Heirs of the Kingdom

Genesis 27- 28

Talk about dysfunctional families!

A  couple chapters back we had twin boys, Esau & Jacob tussling in their mothers womb; later, Esau the first-born who is starving (or maybe just really hungry) sells his birth-rite to his younger twin Jacob for a bowl of soup.  For whatever reason, in Chapter 27, we find Jacob lieing to his father in order to steal his blessing from his older twin.  Isaac blesses Jacob.  Esau begs his father to give him a blessing, too.  Isaac refuses.

Esau plans to kill his brother after his father dies.  So Jacob runs away with the excuse to his father that he wants to go and marry someone from his mother's house.  Isaac sends him on his way with an additional blessing, but commands him not to marry anyone from Ishmael's house (Abraham's disowned first-born and Isaac's brother). Esau, in his desire to pay back his father for not blessing him, goes to his disenfranchised Uncle Ishmael and marries his daughter.

Stuff soap-operas are made of?  As dysfunctional as these families and individuals seem to us, God is with them.  He talks with them.  He directs their ways.  He blesses those whom he will bless. 

As Jacob is on his way to find a wife, he stops to sleep and he dreams...  He dreams of a stairway that extends from the earth to the heavens with angels of the Lord ascending and descending on it.  The Lord God is above the stairway and speaks to Jacob. The Lord promises Jacob that he is the heir to the promise he made to Abraham and to Isaac.  He promises many descendents (heirs) and land (a kingdom).  He promises to be with him always.  And... God promises that the all peoples on the earth would be blessed through him.   

The God of Abraham, the God or Isaac, the God of Jacob, our God has indeed blessed all peoples in that many generations later (Matthew 1), he sent a son to bless those who were not born first into the family of Abraham's lineage (God's chosen people) but who through faith in Jesus the Christ have been adopted as sons (children) of God.  Imagine that, through this son, Jesus the Christ, we have been forgiven our sin. We who were not God's children are now God's children.  As dyfunctional as any of us might be, God blesses us and is with us always for the sake of Jesus the Christ.  There is nothing we can do to win God's favor. It is by faith that we are saved.  Just as Jacob inherited the promises God made to Isaac and Abraham; we too are heirs of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.