The Stories That Shape Us

Some of you walked in here today carrying a relationship. You know that one. The one that's been so badly broken and has been so long that you really stop thinking that it can be fixed at all. And maybe it's a sibling, maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a child that's stopped responding to messages and doesn't call you anymore. Maybe it's a friendship that ended so badly and nothing has been done to try to redeem it. We've gotten comfortable with it. It's been so long, we've made peace with that pain. And you know what? We just tell ourselves, "This is just how it's going to be." But underneath all that, there's these questions that we don't allow ourselves to ask. Is it really too late? Is the gap really too wide? Is that history, that bad history, really too far? Look, here's what I want to tell you today, and some of you may not believe me, but that relationship is not beyond repair. And I want to prove it to you. And I want to use the story of one of the most dysfunctional families in the Old Testament. And when we get to the end of that story, I think what you're going to find is the moral that we're going to learn is this, that God can restore the most difficult relationships. Hey, my name is Don Kawahigashi, and I'm the campus pastor at our Grapevine campus. And man, I love that you guys are here on this Saturday night. You've joined us at the perfect time, because we're starting a brand-new series called The Stories That Shape Us. Nine weeks, nine foundational stories, stories that are powerful, stories you might have overlooked, but stories that are so important, that really have something really important to say about how we live our lives. And today, we're going to take a look at some family drama. Perhaps some of the biggest family drama that you could find in scripture. And given the competition, that is saying a lot, because there's a lot of families with a lot of drama as you read this book called the Bible. And the family I want to introduce you to, the patriarch of this family is a guy by the name of Abraham. And Abraham, he had a covenant. God made a covenant with him, a promise to him, that a great nation will come from him. His descendants would eventually become the nation of Israel. And Abraham has a son by the name of Isaac. And Isaac, in turn, has twin sons, they're not identical twins but twins nonetheless, by the name of Jacob and Esau. And the story of these two brothers is one of the richest stories in the Bible. It's complicated. But here's the thing. Their story is one of the most real human stories in all of scripture. And their story is going to unfold, as we're going to see, in kind of three parts. And when we reach the end of their story, we're going to find something really surprising. A lesson that we can all learn, especially when it comes to those relationships. That you don't have to wait for the other person to change first. That particular assumption, the other person needs to make the move, that assumption is what keeps this relationship broken. Because, yes, I get it. They're the ones that hurt me. They owe me an apology. I'm not making the move. They need to make the move. And what we're going to find in this story is that there's one character, a surprising character in this story, who turns that upside down, and his name happens to be Esau. And by the end of this, you'll understand why. So, let's get to the story. Rebekah. Rebekah's mom in this story. So Isaac's dad and Rebekah's mom. And Rebekah's pregnant, and she notices something weird about this pregnancy, because it feels like there's two people wrestling inside of her. So she does the reasonable thing. She inquires of God, "What is happening here?" If you take a look in your listening guide, there is Genesis 25:22-23, and it says this, "The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, 'Why is this happening to me?' So she went to inquire of the Lord. 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.'" That last statement, "The older will serve the younger," that must have had Rebekah scratching her head. Because in that culture, in that time, the oldest son, the number one son, got everything. He got the birthright, he got the blessing, he got the inheritance. He was the one that would carry the family's honor and carry the family name.So the older serving the younger must have bewildered her. That goes against everything that she expected. So we fast-forward. Now it's time for the birth to happen, and with twins, whoever comes out first, that's the older one. So Esau comes out first, and the Bible describes him as red and hairy. Not the most flattering description, a debut in the great book called the Bible. But he comes out first, then Jacob follows him, and Jacob is actually grabbing at Esau's heel, almost like he's trying to pull him back in. So, "I don't want you to go first. I need to be first." And that's why they gave him the name Jacob, because Jacob literally means heel grabber. It was also slang in that time. You call