Guilt & Gifts

Well. Good morning again. We are glad that you are joining us for worship this morning. My name is Pastor Ben. I’m one of the pastors here. Glad that you are joining us for this Genesis Part four series. Now, if you’ve been with us, you know that we’ve been going through the book of Genesis, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, quite literally, word by word as we’ve been walking through. And we’re continuing on in that with our character Jacob today and what we’re going to see today, if you were with us last week, is that Jacob faced one of his fears, his his father in law. If you and if you weren’t there, it doesn’t necessarily matter what for the storyline were to be able to continue to move forward. But he faced a fear. He ran away from his father in law. And we’ll see that in just a moment. But today, he’s actually going to face even greater fear. And so with that in mind, that that idea of fear, I want to begin with this question for you. What are you afraid of? Everybody has something. And one thing that’s might be unique about this service in particular, to it being an 11:00 and me being the preacher is some of you are wondering right now, am I going to see the kickoff?

And you know what I don’t know. We’re going to see. But we all have fears, right? We all have fears. a few of them. I looked into it this last week, doing a little bit of homework for this and finding out a list of 100 different fears. Here’s a few of them. Arachnophobia, right? The fear of spiders. I have no idea how to say this one, but, the fear of snakes. Anybody afraid of spiders and snakes out there? Yeah, okay. I mean, those creepy crawly things. Acrophobia, the fear of heights. How about this one? Glass of phobia? Fear of public speaking. I mean, right now, if I was to grab one of the handheld mikes right now and just come and grab someone, pull them up here and be like, hey, why don’t you just share about yourself? Like, who’s like, heart would be beating out of their chest and it’d be, okay, I’ll go get you. And I’m just kidding. I mean, that’s that’s a genuine fear. Sometimes they say that people fear that more than they fear death. Now, this one’s unique. Mono phobia. This one is not a fear of any parent that I know. This is actually a desire of their heart. Be alone. I need to go to the bathroom. What are you like? You’re just there for 30 minutes. So just not a phobia is not an issue. Act of phobia. The fear of failure. I think we all have that to certain degree. Maybe it kind of be fearful to try certain things.

We’re going to put ourselves out there far and away. The next one is my favorite, because there are people among us that live with this fear, and because of it, they can enjoy birthday parties. Glover phobia. The fear balloons. It would be amazing if I had a balloon drop right now. We’d find out very quickly right when someone just heads right towards an exit. Well, they have that fear. The one that was most interesting though, as I was looking at this list of 100 different fears, was this fear phobia? The fear of God? We’re going to see here today that there’s something to that. There’s a rightful fear, there’s a wrongful fear. But the reality is we all do live with fears one way or the other. And actually, in our society right now, I think we’re we’re very fearful for society, whether it’s snakes or heights or public speaking or balloons. A lot of us are fearing the future more so than ever right now, it’s actually estimated that about 20% of adults in the US suffer with some type of anxiety. The fear of the future, the fear of the unknown, the fear of like, is it all going to work out in your life? In our country, we’re living in the midst of fear. And like I mentioned before, that’s what we’re going to see here today in our story as we’re picking up with our character, Jacob, to to go back to last week, just for a moment, the final verse of last week in chapter 31 of Genesis, you said this early in the morning, Laban, that is Jacob’s father in law, the one who had chased him down and pursued him, who had, confrontation with him.

Finally they made some type of peace. Laban is about to head back to his home. Jacob’s going to head back towards the Promised Land that God told him to go to, leaving kisses his grandchildren and his daughters. He blesses them and he returns home and Jacob had to breathe a sigh of relief, no longer fearful 20 years, 20 years that he had served underneath him, and finally he is away from him. The next thing that we see happen in 32, verse one and two, it says this Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, this is the camp of God. So he named the place Maha Naaman to camp. So this mean two camps. We’re going to see in a moment why he’s naming this place. Two camps are a bit prophetic in the way that he’s naming it. What’s interesting about this two is that up to this point, Jacob has had encounters with God. He’s heard from God. He saw the ladder. He saw the stairway from heaven to earth. He heard from God. Just in the last chapter where God said, go back to the Promised Land.

