Introduction

Genesis 27:5–19 NKJV Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt game and to bring it. So Rebekah spoke to Jacob her son, saying, “Indeed I heard your father speak to Esau your brother, saying, ‘Bring me game and make savory food for me, that I may eat it and bless you in the presence of the Lord before my death.’ Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to what I command you. Go now to the flock and bring me from there two choice kids of the goats, and I will make savory food from them for your father, such as he loves. Then you shall take it to your father, that he may eat it, and that he may bless you before his death.”

And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth-skinned man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him; and I shall bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”

But his mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me.” And he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother made savory food, such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the choice clothes of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the kids of the goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she gave the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

So he went to his father and said, “My father.” And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done just as you told me; please arise, sit and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.”

This is the Word of the Lord, Amen?
•     Welcome back to our third sermon on Genesis 27 titled “Faithless Religion.

•     And I don’t know about you guys but I have been loving this series… one of my favorite series so far… because I think it really hits to the heart of many problems with the current state of the American church and American culture that often times pretends to be Christian, but is really actually quit faithless.

•     Now, if you are new let me kind of catch you up to where we are in scripture this morning.

•     God has started his plan for mankind by calling Abraham to father God’s people… to start God’s nation. Through Abraham would come The Messiah, Christ Jesus.

•     That mantel was then passed down to Abrahams son Isaac. Isaac married Rebekah and they had twins, Jacob and Esau… now it is Isaac’s time to pass the mantle down to one of his two sons… one of these tow sons will be a patriarch to Israel, through them will come the Savior of the World…

•     God had prophesied, mind you, while Rebekah was pregnant with Esau and Jacob, God prophesied that the Older would serve the younger… in other words… God said that Jacob, the younger brother, would get the mantle… that Jacob would lead God’s people, and that Esau would serve him.

•     But there is a problem of course… if Isaac would have just blessed Jacob like God told him to, well this sermon series would be a lot shorter and wouldn’t be called “Faithless Religion”. But unfortunately Isaac loved Esau more than Jacob and wanted Esau to have the blessing.

•     In fact everybody in Genesis 27 acted faithlessly…

Isaac – Trusted in the flesh and pursued his own desires over God’s word.
Rebekah – Rebelled against her husband and used sin to try to advance God’s plans.
Jacob – Aligns himself with sin and deceit.
Esau – Chooses the things of the world over the things of God.

•     Now just as a quick refresher, let me remind you what I mean when I say “Faithless and religion”… these aren’t dictionary definitions, but instead just practical understandings of what these words mean, particularly in regards to this message:

Faith: Taking God at His Word because He has already proven Himself true.
Faithless: Ignoring God’s proven Word and living by sight and feelings instead.
Religion: Intentional Interactions with God, His Kingdom, or His plan.
Faithless Religion: Interacting with God while ignoring His word.

•     Alright, so now we are on the same page…

•     Now we have talked about Isaac’s faithless religion and return to faith.

•     We have talked about Rebekah’s faithless religion and the consequence it had of losing her son.

•     This morning let’s talk about Jacob’s faithless religion and how he made himself an ally of sin.

Point One – Faithless Religion Allies with Sin

Genesis 27:15–19 NKJV Then Rebekah took the choice clothes of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. And she put the skins of the kids of the goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she gave the savory food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

So he went to his father and said, “My father.”

And he said, “Here I am. Who are you, my son?”

Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn; I have done just as you told me; please arise, sit and eat of my game, that your soul may bless me.”

•     Rebekah makes this plan to lie to her husband… to deceive him so that he blesses Jacob instead of Esua…

•     She says “Jacob, you have to pretend to be your brother… you need to lie to your father… he is blind anyway… as long as you smell and feel like Esau, your dad won’t know the difference”.

•     And Jacob just goes with it! Yeah, sounds good mom… let’s trust the salvation of humanity with this plan of sin and deceit…

•     Jacob is a grown man here! Somewhere between 40 and 45… and he is like “Yeah, let me just join my self with this rebellious woman and her plan to lie to her husband”.

•     Why is he okay with this… why doesn’t he protest… why does he ally himself with sin?

•     “But pastor… if he doesn’t do this he might miss out on the blessing”. NONESENSE…

•     You know I made this comment last week in second service I think… and it was a really important comment… “Don’t attack the sovereignty of God by thinking He needs your sin to advance His plans!”

•     Now I said this in reference to my old errant way of thinking… when I used to think “If I had never run from God and pursued a life of sin, I would have never met Amanda”. NONSENSE. God did not need my sin to introduce me to my wife… God could have done that in a million different righteous ways! Just because God uses what the enemy meant for evil does not mean that we should thus rejoice in evil.

•     GOD DOESN’T NEED SIN TO ADVANCE HIS PLAN. THEREFORE WE DON’T NEED TO ALLY OURSELVES WITH SIN TO ADVANCE GOD’S PLAN.

•     Jacob here should have said “No! I will not lie to my father! I will not try to trick him into giving me the blessing. The blessing is mine regardless, mom… I traded it for soup fair and square… I am not the thief in this scenario… Esau is trying to steal the blessing from me! Should I meet sin with sin! NO! I will trust in God’s Word that was prophesied over me in the womb. God said it and I will believe it, Esau shall serve me!”

