grateful to Him, as long as you don't go to Him. Just don't do that, he says. Because you see, he doesn't care that Jacob had the blessing. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And better yet, God decreed he's gonna get the promise. Esau's not gonna get it. And he says, all right, well, that's gonna happen. Well, I can sure take him on a tour that makes sure it's gonna be as painful and shameful and guilt-filled as possible. And so you see, that is what he does. He allows us to enjoy the gifts of God as long as we don't realize they're our gifts from God. See, I've already said, we all naturally seek this blessed life because we have this knowledge inside of us that there's something more. But true wisdom tells us this, that we are not to pursue the blessed life by going around God. But you see, we always do this because we want the blessing of God without the obligations and the commitments that that places on us. You see, God brings us into this blessed life, this life with Him, because reality, right? You were made by God. So, God forbid, the perfect life is actually in relationship with Him. And He brings us into this life purely through faith. Not performance, not bribery, right? The reality is, going to church, going to Sunday school, giving lots of money to charity, none of that can strong arm God. The only people He lets into His family are those who believe in faith. Those who accept that without Him, they were cursed to a life of eternity in hell. And that is only Jesus who can save them. So you have been made a child of God through faith in this Jesus who brings you back to God. but now you can't go back to living under the devil's commands. You see, we can't now say, believe Jesus in faith and yet continue to try and get him out of the equation every single time. Now as children of God, what do we do? We go directly to Him and we obey Him, knowing that where He is, that is where true blessing lies. And this is the part we really don't like. When we come to God, we find out... He actually doesn't do the whole free range parenting thing. He actually cares enough about his children, as I said, to make them into people who are worthy. So you see, he requires submission and he places us under his authority. But you see, his authority is for our benefit, not tyrant. The dude literally sent his only son down to die in your place. Do you really think he's then suddenly, I've got you under here, now I can do whatever I want with you. He was your God, he could already do whatever he wanted with you, right? But no, he brings you under his submission because under his boundaries, his rules, his commands, his guidance, you can actually live the life you were meant for. He will show you the right way because he is a loving father. And so you understand, right? We are called to obey this God, unlike Jacob, who wanted to do everything. He just wanted the blessing without God in it. We understand we want the blessing, but we want God with it. But what happens when inevitably we screw it up? Because we always will. When you inevitably fall and sin, remember, you don't fall out of His love. Remember, Jacob still got the blessing. Jacob was still in relationship with God to the very end. And trust me, he does get a bit better, but he's really not that perfect by the end of the story. He's still a messed up human being. God chose Jacob not because he was worthy, but because he chose to. We are always to remember that. God chose you guys not because of what you have done, but because he chooses to love you. That is the only reason why. So you see the blessed life means having a loving father who controls everything and cares for you. It is a life of absolute contentment and peace in this world, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Because you have someone on your side who was powerful, and who cares. That is the blessed life. He plans every day. And so when you end every day, you can sit there and say, didn't go how I planned, but it doesn't matter because the one who loves me is in control and his plan happened. So look, this won't seem like a conclusion because I'll kind of wrap up in communion. That will go into a sec, but let's just wrap up and pray. Father. Lord, you call us to the blessed life. Lord, you started with the blessed life. We were with you in Eden, in paradise. We are the ones that left blessing behind. We are the ones that fell under the curse because we chose it. And now Lord, we live under it and we see we don't want it. This world isn't worth it. Anything we achieve here, it's forgotten in the next generation. Lord, any legacy is wiped out and all legacies will be wiped So you see, Lord, we need a hope that goes beyond this life. We need a hope of a God who can fix our situation. And Lord, we know that it can only be found when we are honest with you about who we really are. When you're honest with ourselves about the fact we're actually not that impressive, we're actually not that much. But when we come and express that before you, Lord, you take us in and you make us someone. You make us a child of the God of the universe. You give us rest in every moment, but yet Lord help us to accept it and help us to humbly and graciously and lovingly and excitedly submit ourselves under your authority. And will we do it in this week? In Jesus name we pray, amen.