Go back to where I called you from with your family. And now he sees angels not hearing from God directly, but seeing God’s servants, these messengers of God, these angels, almost as if to remind him that God is with him, which would hopefully instill a sense of courage and boldness. But we’re going to see in just a moment that he becomes struck with fear. See, Jacob knows where he’s going. It says this Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of fear. The country of Edam. Now, it’s been a little while since we’ve seen Esau, but we’re going to see why this is such a big deal. So to remind you a little bit, just a little bit of geography here. So at the top of the map in the north there, Haran, that’s where you spent 20 years, didn’t marry one, maybe two, and now really kind of four wives, because not only does he have two wives, but he’s also had children with their maid servants. So essentially four wives, 11 sons, one daughter. And we’re going to see later on in this text that he’s acquired quite a mass of wealth in livestock.

And he’s now traveling back down, and we’re at 0.5 there on that map, and he’s moving back towards Beersheba. But he knows as he heads back there that even though 20 years, two decades have passed, that there’s still someone that he’s going to encounter. His older brother. And this is significant. He sends instructions with his messengers and he tells them to say this. This is what you are to say to my lord Esau, your serve. What your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheeps, sheep and goats, male and female servants. Now I am sending this message to my Lord that I may find favor in your eyes. You can hear him sucking up, right, my Lord, like a little brother talks to their older brother that way. My lord, my liege. Like what can I get for you, sir? Like. But that’s what we see here, that even in this little lady that he is trying in whatever way he can to already suck up to his older brother. And there’s a reason for this. He’s trying to in his even says right there at the tag at the very end I’m that I may find favor in your eyes.

I’m giving you the little update. Here’s here’s a few sentence update about the last two decades of my life. I’m coming back home. I want to find favor in your eyes. And if you don’t remember, let’s just go there for just a moment. Why does he want to find favor in Esau? His eyes? Well, he lied to Esau. He stole from him. Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of stew that Jacob gave him. Then Jacob, later in life lied to their father to steal the blessing that really belong to Esau. A double portion of the inheritance. And when all that went down, this was his source. Response. Back in Genesis 27, Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him. And Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are approaching. That is to say, when dear old dad dies, then I will kill my brother Jacob. Now this is the second reason that Jacob goes off to Haran. The first is that his parents told him to. This is the second. The second reason is not only did Mom and Dad say, I need to go here, he needs to get away from Esau because Esau quite literally wants to kill him. And we’re going to see that as we move forward in our text. So he sends those messengers out. The messengers come back and they return with a message. You can imagine the anxiety that Jacob’s maybe waiting with, okay, I sent the messengers. I said that he was my lord. I’m his servant. And so like, hopefully this is going to be a good message coming back.

This is what they come back with. When the messengers return to Jacob, they said, we went to your brother Esau and now he’s coming to meet you. That’d be nice, right? Just full stop. No. Now. And 400 men are with him. I mean, it’s hard to relate to, like that sinking feeling of, like, not only. Not only is your brother who wants to murder you coming, but he has what? In the Old Testament, when we see this number 400 men, that means a militia. He is coming. He wants to murder you. And he has an army. The thing that Jacob quite literally might fear the most in his life. It was one thing when it was Laban. It was one thing when it was his father in law. And he fled and he ran away without without having a conversation with him. Now he’s he’s coming back home. And the thing that he fears the most confrontation with his brother now just went up a whole notch. What about you? When have your fears come to face you? Because a lot of times we might phrase it like, when are you going to face your fears? You know you’re going to go face them, you’re going to work up courage, you’re going to work a boldness. You’re going to you’re going to face those balloons and you’re going to be brave. But every now and again, you walk into a room and you flip on a light and there’s a spider, or you do something wrong.

You break a lamp, you pick on your sibling a little bit too much, and mom utters those words, just wait until your father gets home. Guess what? You’re not facing your fears. Your fears are coming to face you. A couple of years ago, I was, living down in Texas, and at the time we were renting a house. It was also on two acres. And, so there’s some wildlife around. I’d mow the lawn that morning, went out, ran some errands, came back to the house, just walking up to walk to the front door because there’s an a detached garage. And as I approach the door, there’s potted plants on either side of the door, and I see from behind one potted plant quickly over to the other, a four foot snake slither right over the threshold of the door. I didn’t go out that morning thinking I am going to face a snake today. You know though, my fear of a snake being right there next to my house near my wife and four month old child, you know, now I have to do something. Now I have to face this fear because this fear came to face me. So I went to the garage, grabbed an ax, and I went.

