1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we conclude our Summer Sermon Series, “What Does Faith Do?” on Hebrews 11 is taken from Heb 11:20–21, which says, “By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.” It’s entitled, “By Faith Jacob Blesses,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. In the listing of the great acts of faith in Hebrews 11, why are the blessings of Isaac and Jacob included? The list in Hebrews 11 includes Noah building a great ark to save life on the planet, Abraham and Sarah conceiving an impossible child, and even the creation of the world itself. With such mighty witnesses of faith, how can the deathbed blessings of the son and grandson of Abraham compare? Why do these blessings matter?
3. A little history. Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, had two sons, twin boys—Esau, the older, and Jacob, the younger. From their birth, the twins have wrestled for the birthright, a special blessing, from their father Isaac. And even before their birth, God always knew that his blessing would be with the younger, with Jacob, for he declared, “The older shall serve the younger” (Gen 25:23). And, yes, as a young buck who happened to be really hungry one day, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a single meal. Still, Isaac favors Esau, the older. So as Isaac nears the end of his 180 years and it’s time for him to pass down the birthright, Mom—Rebekah—cooks up a plot to steal the blessing for Jacob.
4. It all worked together so that in God’s plan and prophecy was fulfilled that Jacob received the blessing. Isaac, who’s almost blind by now, blesses Jacob, thinking he is Esau, saying, “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you” (Gen 27:28–29).
5. Isaac’s blessing includes receiving (1) the bounty of the land, (2) the respect of the people, and (3) the blessing of God. The land would be bounteous to Jacob with plenty of grain and wine. Jacob would receive the bowing down, of his own brother and even of the nations. And those who recognized God’s working in the life and line of Jacob would be blessed with the blessing of Abraham. Bounty, respect, and blessing. This was what Isaac gave to Jacob. We’re still left with the question, though: Why does this deceitfully obtained blessing merit inclusion in the Hebrews Hall of Faith? Maybe we should look at Jacob’s blessing of Joseph, too, to find the answer.
6. After cheating his brother out of the blessing, Jacob had to flee. Esau was planning to kill him! For twenty years, Jacob lived with his mother’s relatives, far away. And while he was there, he married—twice—and had twelve sons, who would later become the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Israel was Jacob’s new name, given him by the Angel of the Lord after they had a famous wrestling match.) One of Jacob’s twelve sons was Joseph, to whom Jacob gave a many-colored coat. (See, Jacob played favorites with his boys too.) You probably know the story of Joseph’s coat of many colors.
7. Much less well known, though, is the story of Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. In Genesis 35, we’re told that Reuben slept with his father Jacob’s concubine Bilhah. Jacob had two of those, besides his wives. (Genesis often just tells the history and leaves the moral judgments to the reader. Please know that having concubines and sleeping around with someone not your wife are both against God’s moral law. And this time we do get a moral judgment.) Because of this sin, Jacob passed over Reuben, the firstborn son, in the birthright and blessing.
8. More messy story: Jacob also had at least one daughter along with those twelve sons. Her name was Dinah. And she caught the eye of a Canaanite named Shechem, who raped her. After the rape, Shechem, who happened to be the chief prince of the local tribe, tried to make good and asked his father to get permission for him to marry Dinah. Her brothers spoke for her and demanded that every male in Shechem’s tribe be circumcised before the wedding. To which they agreed. But while all the men were still recovering from the pain, the next two eldest sons, Simeon and Levi, took their swords and killed all the males in the tribe, killed Shechem and his father, plundered the city of its herds, crops, wealth, women, and children, everything, in revenge for Shechem’s rape of their sister Dinah. (Let the reader of Genesis understand, rape and murder and pillaging are wrong.) For these sinful acts, Simeon and Levi were also passed over in the blessing of Jacob.
9. Which partly explains the one-liner in our text: “By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph” (Heb. 11:21). Each of Joseph’s two sons receives a share equal to each of Joseph’s eleven brothers. That is, Joseph’s family gets twice the blessing that Reuben’s, Simeon’s, or Levi’s family gets. Joseph will turn out to be very special. But Jacob gives another blessing that isn’t even mentioned in the Hebrews Hall of Faith, and it’s the blessing that’s behind all faith. What blessing is that?
10. Judah was Jacob’s fourth born son. In Genesis 49, as Jacob is blessing all of his sons, just before he dies, he says, “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen 49:8–10).
11. Remember, Isaac blessed Jacob with bounty, obeisance, and God’s blessings. To his fourth-born, Jacob passes down the blessing of obeisance of brothers and enemies and the blessing of the Lord. Jacob places it into the hands of a king to come, a lion from the tribe of Judah, one who will hold in his hand the king’s scepter. Sound familiar? Yes, almost 900 years before it happens, Jacob predicts his great-great-great—many times great—grandson: David, of the tribe of Judah, crowned king over all the tribes of Israel. This is what Jacob, when dying, gave in prophecy over his sons, especially to Judah. This is around 1870 BC, and David won’t become king until around 1000 BC. But is confidence in the prophecy of King David why all this is said to be “by faith” and why it’s included as part of the great acts of faith in Hebrews 11? There must be more than just the story.
12. These blessings are more than simply legal birthrights. They are spiritual blessings by the patriarchs and prophets of God. They are God speaking through his servants to reveal something greater. They are the narrowing down, the direct prophecies, of the line of the Christ, the author and perfecter of faith. That is, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God who prophesied through Jacob that he would be the son of Judah, son of David, son of Mary. That’s the most important part of this birthright and blessing.
13. We’ve said it before: From beginning to end, the story of the Bible is the story of pointing to Christ. God told Eve that he’d send the Messiah as one of her children. God told Abraham that through one of his children—all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That same promise is passed down to Isaac and Jacob, then to Judah, and through Judah to David and Solomon and finally to Mary, of the tribe of Judah, betrothed to a son of the tribe of Judah, a son of David, to whom was born the Messiah, the seed of Abraham, Eve’s Savior: Jesus. These Blessings Are the Narrowing Down of God’s Promised Fulfillment of the Seed of the Woman, the Seed of Abraham, who Would Bless the World.
14. Jesus, the one long promised came and bled and died to redeem the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, to bless the sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to rule all the nations and to reign upon that throne forever as Lord and God. All who will believe that about Jesus are saved from the curse of Adam, forgiven of all of their sins, and made heirs of the birthright and blessings of God himself in Christ. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is made your God, and you are made his children. He will bless you, and he will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, because that was his promise to Abraham and his children of faith, forever—the birthright passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob and now to you. So, “by faith,” Isaac and Jacob spoke the faith: the promise of Jesus. And passing down the faith from one generation to the next is the greatest act of faith in all creation. Isaac and Jacob pointed their children to Jesus.
15. As those who are counted among the faithful like Isaac and Jacob, you can offer no greater act of faith than to share the faith with those whom God has given you—point them to Jesus. You will be blessed. And if they believe they, too, will be blessed with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. May God so bless us with faith and families that pass down the faith until he comes again. For which we pray, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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