someone Jacob if they're like a con man, a scam artist, a deceiver, someone who will trip you up by grabbing your heel. And we'll find he's going to live up to his name. Now this family, like I said, there was drama. There were some weird family dynamics here, because Isaac, Dad, he played favorites. He favored Esau, the firstborn. Esau was an outdoorsman. He was a hunter. And Isaac, Dad loved that wild game. Rebecca, on the other hand, favored Jacob. Jacob was a mama's boy, more of a homebody. And so this dynamic of favoritism, man, it wasn't healthy, but no one stopped to ask, "Is this healthy?" They just went with it, and everything gets filtered through this dynamic of favoritism. Then we get to this episode where Esau trades his entire future for a bowl of soup or stew or something. And here's how it goes. Esau, being the hunter, comes back home one day and he's famished, he's starving, and he sees that Jacob happens to be making this red lentil stew, or probably we would've identified it more as a soup. Not sure what that tastes like, but red lentil stew. And so Esau says, "Man, I'm starving. I'm dying. Give me some of that food." And Jacob, the heel grabber, the deceiver, instead of helping out his brother, he sees an opportunity. He says, "You know what? I'll give you some of this if you give me your birthright." You got to understand what a birthright is. It's everything. Again, you're the heir. You carry the family name. You carry the family honor. You get double the inheritance of everyone else. It's definitely this position of honor. And Esau, in one of the most shortsighted decisions in all of human history, says, "What good is a birthright if I'm dying of hunger?" So he sells it for soup, red lentil soup. And it doesn't end there, because Jacob and his mother, Rebecca, they take it a step further. Isaac, he's old. His eyesight is failing. He's pretty much blind. He knows the end is near, and he wants to bless his firstborn, his favorite. A father's blessing was so important in that day and age. And so he calls in Esau and says, "Hey, I want to give you a blessing. But before we do that, why don't you go out, go hunting, get that wild game, make that stew that you know I just love, and then come back in here and I'll give you the blessing." Rebecca overhears this, calls Jacob over and says, "You know what? Here's what we're going to do. Go get some goats. I'm going to make that stew. I'm going to put goat hair on your arms because your brother's hairy and you're not. I'm going to put goat hair on your arms and your neck because your father can't see. He's going to try to feel if you're Esau." Which kind of makes me think, man, if you got to put goat hair to simulate that, that's hairy, man. That is really, really hairy. And on the back of your neck, I can't imagine the back hair on this dude. Yeesh. Then you take him the stew and you get that blessing that's meant for Esau. That's what he does. He goes in there, and Isaac is suspicious. He says, "How'd you get back so soon?" He says, "Man, your voice sounds like Jacob, but come over here." "Oh yeah, you feel like Esau." He's still suspicious, so he just asks him point blank, "Are you really my son, Esau?" And that manWho's literally named the deceiver, looked his blind, dying father right in the face and said, "Yes. Yes, I am." So Isaac proceeds to give him the blessing. That everything binding cannot be taken back blessing from a father. So Esau comes home happy because he's about to get this blessing, and he finds out what happened. And the Bible tells us he cried out loud and bitterly, and he threatens. He doesn't even make a threat, he makes a vow. "I'm going to kill Jacob." This wasn't, like I said, an idle threat. He had the means. He had the motive. This was going to happen. Rebecca, of course, who loves Jacob, gets wind of that and tells Jacob, "You need to go. You need to run. You need to go to my brother's house far away. Just do that until your brother calms down, then you can come back home again." She didn't realize this would be the last time she would ever see Jacob. Does any of this sound familiar? Because most of us have some form of that story somewhere. You know that one where there's someone who went for the short-term win at the cost of the long-term relationship, where those half-truths started just building this wall, where the manipulation became a pattern. Problem with that is everybody in the relationship pays a price. Everybody. And that brings us to this point, that manipulation and deceit damage relationships. In fact, I would say manipulation and deceit destroy relationships. So Jacob ran. He got away, and the Bible follows his story over the next 20 years. But Esau, we don't hear much about him in here and what happened to him. So we're going to pick up the story from Jacob's point of view here and what's going on. But just keep in the back of your mind, Esau's still out there. And so Jacob ends up at Uncle Laban's house. Uncle Laban just happens to have this beautiful daughter by the name of