Audio recording Sermon manuscript: In our Old Testament reading we heard about a man named Jacob—a name with which you are surely familiar. But oftentimes our Bible reading is not what it should be, so we have a hard time putting together the things that we have learned over the years. So today I’d like to talk about the events leading up to what happened with Jacob so we can better understand and apply to ourselves the way God works. Where I’d like to begin today is with Jacob’s grandfather. His name was Abram. Later God gives him the name Abraham. We are introduced to this man in Genesis chapter 12, and, in a sense, the rest of the Bible and the rest of world history is all about him and his descendants. God chose Abraham and told him to move to the land of Canaan. God promised that this land would be his and his descendants’. God would make a mighty nation of him. In him and in his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. (This promise about Abraham’s seed refers all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God promised that Eve’s seed would crush the serpent’s head.) God appeared to Abraham several times, repeating these promises to him, and Abraham believed these promises. This faith was accredited to him as righteousness. Abraham’s faith, which is accredited to him as righteousness, is the way that the rest of the Bible and the rest of world history is about him and his descendants. God caused his flesh and blood descendants to flourish outwardly, but the people of God, properly speaking, have always been such inwardly, by faith. All or almost all of you are Gentiles. You are not related to Abraham by blood. But you are children of God’s promises, just like he was. God made a covenant with Abraham. God has made a covenant with you. God gave Abraham an outward sign of that covenant in circumcision. God has given an outward sign of his covenant with you in baptism. If you remain faithful unto death, just like Abraham, you will be given the crown of life. That is an even greater inheritance than what God promised Abraham. So Abraham is one of the greatest men of the Bible. It is important to understand that the rest of the Bible and the rest of world history is about him, and his descendants, and God’s promises to these descendants. The Bible is also about tests to people’s faith, and that’s the case also with Abraham. God said he would make a might nation of Abraham and his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the sea shore. But Abraham didn’t have any children when God said that. And Abraham and Sarah were getting old. In fact, the Bible says, the way of women had ceased with Sarah. But Abraham believed God. Eventually, after a great deal of time, probably much more time than Abraham would have liked, God fulfilled his promise. Isaac was born to them in their old age. Isaac was not the same kind of man his father was. There are not nearly as many adventures in Isaac’s life as there were in Abraham’s life. Isaac’s sons, also, had much more adventurous lives. Isaac, for his part, seems to have been a very peaceable man. If someone took his well, he would just dig another one. He was not feisty like his father or his sons after him. Just as Abraham and Sarah had a hard time conceiving and bearing children, so also Isaac and Rebekah had a hard time conceiving and bearing children. No children came for a long time. Finally, when Rebekah did become pregnant, it was with twins. She inquired of the Lord what was happening to her because already in the womb they were fighting with one another. God told her that two nations were fighting within her, and that the older would serve the younger. And so it happened that when it came time for the delivery that Esau was born first, then Jacob. But Jacob was holding Esau’s heel. They were tremendous rivals. They also were quite different from one another. Esau was hairy and an outdoorsman. Jacob had smooth skin and didn’t hunt. Esau was the favorite of his fath