This week, in one of those random, unplanned meetings, a man opened up to me about a serious struggle he was having with a woman. The breech was so great that things appeared to him to be hopeless. He spent nearly 20 minutes laying out the details and his case for hopelessness in the relationship. When he finished I said to him, “This is a God appointed time. Go, speak to her from your heart and tell her what you’ve just told me.” He said, “What have I told you?” I said, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me.”
This Sunday is the ninth week in our series on Living Beyond – The Transformed Life. It’s the week we turn to the third kind of brokenness that only God can heal, and that’s the brokenness we have with others. Who among us is not thoroughly acquainted with the disharmony and dysfunction that we can have with others? Attributing motive. Judging. Shunning. Getting one up on another. Feeling hurt. Feeling lonely. These are but a sample of the symptoms of a broken relationship with another person.
As we’ve seen in each of the two other areas of brokenness – brokenness with God and brokenness with ourselves – brokenness with others is a universal condition that every one of us experiences. Indeed, the Bible is overflowing with examples of such brokenness. We encounter it in the third chapter of the Bible with Adam and Eve. We see it in Cain and Abel. But among all of the biblical examples none offers a richer, fuller description of brokenness with others than the brokenness between the sons of Isaac and Rebekah. In fact, chapters 25 and 34 of Genesis are perfect “bookends” that reveal the depth of the division and God’s remedy of it. As we get into chapter 25 this week try to find the parallels between Jacob and you.
In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:
1. How is Jacob a perfect portrait of the typical Christian when it comes to giving?
2. Is your life marked more by giving or grasping?
3. What does the name Jacob mean?
4. What points of contrast can you find between Jacob and his father?
5. How does Jacob’s plotting square with Paul’s words in Romans 7 and Galatians 6:7-10?
6. What does Jacob miss in trying to buy the birthright?
7. How do Jacob’s actions in this chapter square with his actions in chapter 34?
8. Why does Esau get more print in the New Testament than Jacob?
9. Who is Milton Scott and why did he have such a powerful effect on Andy Stanley?
10. How much Jacob is in you?
It’s Stewardship Sunday – a perfect time to talk about all of this. See you Sunday.
