The God of Forgiveness

Good morning, church! If you’re new, we’ve been in a series called The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, looking at different sides of God through their stories. We started with the God who keeps his promises, then the God who provides, the God who sees me, the God who is closer than you think, and last week the God of messy people, the God who meets us in our mess and stays with us when we fail again and again.

Today, sadly, we close the series, and I have the honour of wrapping it up with the God of forgiveness. (Does anyone have a clicker? Thank you. And well done, Caleb. Great hosting today. First time, right? You’re a natural.)

Jacob’s messy family

Last week Pastor Adrian spoke on the God of messy people. The school was with us too, and it was amazing how well it fitted their week of worship theme. We looked at Jacob’s very messy family.

Jacob was born into a lot of dysfunction. His parents played favourites: Rebekah favoured Jacob, and Isaac favoured Esau. The family was full of deception and cheating. Jacob got Esau to sell his birthright for a pot of stew. Then, when Isaac was old and couldn’t see well, Jacob stole Esau’s blessing. Esau was so angry he wanted to kill him, so Jacob ran to his uncle Laban.

There he met the love of his life, Rachel. Then the deceiver got deceived by a better deceiver: Laban gave him the older daughter, Leah, instead. The text says Rachel was very attractive, and Leah, I guess, had a good personality. Jacob ended up marrying both, and also slept with both wives’ servants. A very, very messy family, and not very orthodox.

Jacob has been in Laban’s land for twenty years without facing his past. Now he decides it’s time to go home.

Power moves

We’ve learned that Jacob is a master of deception. He loves plans and loves getting the upper hand. He lives up to his name, which means “deceiver” or “heel-grabber,” and he comes from a family history of deception.

Jacob loves a power move, a way to get the upper hand in any social situation. There’s a coffee-table book called Power Moves, I think by Hamish and Andy. Jacob would love it. Here are a few fun ones:

• You’re at a traffic light next to someone you know. You look at them and start winding your window down. They start winding theirs down. Then you wind yours back up and drive off.
• When you leave a room, say to someone, “Caleb, you’re in charge, mate,” and walk out, implying you were in charge to begin with.
• When someone sneezes, say, “All right, that’s your last one.”

Sorry, I shouldn’t be teaching you this. This is very bad church!

Jacob has spent his whole life wrestling with people to be top dog, and this time is no different. The last thing he heard about Esau was that Esau wanted to kill him, so he’s worried that resentment is still there, and he does everything in his own strength to control the situation.

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. He instructed them: “This is what you are to say to my lord Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, male and female servants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favour in your eyes.’”

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”

— Genesis 32:3–8

Four hundred men is the biggest army we’ve heard of in the Bible so far. Jacob assumes they’re coming to destroy him and his family, so he comes up with a fairly pathetic plan: split the family into two camps so that if one is wiped out, at least the other survives. The schemer who always has a plan has run out of good ones.

So he falls back on bribery and sends gifts ahead. They’re not really gifts. They’re bribes to get Esau to look on him favourably. He’s trying to earn his brother’s forgiveness.

How many of you like planning and strategising? Often our first move in a crisis is to build a good enough plan to get through it. Short on money? Make a financial plan. A relationship breaking down? Make a plan to fix it. Jacob loves a plan. But eventually even he realises his plans fall short.

A last-resort prayer

That’s when he turns to God, as a last resort. He should have done it earlier, but it’s probably the most genuine prayer he’s prayed so far:

Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

— Genesis 32:9–12

He pours his heart out: “God, save me.” God seems silent, so Jacob goes back to the bribes, sends everyone on ahead, and stays alone in the camp for the night. That’s when the unexpected happens.

I believe that before Jacob can meet his brother, he must first meet his God, and when he meets God, he sees who he really is.

The wrestle

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

— Genesis 32:24–28

In the middle of the night Jacob comes face to face with a mysterious man and wrestles him. He tries every move: double-leg takedown, single-leg takedown, arm bar. Nothing works. All the man has to do is touch Jacob’s hip, and it’s wrenched out of its socket. That’s supernatural.

Still Jacob hangs on. He’s tenacious. He’s desperate for the legitimate blessing he’s wanted all his life, not the one he faked from his father. Even after stealing that one, something was still missing. I think he realises this man is divine, so he says, “I won’t let you go unless you bless me.”

This wrestle is a microcosm of Jacob’s whole life. He’s always tried to get the upper hand, and he’s been good at it. He wrestled Esau even in the womb. With Laban it was constant back-and-forth over who could out-deceive whom. Now he’s wrestling God, and he’s met his match.

“What is your name?”

Then comes the question: “What is your name?”

That question has haunted Jacob for years. The last time he was asked it was by his father Isaac, when he stole the blessing. Isaac asked, “Who is it?” and Jacob answered, “I am Esau.” By saying he was Esau, he took the blessing and ran.

Now something has changed. When he’s asked again, he answers, “My name is Jacob.” In other words: I’m the heel-grabber, the deceiver, the one who lays snares, the supplanter. If I’m completely honest, that’s who I am.