And I cut the head off the snake, which was likely the most manly thing I’ve ever done or ever will do in my life. But even still, I cut it off and the head is 99% off. There’s still just a little bit, it’s still a little bit attached. And so I’m cleaning it up, putting it in a trash bag. You know, the nerves still go after you kill something like that, and it squirms and go, you know, like there’s still some fear in me. Even though this thing is dead, deader than ten in our life. Fears have a way of facing us, whether we like it or not. A phone call comes late at night from a family member. And, you know, whatever this is about at this hour, this isn’t going to be good. You get called into your boss’s office not expecting that you are sitting in a classroom and you’re called down to the principal’s office. Sometimes fears just come and find us, and then we have to figure out what are we going to do in the midst of facing this fear, fear that we didn’t expect coming our way? And that’s what’s happening with Jacob. Not only is it his brother, but now here I’m Elisha. 400 men are coming towards him and and his family, and we see it’s right here in the text that he is in great fear and distress. Jacob then divided the people who are with him into two camps, and the flocks and herds, and the camels as well.

He thought, If Esau comes and attacks one camp, the other camp that is left may escape. It’s kind of hard to fathom dividing out your children into two different camps with this child in camp and this child, and can be and your goods and those that are with you, your loved ones, and all of your possessions, thinking that there is a chance that one of those camps is going to be completely wiped out. And this is showing us just how devastated by fear Jacob is. He is. He’s trying to figure it out, because what we see is that Jacob is a smart guy. He’s he wheels and deals his schemes and tries to figure things out. We’ve seen that in him. And so he’s trying to make some sort of plan here because he knows he can’t run. He has to go where God called him to go. So he has to go through this difficult conflict. He can’t avoid it yet. That’s what we all try to do for the most part, that when we when it comes to conflict, in particular when it comes to relational conflict, that 85, 90% of us, we just want to avoid it all together.

We want to sweep it underneath the rug. We want to just avoid any relational conflict whatsoever. We just want to keep the peace. We’re really not interested in making peace. We just want everyone to be okay and happy and avoid conflict. And then there’s those rare few that 10%, perhaps that light conflict. But outside of those that like and don’t like conflict, there’s different types of conflict. There’s different stages that have to be set for there to be conflict. They’re very simple. When you think about it. There’s really three options. Number one, they are guilty. And even if you don’t like conflict, this is the best kind of conflict when the other other person is 100% guilty, when it is their fault and you’re like scot free, 100% squeaky clean. They wronged you. You’re totally in the right. Oh, that is the best kind of conflict, right? Because you have all the chips, you can hang it over their head. They have to come. They’re guilty. They have to apologize. And then you get to decide whether or not you’re going to graciously forgive them. The second kind is actually probably makes up the majority of all of our conflict because we’re all sinners.

That, in fact, we’re both guilty. That’s what we just saw last week with Laban and with Jacob. And neither one of these guys is perfect. Neither one of them is totally in the right. Jacob ran away and didn’t address it and didn’t have a conversation with leaving. So in doing so, trying to deceive him. And Laban had changed his wages ten times, and also through a series of events, had his older daughter sleep with him instead of his younger daughter. I mean, he’s tricked him. They’ve deceived each other. They’re both guilty. And so they butt heads and you see that last week. The final one. That’s even if you like conflict, even if you say that you’re confrontational person, that you like it. I doubt that there is anyone that likes confrontation or relational conflict when they are completely wrong. When you are the guilty party, I don’t see anybody running into conflict saying, hey, I’m guilty and it’s totally my fault because there’s this like pride inside of us, or self-preservation. Like, I don’t want to admit that I’m wrong. I don’t want to have to humble myself. I don’t want to have to. Like, that’s just so hard. Where?

Well, if they can admit they’re a little wrong, too, then I’m going to feel a little bit better. Even in the second one, the hardest part of being in when you’re both guilty is who’s going to say at first? Who’s going to admit it? What Jacob is approaching here is the third type. He’s guilty. He is guilty. Guilty. He stole from his brother. He lied to his father and he ran away. He didn’t address it with his brother. He didn’t apologize. And now it’s coming back. Now, this fear of all this guilt that he had put off for two decades is now finding its way back to him. So we saw he’s going to do three things. He already did one, he divides his camp. The second thing he does is he prays. And Jacob prayed, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac. Lord, you’ve said to me, go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper. I am unworthy of all of the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two camps. Save me. I pray from the hands of my brother Esau, for I’m afraid he will come and attack me. And also the mothers with their children. But you have said, I will surely make you prosper, and I will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.