Rachel, and Jacob falls in love with her. And Laban says, "Here's the deal. You want to marry my daughter? You work seven years for me, then you can marry her." So the Bible says this: Jacob worked seven years, but it was like it was just a few days. That's how much he loved Rachel. Who knew? Harlequin romance in the Bible. Kind of similar line. But the wedding day comes, but before we get to that, I do have to introduce another character, because Rachel had an older sister by the name of Leah. Where the Bible describes Rachel as beautiful, Leah gets described as she had weak eyes. I don't know, maybe that's the Bible's way of saying the nicest thing you could say about somebody when there's nothing else to say about somebody. She had weak eyes. And so the wedding happens, the celebration happens, and then they go into the marriage chambers, and I'm not going to tell you what may have happened there. But the next morning, Jacob wakes up and he finds out he really didn't marry Rachel, he married Leah. Good old Uncle Laban pulled this switcheroo on him. In fact, if you take a look at Genesis 29:25 and 27, it says, "When morning came, there was Leah. 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? Why have you Jacobed me?' Laban replied, 'It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Finish this daughter's bridal week, then we'll give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.'" Ha. The dude that put goat skins on his arms and his neck and went in and lied to his father's face, stole that blessing, got deceived, got played, had to work another seven years. You know there's a word for that. It's called consequences, isn't it? But here's the thing about consequences. When God is in the consequences, they're not wasted. Because yes, what Laban did was genuinely wrong. But I think for the very first time in his life, Jacob was on the other side of being manipulated. Jacob was on the other side of being deceived. And this wasn't just consequences that were happening. There's another word for it when God's involved. It's called grace. It's the kind of grace we don't like to talk about. Because grace is not just unicorns and butterflies. It can be uncomfortable, too. And that graceThat grace was working on Jacob. But I know this. He wasn't the only one that the grace was working on. Because you got to think about Esau, who we don't hear much about in this period. Esau, in this 20 years that we don't hear much about him, you got to remember what he was carrying into that. He was robbed twice by his own brother. He was so enraged that he vowed to kill him. That's a big wound, isn't it? That's a big wound to carry around, and there's two choices. If you have such a wound, you could either let it fester into bitterness, or you let God's grace heal it. We don't know what Esau did specifically, but I think the end will tell us something. So I think that grace was still working on Esau as well, even in the silence, even in the absence of an apology, even before Jacob makes his way back home. And that's what happens next. Jacob finally extricates himself from the clutches of Laban, and he makes his way home. But he knows this, going home means he's got to run into his brother. The brother that last time he saw him was going to kill him. So he sends some messengers ahead, and the messengers come back with some concerning news. They said, "Man, we told him you're coming home." And Esau said, "Man, I'm coming to see him, and I'm bringing 400 of my men with me." So Jacob is terrified, and he starts working the angles as a deceiver, a manipulator would do. He starts sending gifts ahead. He says, "I'm going to divide my entourage, so if one gets attacked, the others can run away. I'm going to send my family away. I'm going to put them across the river." He finds himself alone on a riverbank at night, and something extraordinary happens. In Genesis chapter 32, verses 24 through 28, you have to look up on the screen. See, I don't think this one's in your listening guide. "So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wretched. And he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, 'Let me go, for it is daybreak.' But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' The man asked him, 'What is your name?' 'Jacob,' he answered. Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.'" This is such a huge event because that person he was wrestling was essentially the angel of God. This kid is wrestling with God himself, and the heel grabber, the deceiver, was changed in this encounter, as we often are in encounters with God. He walked away with a limp, but he had a new name. He was no longer the deceiver. He was now Israel. And what he walked away with was a heart that had been broken open by the grace of God. Because for the first time in his life, he stopped trying to control the situation through manipulation and deception. Because for the first time, he surrendered. Look, grace isn't always comfortable, like I said. Sometimes grace looks like God wrestling you to the ground and