Then God blesses him and gives him a new name, Israel, a name that speaks of God ruling and prevailing: God protects, God preserves.

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

— Genesis 32:29–31

Jacob got the blessing, but not by pretending to be someone else. He got it by being honest with God about who he was. God blesses Jacob not for the person he pretends to be, but for the person he is: the deceiver, the weak and broken man. That’s the person God can bless.

He leaves with a new name and an injured hip, and that matters. All his life Jacob grabbed things that weren’t his and then ran. With one touch God leaves him limping. He can’t run from situations anymore. He has to be real about who he is and depend on God. He’s been touched by God, and God has changed him.

The embrace

Then comes the climax:

Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear.

— Genesis 33:1–2

You really know where you stand in Jacob’s family, don’t you? If you’re at the front, you’re at the bottom of the pecking order! Even now, under stress, Jacob is still being Jacob: least important at the front, favourites at the back.

But then something amazing happens. It makes for good cinema:

He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.

— Genesis 33:3–4

We talked about this in Sabbath School, and Dane pointed out that bowing seven times is the kind of thing you’d do before royalty.

Esau forgave Jacob. No scheme, plan or strategy could have earned it, but God had been working behind the scenes on Esau’s heart too. Esau had 400 men and could have ended Jacob’s family on the spot. Instead he let go of the grudge, chose to forgive, and embraced his brother.

That’s what forgiveness is: releasing someone from their debt to you, even though you have the right and the power to hold it against them.

Jacob thought the army was coming to destroy him. Later we learn Esau actually offered those men to protect Jacob on his journey.

Then Jacob says something striking: “Please accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favourably” (Genesis 33:10). He has just wrestled God and said, “I saw God face to face,” and now he says the same thing about Esau.

I believe he says it because Esau responded just like God. Wrestling with God, Jacob met a power that could have ended him in an instant. Now Esau had that same power, 400 men, while Jacob knelt in surrender, and Esau chose to let it go. Jacob had cheated and deceived him and wronged him badly, but Esau, with the heart of God, forgave.

The Father’s heart

God forgives us so that we can forgive others. The Lord’s Prayer says, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Our forgiveness of others is directly connected to the forgiveness we receive from God.

Jesus was once surrounded by religious leaders complaining that he spent time with sinners: tax collectors, prostitutes, people society rejected. “You’re a rabbi! You shouldn’t be hanging out with people like this.” So he told them a story full of echoes of Jacob and Esau. Imagine Jesus growing up hearing about these two brothers who wrestled with each other. Then he tells this famous parable:

There was a man who had two sons.

Two sons, just like Jacob and Esau.

The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

Jacob took his father’s blessing, went to a distant land, Laban’s land of Paddan Aram, and struggled there.

When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

— Luke 15:11–20

Just as the father ran to the prodigal, Esau saw Jacob in the distance, ran to him, threw his arms around him, kissed him, and forgave him for everything.

Jesus shows that we’re forgiven not because of anything we’ve done, but because of the Father’s heart towards us. While we were still a long way off, God came running with open arms. While we were still deceiving, cheating, failing and so imperfect, he pursued us, because that’s the Father’s heart. It forgives abundantly.

Forgiveness and reconciliation

There’s a difference between these two stories. Jacob and Esau’s forgiveness didn’t lead to full reconciliation. They parted ways. Esau invited Jacob to come with him, but for whatever reason Jacob went somewhere else.

I want to make this clear: forgiveness does not require reconciliation. “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3). Some of us hold on to resentment and refuse to forgive because we think forgiving means reconciling. But some relationships are so abusive or toxic that reconciliation wouldn’t be healthy for anyone. You can forgive without reconciling.

But look at the Father’s heart. Forgiveness without reconciliation satisfies the law of God, yet Jesus goes above and beyond. He doesn’t only forgive us. He reconciles us into his own family:

The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.

— Luke 15:21–24

The prodigal is invited home and welcomed back into the family. God goes above and beyond. He doesn’t only forgive. He reconciles us and throws a party because a son or daughter has come home. That’s the God we have, a God who abounds in forgiveness.

Let it go

We can only truly grasp God’s forgiveness if we learn to forgive the people around us. The older brother couldn’t forgive his younger brother. Like the Pharisees grumbling about Jesus and sinners, that’s often our posture. God has cancelled our whole debt, and we still hold debts against others and refuse to forgive. You won’t touch the ocean of God’s love unless you forgive.

I know many of you have been badly hurt by people. If that’s you, I’m sorry. But God doesn’t want you to carry it any longer. The resentment you’re holding is baggage, and it’s weighing you down. God is calling you to let go and to know that you are forgiven. Every debt you owed God has been wiped clean by the blood of Jesus. On the cross Jesus displayed complete forgiveness, and all he asks is that you forgive others. That’s for your sake too. When you forgive, you are free.

When we experience God’s abundant forgiveness, our response is to forgive others what they owe us.

Please stand and join us for our final song.