So a few unique things that a Jacob is doing here. Number one, he he gets, he gets a few things right. So we got to give him some credit. He’s praying to God. He’s praying to the one and only true God, the God of his grandfather Abraham, his father Isaac, and his God, the one who come and talk to him who’s made promises with him. And then he recounts God’s promises back to God. Hey you! You promised. You promised. That you’re going to lead me. That you promise I should go back to my relatives. So you’re going to you’re going to be with me, right? And then he shows us humility. He’s showing humility that really, he should be showing Esau, but he’s also showing it to God that he’s unworthy. And he recognizes that even over the course of 20 years where he labored for his wives and then he labored for his father in law for 20 years, he recognizes that even in all of that work that he did, all that he amassed really belongs to God. It wasn’t by the sweat of his brow that he earned all that stuff, because he knows that when he left home, he had a stick in his hand, and that’s it. And now he’s coming with two camps of people, a whole lot of livestock, 11 sons and a daughter and four wives. And God has given them all of this. So he does get that right. He recognizes this all has come from the hand of God. And then he shares with God that he’s afraid. He shares his emotion. He shares his heart, I’m afraid.

And he’s calling to save me. But what we don’t see here is any admittance of guilt. Sadly, me from Esau from he saw. Why? Because he saw wants to kill you. But why? I think that’s where he might have missed it. Here. Alongside that, he also uses this phrase when he recounts God’s promises there at the beginning and the end. He uses a phrase surely you, I surely make you prosper. I will surely make you prosper, that God told him, I will make you prosper. But what’s really interesting, if you actually go back to the promises that God gave Abraham, the promises that God gave Isaac and the promises that God directly gave to Jacob, is that you will not find the phrase, I will make you prosper, coming from the lips of God to any of their ears. Now it sounds very similar. God does say, I’m going to be with you. I’m for you, that the whole world is going to be blessed through you, that you are going to have descendants that can’t even be counted. He does say those things. So there’s 1 or 2 things that it’s happening here. Either Jacob is just summing up all those other promises with the phrase I will make you prosper, or he is mis remembering the promises of God. Which I believe that’s where we get ourselves into trouble. That when we are afraid, what our our prayers like, and if our prayers are going to be the one true God, that’s great. If our prayers are going to be humble and recognize that God has given us all that is in our hands, that’s great. But then if we’re going to go to God and recount his promises to us that he’s never said.

Well, we’re setting ourselves up for failure. If we go to God, God, God, I, I’m sick, and I know that you’ve promised in your word that you’re going to heal me. Every promise at God, there’s a relational distress in my life, and there’s division, and I. I can’t seem to mend it myself. But you promise you’re going to mend all relations to make them right? It’s never promised that. Too often we start to fabricate our own promises and then try to impose them on God. But God has promised that he will be with you, that he is for you, that he loves you. He’ll never forsake you, that you need not fear anything, that you have a God who is with you. And that’s what Jacob needs to know here in these moments, is that God has been with them for the last 20 years, that God is going to be with them in this confrontation with his brother, but that does not necessarily mean that it’s going to work out exactly how Jacob thinks it’s going to work out. The same is true for us when we face our fears or when our fears come to face us. God does not promise that it’s going to work out just how we hope, but he does promise that he’s going to be with you through all of it. So he does three things I mentioned. He divides his people into two. He prays to God, and then he sends gifts to his brother again. He’s a schemer. He’s trying to figure out, how can I do this in my own effort? How can I do this in my own strength to try to make my brother happy so he finds favor. So he spent the night there, and from what he had with him, he selected a gift for his brother.

So he thought of his dear old brother, Lord Esau. And he came up with this. You know what he might like? He might like 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows and temples, and 20 female donkeys and ten male donkeys. He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servant, go ahead of me and keep some space between the herds. So thinking to himself, what is my brother want? He decided 550 livestock. We get a snapshot here. Into just how guilty Jacob is feeling. He’s not just sending messengers to suck up and say, Lord, he saw anymore. He knows, Lord, he saw us coming with 400 men. I have to do something to put this fire out, to calm him down, to try to make him a little bit happier, to give it a little bit of context, because 550 livestock, that’s just kind of hard for us to relate to, you know, here and now. But in modern day, if you were to take the average price of each of these animals and add it all up for all 550, this would add up to just under $600,000 worth of livestock that he’s sending his brother. Which is to say that he feels indebted over a half million dollars to his brother at this point, that he is that fearful. And this also, as we recognize, this is a portion, a portion of what God has given Jacob up into this point.

