Genesis 29:1-30: Summary: The chosen son obeys his father's commission. He journeys to another land in search of a specific bride. God is with Jacob in his pursuit. Providence has ordained swift success. A well surrounded by flocks of sheep stop Jacob in Haran, home to Laban and his daughter, Rachel. Adding it all up, Jacob helps in the shepherding task and reveals his identity to Laban via Rachel. Laban asks a harrowing question: what shall your wages be? Jacob only wants Rachel as his wife, for whom he's willing to labor seven years. Once he's fulfilled his end of the terms, Laban arranges a wedding that turns sinful and sideways. When Jacob awakes on the first morning of his honeymoon, it's Leah, and not Rachel, to whom he rises. Upon inquiry, Laban offers Rachel also, but only if Jacob labors seven more years, and Jacob agrees! The deceiver is deceived. Jacob is Laban, and vice versa; and in the process of dealers making deals, two women, two sisters, are caught in the crosshairs. Leah in particular is loved less than her younger, more beautiful sister, and her neglect amid the sins of her father and husband leave us wanting the faithful Son sent by the Father to be the Savior and Lover of His Bride.

Genesis 28: Summary: God's purpose of election continues with Jacob and not Esau. The distinction of His love is revealed in His pursuit of Jacob, who is no more deserving of it than his rebellious twin. Jacob has heard the blessed word from Isaac, his father, but to hear it from the Lord Almighty is still another thing entirely. Jacob sleeps and dreams, and the dream becomes the avenue, at this point in redemptive history, for God's revelation. The revelation consists of a ladder that bridges the activity of Heaven to earth. The Lord stands above it and confirms Isaac's word. Jacob is the heir of Christ to the nations, and God Himself will see that what He's promised will come to fruition. When Jacob awakes, he responds: the Lord is surely there, awesome in majesty, at the very gate of Heaven and house of God. But has Jacob come to terms with the truth of the Gospel? Like a bargain-hunter, he appears to condition his relationship with God on God's Word-plus. So the wrestling seems to begin, that the cheater's heart become, as it must, the beggar's heart.

Genesis 27: Summary: The seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15 once again comes to a crossroads in the book of Genesis.  The offspring of Abraham has twin sons, but God has already promised their mother that the older twin would serve the younger twin.  The patriarch Isaac is getting older and his senses are dimming.  Thinking his life is near the end, and despite the promise of God given to Rebekah, he calls for his elder son Esau to go hunt and prepare delicious food that he loves that he may bless Esau.  But in spite of sin on the part of all 4 members of this family, God sovereignly acts to keeps his promise and has mercy on whom he will have mercy.

Sermon Outline:

Paternal Blindness Sets a Family Up for Failure (v. 1-4)

Poorly Led Matriarch Attempts to Correct Her Husband’s Failure (v. 5-13)

Poorly Led Descendents Respond as They Were Taught (v. 14-40)

Poor Mess of a Family When a Father Fails to Lead (v. 41-46)

Colossians 3:1-17: Summary: Paul desires Jesus to be honored in the local church by the unity and harmony that He died and lives to enable and establish. Concerning this harmony, the exalted Christ is the sovereign root, His reign adorned is the functional fruit, His love exercised is the commitment that binds, and His worship true is the exhortation that brings us back to the root. These are the notes that produce the harmony that glorifies the Person and Work of God in Jesus. And in the end, that harmony sounds like this: Christ. Is. All. And. In. All.

Job 3: Summary: A righteous man in the fire of intense suffering laments and curses the day he was born. He asks the question that many ask today: if we're destined for such suffering, why does God create us and bring us forth from our mother's womb? Today, this is one of several justifications for treating certain persons as disposable. Those persons are infant human beings in utero. 'Who wants to bring a child into this broken world? Isn't it a mercy to prevent their suffering by terminating their life altogether? Isn't death better than dying, ignorance more blissful than knowing suffering without purpose? Ought we not to take the matter of their lives into our own hands?' So the miserable man meditates. Why, why, why, why, why? Sometimes, only God knows. But what we know is that God gives and takes away, and that our suffering has a place in God's redemptive purpose for humanity. Far from being a justification for taking away someone's life, pain is a present part of being and becoming what God desires every person to be in life: humbly and faithfully human, like His Son. In the end, every human life, rooted as it is in the creative will and definite purpose of God, is worthy of the protection that allows it to be lived.