•     “But Jacob, Esau is already in the field hunting… you must do something”.

•     “If I must do something then I shall pray!”

•     “But someone must intervene!”

•     “Is God so incapable of divine intervention that i must align myself with your sinful plot mother”

•     I mean come on church, is this not the God who put a curse of plagues on Pharaoh when he took Sarah to be his wife…

•     Is this not the God who stopped Abimelech from sleeping with Sarah by giving him a dream…

•     If God can stop Balaam with a talking donkey, could he not stop Isaac from blessing the wrong son?

•     If God can send a storm and a fish to stop Jonah, could God not intervene here?

•     If God could stop Saul with a blinding light on the road to Damascus… could he not thus intervene here?

•     Why must Jacob ally himself with sin?

•     Rebekah, in this instance, is almost a type of Satan… she is a liar, she is faithless… but worse, she gets the child of God to join in her sin, to join in her plan… to be the hands and feet of deception.

•     It is Jacob who does the lying, it is Jacob who says “I am not Jacob I am Esau” but he does so because Rebekah convinces him to do so. She talks him into it… he says “yeah! I will ally myself with sin in order to accomplish the purposes of God”. This, church, is faithless religion.

Exodus 23:2 NKJV You shall not follow a crowd to do evil…

Proverbs 1:10 NKJV My son, if sinners entice you, Do not consent.

Proverbs 13:20 NKJV He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.

•     You know we are doing a wedding as a part of communion in second service (Did a wedding as a part of communion this morning) and there is one verse that is often used in marriage counseling… one that I use when talking to young people about dating… but the verse is not exclusively about marriage, in fact it is intended to be about whom you ally yourself with… who you yoke yourself with:

2 Corinthians 6:14–15 NKJV Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?

•     Now I am not saying that Rebekah is an unbeliever in Genesis 27, she is remembered as a matriarch of the family of God… but that is really all she is remembered for.

•     Isaac, who repented and blessed Jacob in faith… he is remembered well in Scripture.

•     Jacob, who would later get his act together, is renamed as Israel… a name that is still today synonymous with the family of God.

•     But Rebekah is never really spoken well of after this moment… she just kind of disappears… again, not that she is an unbeliever per say, she is a mother to God’s people… but her last story is one of sin and deceit… and enticing her son to sin against her husband, his father…

•     Jacob, as a grown man who knows God and knows the word of God should not have yoked himself to Rebekah… he should have said “No mother, if you want to live in faithless religion… if you want to try to get the things of God by sin and deceit… then that is between you and God… but as for me and my house, mother, we shall serve the Lord… I will not join with you in this sin.

Psalm 1:1–2 NKJV Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners…

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.

•     So what about you church? Who have you made your ally? Who have you allied yourself with whom is not living a life dictated by the will and Word of God?

•     I remember when I went to a Serve the City event after some flooding hit Cedar Rapids. Serve the City, a Christian organization, had joined with a secular organization, United Way, to help in the emergency response.

•     Now I did not think anything of it at the time… I had given plenty of donations to United Way when eating at Taco Bell or whatever… to put “Jesus Saves” in sharpie on those little sheets of paper they hang up to support fundraising or whatever.

•     But before we were sent out to go serve the community, we all gathered together to pray… and the United Way official said “I think it is best if I lead the prayer”… huh, odd thing to say and odd way to phrase it… ok… and she prayed “Dear god or gods, grant us light and favor to help people today”.

•     WAIT… WHAT?! What kind of blasphemous tomfoolery is this.

•     I got so angry I scolded the leader of serve the city and he apologized profusely and promised never to work with them again…

•     Then I realized… I have given money to united way… probably close to a hundred dollars in my adult life… and I went and looked into it… United Way gives about 1% of all donations to Planned Parenthood… that means that United way took a dollar of God’s money, because my money isn’t really mine It’s God’s… So I gave them 100 dollars of God’s money and they took one of God’s dollars and used it to kill babies…

•     I don’t do that anymore, I don’t donate God’s money to secular causes. I don’t ever want to ally myself with sin.

•     I don’t register as a republican any more, I am an independent… Now I often VOTE for republicans… but I found out that many people who call themselves republicans are wicked men and woman who support abortion and any other number of grievous sins… I don’t want to be allied with them… so I don’t vote for people just because the are Republicans, I don’t wear there merch, I don’t shout there praises… instead I vote for Christians… born again people who love God and His word.

•     But if you don’t chose the lesser of two evils then the nation will… blah blah blah… do I need to remind you about Balaams donkey and Jonah’s fish. God can intervene without us allying ourselves with evil.

•     But there is not enough Christian men… blah blah blah… God can give you a husband without the help of Tinder.

•     But they are my only friend… blah blah blah… God can give you friends and family without you yoking yourself to Christian people.

•     Now you want to vote for a non-Chrisitan… I don’t think you should… but at least don’t ally yourself with them. Cast your vote and move on, you can vote for someone without plastering it all over facebook.

•     You want to shop at a wicked company… they are all wicked… ok… fine… but you don’t need to make that wicked company your identity.