For a lie, for tricking his brother out of a birthright and lying to his father for blessing for those two things, that’s how much he thinks those are worth. What about you? How much are you willing to pay for a lie? How much does our sin really cost us for? Someone that’s close to me. I share with me that a good number of years ago. The thing that they loved to love to do above all else, their thing as a student was to be in place, to be in dramas, to be in musicals. And that a family member of theirs said, yes, okay, it’s your senior year. It’s a special play. I’m definitely going to be there. Nothing’s going to get in the way of it whatsoever. I’m going to be there. And then they miss the play. But on top of missing the play, the next time the two interact. It is rather than apologize, pull out a crisp $100 bill. Try to hand it over as if to say, are we good? Me not showing up the way that I thought I was going to show up. Me not doing the thing I said I was going to do, it’s about 100 bucks of a lie, right? How often do we do the same thing? There’s something that God has called us to do and we don’t do it. And then we just we try to butter up the other person. We try to lavish them with some kind of love or some kind of gift. Husbands, you screw up one way or the other and you can tell how much you screwed up. Is it flowers or is it a diamond? Right? And it points to the fact of walking. What was it?

But it just doesn’t work, does it? That when there’s relational damage, when there is guilt on one party’s part, there’s simply just giving a gift doesn’t make it all go away. But that’s what Jacob is trying to do here. He’s just trying to cover it up. So he gives instruction, send it to servants on the way. He instructed one of them in the lead. When my brother Esau meets you and asks, who do you belong and where are you going? And who owns all these animals in front of you? Then? Then you are to say they belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift to my Lord Esau. And he is coming behind us, still sucking up to his older brother. And he continues on and he instructs the second, the third, and all the others who follow the herds. You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him, and be sure you say, make sure he knows who it’s from. Your servant Jacob is coming behind us, for he thought, I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead. When I see him, perhaps he will receive me. It’s interesting, if you look at that phrase, pacify him with gifts. Because a literal translation would actually be I am seeking to cover his face with these gifts, as if to say, I want to cover his face with these 550 livestock, all these animals, so he can no longer see my guilt. I want him to see all these presents, all this stuff I’m going to lavish on him.

He’s going to see all this immense wealth, and then he won’t be able to see my guilt anymore. But like I mentioned before, the problem is that gifts don’t take guilt away. That when there’s relational damage, when when trust has been broken, when there has been a lie told, when you have tarnished a relationship, simply giving a gift doesn’t completely repair it. And we can all resonate with that. I imagine when someone has sinned against you and they simply come to offer you a gift, some sort of peace offering, it doesn’t change the past. It’s happened is still is fresh in your mind. Or if you’re on the other side of it and you are the one that sin, you can just be grasping for straws. Okay, what can I do? What can I give? How can I make this person happy? How can I just make them forget? How can I make it so it didn’t really happen. Now when we look at it this way. It actually raises the question that I asked the beginning. What is it that you are afraid of, but want to actually ask it in a different way? With this in mind that gifts don’t cover up guilt, who is it that you should really fear? And to answer that question, you would have to answer the other question of who is it that you’ve sinned against most? Who is it that’s going to hold you accountable most? Is it your parents? Is it your spouse? Is it your children? Is it your boss? You see, we certainly sin against all those other people who are God’s children. But every single time we sin against any other person, we first sin against God. With every lie, with every bit of lust, with every bit of deceit, with every bit of bending the truth, every single time we hurt other people. But we also are guilty before God.

Jesus actually puts it this way in Matthew chapter ten, he’s telling his disciples who are going to go off and they are going to share the gospel. And he says, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny yet one of them, not one of them, will fall to the ground outside your father’s care, and even the hairs of your head are numbered. So do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. Do not be afraid. Be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of people. Don’t be afraid of other people that you’re going to face. Don’t be afraid of relational conflict and the fallout that might come from it. The one that you should truly be afraid of, the one that you should truly fear and have all and reverence and respect for that we often don’t, is a righteous and holy God. And that when we have that in its proper place, when we have the right respect and the right fear and the right understanding of who he is and his power and His majesty, then every other thing that we might fear pales in comparison to over 500 years ago, there was a reformer by the name of Martin Luther in