Philippians 2:14-16: Outline

A command: do ALL things without grumbling or disputing (v. 14)

The purpose of the command: to be blameless and innocent among the world (v. 15)

The means of obedience: holding fast the word of life (v. 16a)

A motivation to hold fast to the word of life (v. 16b)

Ephesians 1:15-23:

Philippians 4:6-9: Summary: Do not be anxious about anything. The command is striking. Anything? The words that follow are filled with remedial truth, even if it must correct and convict. Paul offers the peace of God and, better, the God of peace to an anxious church; and with it, he offers two broad means of drawing such curing grace. For the peace of God, pray, and that peace will form as a guard around your mind and heart. Union with Jesus guarantees this operation. It makes departure from anxiety available at all times. And this is not a clearing of the mind. It's a filling of the mind by which the God of peace pacifies our need and anxiety. The thoughts of the mind touch our hearts, as well as our nerves. They're able to make us apostolic in our peace and contentment; that is, God is able by godly thoughts to make us like Paul at heart. He can be in prison and at peace. What we need most, we have in God. Where he's our habitat, we can be faithful wherever else we may be. The Christian church can be distinct from the world in this way: heavenly peace. May we know more of it in a new year.

Sermon Outline:

The conflict that requires a command: to be or not to be anxious. (4:6a)

The command in answer to the conflict: do not be anxious about anything. (4:6a)

The cure concealed in the command revealed: the God of peace and the peace He gives. (4:7, 9b)

The counsel that conducts the cure: pray and think as those in Christ. (4:6b-9a)

Numbers 24:15b-25: Summary: God is still for His journeying people, who abide a great threat to the more settled nations around them. The king of Moab responds to the news about them by calling on the diviner for hire, Balaam. He pays the man to revoke the blessing of God on Israel, but God is the Lord of all, including the lips of swindlers. The force of this extended episode is that God's power and purpose in Christ cannot be successfully opposed. Once God has convinced Balaam that He's not like whatever 'undercover gods' he's dealt with before, Balaam speaks only what God gives. Four oracles follow: what God has blessed is irrevocably blessed (23:7-10). God isn't mutable; He will do in history what He's determined to do from eternity, and that's birth a people who, imaging Him, inherit the earth (23:18-24). Like the garden of Eden with the shout of a Lion-King in their midst, their boundaries separate the blessed from the cursed (24:3-9). And speaking of this King, He's coming. He's a Star in the night, a Scepter of God in a world of rebellion, a Victor over the enemies of God's people. When God sends Him into the world, who shall live? Not Balaam, nor Balak, but only those united to Him by faith.

Sermon Outline:

See the focus of the oracle: the sights that sharpen this sight. (22:1-24:15a)

See the origin of the oracle: this sight is a divine light. (24:15b-16)

See the subject of the oracle: this sight is a preview of Christ. (24:17a-d)

See the question of the oracle: this sight is an invitation to Life. (24:17e-24)

See the tragedy in the text, and flee it: this sight goes unSeen. (24:25)

Numbers 21:4-9: Summary: Impatience is an ironic iniquity worthy of divine judgment, and Israel again grows impatient on the way. The Lord's patience, which is our salvation, is long-suffering, but long is long and not forever. Suddenly then, upon their sin, the Lord commissions a temporal judgment with eternal consequences for many of the impatient. Fiery serpents slither into the camp, biting the many, and bringing them to the grave and to God for punishment. The event sends the rest to Moses for prayers of mercy. God is indeed merciful. He doesn't exactly do as they desire, however. He appears to leave the fear of judgment among them, while providing for them an object of faith and instrument of salvation. They must look upon a bronze serpent, the very symbol of the judgment due their sins, and, as that look is the action of faith, they would be healed of their infirmity and live. In His discourse with Nicodemus, Jesus refers to this episode as typological of what He would do for sinners on the cross, as well as what any sinner may gain in Him by faith: eternal life.

The sin that leads to a judgment of serpents. (21:4-5)

The serpents that necessitate a Savior from sin. (21:6-7b)

The Savior that God gives sinners to see. (21:7c-8)

The sight that, resting on promise, saves. (21:9)