God teaches us in His Word that salvation is ours by grace through faith. As we’ve journeyed with our ancestors through the book of Genesis this summer and fall, we’ve seen faith play out. We were told many weeks ago, that “Abraham believed God[‘s promise] and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed what the Lord promised to him and through that belief—through that faith—sinful Abraham was put into a right standing before holy God. The same happens to you through the same promise—faith in the forgiveness, life, and salvation that is received through Christ Jesus. The offspring first promised to Eve and continued through Abraham crushes the head of the snake and redeems all who believe.

God’s Word also emphasizes the grace of God. The word grace describes God’s undeserved kindness, undeserved mercy, undeserved love that He shows to us sinners. We haven’t earned it. According to the Law, we shouldn’t receive it. And yet, because God sent His Son under the Law to bear our sins in our place, the Lord showers His grace on us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. People who have done nothing to earn salvation receive it freely from God. That’s grace.

The account of Jacob and Esau reveals to us a perfect picture of God’s grace toward sinners. Last week we learned that—like her mother-in-law—Rebekah was barren. The Lord answered Isaac’s prayers after twenty years, and Rebekah becomes pregnant.

But… something isn’t going right. Rebekah can feel in her body that something is unusual. Based on her comment, at best it’s very uncomfortable or at worst it’s very painful. She inquires of God.

The Lord tells her something quite incredible. “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” She learns there’s not one baby, but two. Somehow, someway these unborn children seem to be wrestling with each other in her womb. Likely the most extreme case of sibling rivalry that’s ever occurred.

Yet, beyond that the Lord’s declaration surely would have been startling. In the ancient world, the custom was for the firstborn son to inherit the bulk of the estate with the remainder being divided among the younger sons. Isaac would’ve expected his firstborn son to receive the birthright and felt scandalized at the idea that he wouldn’t. Yet, that’s what the Lord says. The older will serve the younger. “The first will be last, and the last first,” as Jesus says. The Lord also declares that the promise of the Savior will go through the family line of the younger, which for most of human history wouldn’t be expected. Remember that the Lord often works through unexpected ways.

When the boys were born, Esau came out first. Amazingly when he’s born, Jacob is holding Esau’s heel—symbolic of the reversal that these infants will experience later in life. It’s as if—and maybe it was a case of—Jacob trying to keep Esau from being born first. That sort of attitude would hound Jacob his whole life. His name means “heel grabber” and also “cheater.” Maybe a better descriptor would be that he’s a little bit of a “con-man.” Despite little baby Jacob’s best efforts, Esau is the firstborn.

Now, let’s think of the irony with a hypothetical. If Jacob succeeded and was somehow able to yank his brother Esau back into their mother’s womb to be born first, Jacob would have been the one serving his brother. He would have lost out on the promised blessing declared by God. He would have actually been fighting against what God had promised. Jacob’s attempt is a great picture of what the blindness of sin does to us. We end up fighting against and resisting God’s promises, only to stumble into pain and misfortune.

Because Jacob is the second-born, according to the declaration of the Lord, he will receive the birthright and the blessing. He will receive the larger share of the inheritance and carry on the promise of the Messiah. The Lord has declared it. It will be so.

However, Jacob is a “heel grabber.” He’s a bit of a “con-man.” He wants to try to take for himself something that’s already been promised by God’s grace. And we heard this reality play out today as Esau “lost” or rather “gave away” the birthright. Isaac would no longer inherit the most significant portion of the family estate because he felt desperate for a bowl of soup.

Esau comes into the tent from the field one day. He smells Jacob’s stew and he wants some. He’s hungry. He’s exhausted. He’s beyond melodramatic. He tells Jacob to give him some of the stew. Jacob shrewdly sees an opportunity. He makes an offer that Esau absolutely, totally, without a doubt just couldn’t accept. “Sell me your birthright.” Sell me your inheritance rights as the firstborn. Esau—overdramatically claiming to be near death—accepts Jacob’s offer to give up the vast wealth and riches of his parents that he was to inherit one day just for a bit of bread and a bowl of stew. The most expensive bowl of soup ever made. Keep that in mind chili cook-off contestants.

Neither brother deserves the birthright. Jacob doesn’t deserve it because he’s not the firstborn. Jacob also didn’t earn it because—first God declared it would happen and this was the means by which God allowed it to happen, and second Esau did something idiotic and gave it away more so than Jacob conned it out of him. Esau didn’t deserve the birthright because he despised it. He considered it so worthless that he was willing to give it away for a bowl of stew. Jacob received the birthright by the grace of God—who declared before either had been born, that the older will serve the younger.

The apostle Paul stresses this Truth in Romans nine, where he makes the case from God’s Word that salvation is by God’s grace alone and not by human works or being born into it. You and I are saved—sinful as we are—not because we’ve done something to deserve it, not because we’ve been born into some special status—but we are saved by God’s undeserved kindness, mercy, and love.

The same kindness, mercy, and love that God showed to Isaac—the father of Jacob and the son of Abraham. Just as the Lord established with Abraham His covenant—His contract of grace, mercy, and blessing—so the Lord now establishes it with Isaac, renewing the same terms of the promises made to Abraham. Numerous offspring, the land, and the Savior. The Lord praises the faithfulness of Abraham to God, as is evidenced by the faith of his son Isaac.

Isaac is also like father, like son in other ways. He and Rebekah hid the truth of their marital relationship when they moved to an uncertain region. They didn’t fully trust the Lord’s protection. The only difference in this instance is that Rebekah wasn’t taken to be the king’s wife. However, the king saw them “laughing” together one day. That’s Scripture’s way of saying that they were showing affection toward each other as husband and wife. It became clear to the king that there was deception going on.

The king says, “Hey, you lied. We know that you’re obviously blessed by your God. Look at your wealth. Any one of my people could have really messed things up and gotten into trouble with your God by sleeping with her.” The king made a law outlawing anyone from touching either of them.

While Isaac’s family lived in that region, God makes him even richer than he had been. It scared the Philistines (who would one day be the archenemies of Israel), and the Philistines ask Isaac to leave. As Isaac and his family travel in this land they don’t actually own (remember they are foreigners), Isaac gets into a dispute over a well. Something that his father Abraham also dealt with. These men were being taught to trust the Lord to protect and provide for them.

One night, the Lord re-affirms the promise. “I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring.” After that encounter with God, the king of the Philistines and his representatives meet with Isaac. They settle their differences and make peace, as Isaac’s father Abraham had done in a similar situation during his life.

The Lord of grace showed Himself to be faithful to Isaac in His dealing, even though just like his sons, Isaac didn’t deserve it. For he was a sinner who, like his father before him, had his shares of doubts in the Lord’s providence. Scripture promises, “If we are faithless (meaning if we struggle to believe at the same time that we do believe), God remains faithful.”

Just as the Lord was faithful to Abraham and Isaac according to the grace He showed Jacob, so the Lord is faithful to you on whom He has also showered His grace in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus died and rose for you. There are times you struggle to believe it at the same time that you do believe it. Same for me. In these times, as in all times, the Lord remains faithful to you. For He doesn’t deny Himself and He claimed you as His beloved children. Amen.