the eye. On a Sunday like today, this is a Sunday that we typically would celebrate reformation, the reforming of the church. Because what he did is he discovered through Scripture. It is it’s not by good works, but it’s by faith that we are saved. It’s through grace that we are saved. And so he comes before the Catholic Church that literally wants to kill him. And he says he can do no other because he’s so convicted by Scripture of what it says that he’s willing to face death. That might come from others. But he knew the God, the God who could destroy both body and soul, and he couldn’t go against that God. So he had no fear of men. But we get this wrong. Sometimes we don’t talk about the wrath of God. We don’t talk about the righteous anger of God because it makes us uncomfortable, because we feel like we know how the story ends. Even a few years ago, one of my favorite modern hymns is this hymn called In Christ Alone. And the second verse goes like this. And Christ alone, who took on flesh, fullness of God and helpless babe, this gift of love and righteousness scorned by the ones he came to save. Till on that cross, as Jesus died. Does anyone know?

The phrases the wrath of God was satisfied. For one church body didn’t really like this. And like this idea of a raffle God or an angry God or God who would pour out wrath on his own son. So they wanted to change the term to for the love of God was magnified on the cross, for Jesus died. The love of God was man. And it sounds so right, doesn’t it? The problem is, it’s what Scripture says. That the wrath of God is real, that the wrath of God is not mutually exclusive to the love of God. Actually, they’re intertwined and intermingled. And when we lose the wrath of God, then we no longer appreciate or understand the love of God in its fullness. Because to see, to understand the wrath of God is to understand that much like Jacob, that we are all like him, and that we are approaching Esau, which is our God, and that he is going to face us one day or another, that he going to be called home, that we will breathe our last breath here. We’re going to stand before God, the righteous judge. And that is if it’s about us and our works and our efforts, and we stand before him, just ourselves, that that is a fearful day, because the wrath of a righteous God will be poured out on sinners, that the wrath of God, that is all that it can do, it cannot stand unrighteousness. And it’s so it’s for that very reason that Christ came, that you can’t just wash away the wrath of God because it’s on the cross, the cross that actually should have had your name over it, not Jesus’s.

It’s on that cross that nails went into his hands and not yours. It is a whip that went across his back and not yours. It was his disciples that betrayed him, not you being betrayed. That wrath was poured out because we look at all those things, all the punishment that Jesus endured from the garden to the cross. And we think, oh, that’s how our sin was atoned for. Those things certainly happened, and none of us could bear them. But the thing that we could truly not bear that he did was he bore the wrath of his Heavenly Father, the wrath and the anger that each of us deserved. It’s in light of that wrath. It’s in light of that justice and anger that then we can truly appreciate and sit in all of the gospel. That that tomb was meant to be ours. For every lie, for everything we steal, for every bit of sin in our life, the things that we have done, the things that we have left undone, that God has called us to. What we deserved was death. And it’s not simply just through the gift of Jesus that we have now been reconciled to God, but the gift of his death, where he took that sin and exchanged, now gave us his righteousness. So now it’s not just that God had a satisfactory gift, but now he sees you as righteous. There is no more deficit. There is no more sin against him. There is no more anger. Jacob didn’t have that kind of faith. Jacob wanted to take it into his own hands, and we ought to do the same thing. We can want to do good works, wanted to be good people.

We want to earn our righteousness to God, send gifts on our heads so God will love us. This is what he does. Jacob’s gifts went ahead of him and he spent the night in camp trusting that his gifts might do something. But for us here and now, the way that your head can hit your pillow tonight and that you can have no worry, no fear, no condemnation, is to recognize that you are now righteous in Christ Jesus, that you are his loved and adopted child, and the wrath that you deserved rightly deserved the wrath I rightly deserved has been poured out on Jesus. There is no more doing or earning or gifting to God that need be done because it’s finished in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. So we can have confidence. We don’t have to walk around with fear. We no longer have to fear others, and we no longer have to fear God in trepidation and fear. But we fear him in awe and reverence and respect of all that he’s done for us. So with that in mind, will you pray with me? Heavenly Father God, we thank you for your word, God. And that that through a message like this that we are reminded. That there is no gift, there are no words. There is no doing in and of ourselves where we can earn a right standing before you. God. But rather all you have called us to is to receive the gift of faith that you give us in Jesus Christ, and that through that faith, now we can move forward in our lives knowing we are no longer condemn, that we are loved by you, and in that that we might be able to love others as well. We pray this all in Jesus name, Amen.