•     We are CHRISTIANS… can that be our identity? Can Christ be our one an only ally, our very present help in the time of need. WE ARE CHRISTIANS… where else should our help come from? We are Christians… CAN CHRIST BE THE THING THAT WE REPRESENT, THAT WE SHOUT PRAISE S OF, THAT WE PLASTER ALL OVER SOCIAL MEDIA.

•     Because Faithless Religion Allies with Sin, but Faith Filled Religion Allies with Christ.

•     And that brings me to point two this morning… Faithless religion Twists the Character of Christ.

Point Two – Faithless Religion Twists Christ’s Character

Genesis 27:11–13 NKJV And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth-skinned man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him; and I shall bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”

But his mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me.”

•     First notice how Jacob is concerned more with the consequence of his sin rather than the Character of his person.

•     Now this is a whole another sermon, but I will tell you this… the best reason not to sin is because you love Jesus and you just want to make him happy.

•     I remember talking with a guy about his cripling pornography addiction… he would relapse and relapse and relapse… finally I asked him “Why do you want to stop this addiction” he said “Because I want to honor my wife”. I said “There is your problem…” he said “what do you mean” I said “If your wife died would you be ok with your sin? My brother, you desire to stop sinning should be out of your love for Christ, not just your love for your wife”. But this is a sermon for another day…

•     I just find it interesting that Jacob’s focus was “But what if I get a curse instead of a blessing”.

•     And look how Rebekah responds… “Let your curse be on me… just go and sin… let your curse be on me”.

•     I want to show you a quick video that highlights the modern day representation of Rebekah’s lie…

SHOW FALSE-GOD VIDEO

•     You see Faithless Religion Twists Christ’s Character… they make Christ out to be someone who is okay with sin…

•     They say “God accepts everyone, He doesn’t reject anyone” Oh really?

Jeremiah 6:30 NKJV People will call them rejected silver, Because the Lord has rejected them.”

•     They says “God doesn’t Judge”… oh really?

Ezekiel 18:30 NKJV “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord God. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.

•     They say “God doesn’t hate anyone”… oh really?

Psalm 5:5 NKJV The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity.

•     Or how about this one…

Romans 9:13 NKJV As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

•     Now let’s dwell on this one for a little bit… because it is vital to the true character of Christ… and because it can be shocking to hear a pastor say that God hate’s people.

•     And of course he hates sinners… Jesus died for a bunch of people He hated… that is how much He loves us… That while we were yet sinners, that we were yet hated by God… God’s love is so big, so enormous, so grand… so out of the ordinary… that even though He hated us for our sin, He loved us all the same and died that we might be forgiven and forever changed… from enemy of God to friend of God…

•     That is the character of Christ… He died that we could be converted… that we could be forgiven. We had ALREADY earned the curse, but Christ said “Let that curse be on me”. And this is the subtle difference between the charachter of Christ and the character of the enemy, represented here in Genesis 27 by Rebekah.

•     “Christ says “Because of your sins you have earned a curse, because of my love let that curse be on me”” but Rebekah says “It’s okay to sin… go ahead and sin… if you happen to earn a curse let that curse be on me”.

Genesis 27:13 NKJV But his mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me.”

•     Do you see the difference? In faith-filled religion the sinner comes to Christ and says “I have lived a life of sin and I don’t want to live that way anymore…” and Christ says “Let your curse be on me, go and sin no more”.

•     In faithless religion the sinner says “I want to keep living a life of sin and I don’t want any consequences” and the false Jesus says “It’s ok, let your curse be on me, go and sin as much as you want”.

•     In Faith-Filled Religion Christ redeems us from the curse we have earned by hanging on a tree, the cross…

Galatians 3:13 NKJV Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),

•     In faith-less religion we try to put Christ back up on that cross over and over again because it makes us feel better about our sins.

Hebrews 6:6 NIV To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace.

•     A faithless false Jesus says “Sin more that more grace may abound” but that is a twisting of the character of Christ… The true Christ says go an sin no more.

John 8:11 NKJV And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

Romans 6:1–2 NKJV What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

•     Alright let’s close by looking just one more time at this verse from Genesis 27.

Conclusion

Turn On Children’s Class Lamps

Genesis 27:11–13 NKJV

And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Look, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth-skinned man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be a deceiver to him; and I shall bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.”

But his mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, get them for me.”

•     If Jacob was any kind of man… at this point in his life at least… if he was any kind of man he would have responded to his mother “No, mother… why should either of us be cursed… today should be a day of blessing! Let us instead of turning to lies and rebellion, let us turn to the God who promised that I would have the blessing.”

•     Instead, Jacob allied himself with sin, and because of it he will end up as a fugitive, running from his own brother… he will wind up stranded for 20 years… he will get tricked into a double marriage situation… we will talk about all this as we get there… but if Jacob would have just trusted in God, he would have recieved the blessing without reaping the consequence of sin…

Join us this Sunday at either 8:30AM or 10:30AM for worship followed by this message from the Word of God.

Christian Life Church of Cedar Rapids
2808 Schaeffer DR SW,
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404
www.CedarRapidsChurch.com