John 1:50-51 on September 22nd, 2025
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
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You may know someone like Jacob. They are sneaky, wily, conniving. Don't have a sense of what is fair and somehow, some way, always seem to come out just a little bit ahead. If you don't know someone like Jacob, then it's probably you.
We have jumped quite a bit ahead in the biblical story. Last week, Isaac was a boy and this week he is an old man who can't see. Isaac asks Issa, his oldest son, to go hunting and prepare a meal for him. Issa goes to do what his father asks. However, Rebecca, Isaac's wife, overhears the conversation and goes to Jacob, the younger son, with a plan. If Jacob could pass himself off as Issa, his blind father might be fooled into giving him the blessing instead.
So Jacob dresses as Issa, even going as far as putting animal fur on his arms and on his neck. Issa was quite the hairy man. The scene plays out almost like little red writing hood. What hairy arms you have, Issa, all the better to be your oldest son and receive your blessing, father? Jacob succeeds. He fools his dad and steals the blessing of inheritance from Issa. I told you, Jacob was conniving.
And when Issa returns, he is, shall we say, mad. Very mad. The way things worked back then, Isaac's words were binding. A spoken blessing carried the weight of a legal contract. Once it was given, it was done. There was no taking it back. Jacob manipulates and cheats his way to riches and blessing Issa fumes and Jacob runs.
So that's Jacob. He is a trickster from a deeply dysfunctional family. There is deception covering up, playing favorites. It's all there. And Jacob, as flawed as he is, is right in the middle of it all. This, by the way, is the family God chooses to use to bless the entire world. This family, with this guy, Jacob, being the next link in the promise chain. It seems like God's plan is already in shambles. Shouldn't God have higher standards?
But this is where the second part of Jacob's story comes in. Jacob flees home and family because Issa was going to kill him. And not in a rhetorical way, like he was actually going to kill him. So Jacob runs out into the wilderness and he finally has to stop and sleep using a rock as his pillow. And that is where God shows up. Jacob dreams of a staircase, a ladder reaching from heaven to earth, angels ascending and descending and God renewing the promise once made with Abraham. Go that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I promised.
That's the thing about God's promises. Every time it looks like it will fail, it doesn't. Abraham and Sarah were two old, but Isaac was born. Isaac was nearly sacrificed, but God spared him. And now Jacob is on the run, a cheat, undeserving of blessing. And yet God still fulfills the promise. Despite the very human, very messy, very imperfect nature of these people, God's work continues. Not because of their actions, but in spite of them. Because promise is hold, not because the characters are so worthy, but because God is so faithful. So faithful, so devoted, so full of grace that God won't let the past determine the future. Even with Jacob, God's promise is what determines the future.
Which is good news, right? That God doesn't work with perfect people, but with real people, real people like Jacob and people like you and me. But the harder part of that is God's promises are also real for people not like you and me. Because if we're honest, real people are jerks. And sometimes they're jerks on purpose. They cheat, they manipulate, they refuse to be sorry. They are stubborn and selfish. They are sneaky, wiling, conniving, and yet somehow, some way they always seem to come out just a little bit ahead. Look at them and we say it's not fair. All the while we convince ourselves that we're different. We're never jerky. And certainly not on purpose. But if we were a little jerky, we have good reason. We were hungry or tired or stressed. I mean, we're not that bad. We're easy to forgive. It's not like I dressed up as my brother and stole his inheritance. So it's only fair that we deserve God's promise, right?
But again, if we're honest, like really honest, we are not those imaginary polished versions of ourselves. We are real people too. And we fall short in ways that we would rather not admit. And even if we compare ourselves to people on the news or people that we hear about, we still fall short. We still miss the mark. We are still very, very real.
This afternoon, our confirmation students will be studying the 10 commandments. And those are generally what we use. We want to see how we measure up, right? And that's because we look at that as a list of things that we shouldn't do. And for the most part, we don't. But the 10 commandments are more than just a list of don't-dos. As Martin Luther explains it, we can't live up to God's standards. We try not to steal, which maybe we don't shoplift, but we still hold on to too much and forget to give for the betterment of all. We probably don't kill too often, but we regularly fail at building up the life that God intends for others. We fail in our relationship with God and with our neighbor. And our desire to limit God's grace only proves that point. We miss the mark in so many ways. We want to be fair, but we want to be fair in our favor. Maybe we aren't as deserving as we think, but maybe that's the point.
To reiterate what we saw with Jacob's family, God's promises aren't founded on us, not on what we should do or could do or fail to do. God keeps promises despite us. This doesn't depend on our worthiness. That's true for Jacob, that's true for us, and that's true for those real jerks out there. That's both the comfort and the challenge. The gospel promises is as true for them as it is for you. Our sinfulness doesn't want it to be so. It's not fair. But God is keeping covenant promises, even when we don't know it, even when we don't want it.
And that's why we read Jacob's story. Because the promise depends solely on the one who makes it, not on the one it is made to. A promise. God's promise is the declaration that something is going to happen. And we see, we know that the that shister Jacob cannot make blessings happen. But neither can we. But God can. That makes the promises happen. The gospel is not fulfilled by us, but by a God who takes on the entire burden, apart from anything that we do, and more often despite what we do do.
And we see that promise most clearly, most plainly, most lovingly in Jesus. That cross looked like the place where God's promise had finally failed. But it didn't. God's promise is as live as Christ is. And it's in that cross, an empty tomb, that God takes on all the effort of fulfilling the promise. That is the unfair grace of God. Faithful when we are not merciful, when we don't deserve it, present when we run. The promise holds true only because of God. It is God who makes it, God who upholds it, God who follows through. That is the unfair, unstoppable promise that God gives. And I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised. For Jacob, for us, for all, for ever.