holding you down to the point where you have nothing left to hang on to but God himself. That's grace. It's not punishment. It's probably one of the most intimate things that God can do, to pursue you relentlessly till you know He's everything. That same grace that worked on Jacob, I think, was working on Esau in the what we don't know. Perhaps Esau wrestled with God. Whatever happened, grace worked in the waiting. So we need to do this. We need to allow God's grace to transform our hearts. We need to allow God's grace to change us, so we surrender. I mean, what are you still fighting God over instead of surrendering to Him? Now, the story's not done yet, because Jacob crossed the river a different man. He was no longer working the angles. He sees Esau coming with his 400 men. He's not sending gifts ahead anymore. He's simply just bowing down. He's not negotiating. He's not managing the situation. He's not running those angles. He is out of his own resources, and the only thing he's clutching onto is God.And in Genesis 33:3-4, we see this, "He himself," that's Jacob, "went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. He threw his arms around his neck and kissed him, and they wept." I want you to notice something. What did Esau do? As soon as he saw his brother, the brother that he vowed to kill, he ran to his brother. He didn't approach cautiously with his 400 men and demand an explanation. He just threw his arms around Jacob's neck and they wept. Twenty years of deceit. Twenty years, a death threat. Twenty years, stolen blessings, stolen birthright, and it ends with two brothers crying in each other's arms. I know what you're thinking. "So, of course, he did. Jacob's a changed man, right?" How would Esau know that? There's no Facebook post he can look at. Esau ran before he knew anything about what happened with Jacob. He didn't run because Jacob was changed. He ran because he had changed. Something happened. He took a step. He took off running. And in the silence, there was no apology that came, there was no reckoning that happened, but God did some work in him, and the posture that he took was already decided, and I believe, long before Jacob made his way home. You don't have to wait for the other person to change first. Esau didn't. He had already forgiven Jacob. So we need to pursue reconciliation even after deep hurts. We need to pursue reconciliation no matter how badly it hurts. You know what that looks like in real life? That's that phone call. You need to make that phone call that you've been putting off for the last three years. You need to have that conversation that you've just avoided time and time and time again. Maybe you need to write that letter even though there's no guarantee that it'll ever be acknowledged. And look, if there's genuine toxicity or safety involved here, that reconciliation actually may mean something different. It may mean you actually forgiving them, yet still maintaining boundaries that need to be maintained. Doesn't always mean the relationship gets restored to what it was. But what it's all about is releasing that weight, that burden, that bitterness, closing up that wound. So I want you to consider this. In which relationship do you need reconciliation, need to choose reconciliation over continued hurt? I want to challenge you with something. When you think of that relationship, whatever it is, I need you just to do one thing. Make one phone call. Have one conversation. Write one letter. Just one. You pick which one. Because once you do, it's exactly like Esau. You just started to run towards the other person. Let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, man, this is a hard story. I know it. Not because it's ancient, but because it hits home with so many of us. I mean, the favoritism, the manipulation, the wounds that go farther back than we can even remember. Those relationships that we've written off, the people we've hurt, the people who've hurt us. Lord, we don't come to you today for just easy answers. We come carrying this honest weight of family and relational drama. But Lord, here's what we ask of you. We ask that you do only what you can do. To wrestle with us until we stop fighting. Till we're at the end of ourselves and all we have is you, because that's when we're open to your grace. To work in the silence of years maybe, the years we've been waiting for the other person to make a move. And I know if you're sitting under the weight of that type of relationship right now, that burden right now, a relationship that feels beyond repair, I want you to picture Esau running to his brother, because that's what grace looks like. Lord, I know you worked in his life. He didn't document it, but you worked in his life, and I want that same grace you gave him for us right now. For those of us that need to start running, Lord, I pray you give them courage to take that step even before they know how it'll be received. And I guarantee you, it makes all the difference in the world. It's in Jesus' name we pray all these things. Amen.