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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Oliver Bragg

Jacob’s Struggle

But before we begin today, let's just bow our heads and pray.

Dear Father in heaven, Lord, thank you so much for the gift of life, which every day, Lord, we acknowledge that you are the sustainer of our lives.

And today, Lord, we take a moment here, set aside to invite your presence to be here with us, Father.

And that the word, your word, that was written so long ago, Lord, would be a life to us here this morning and that we'd be encouraged and that we can have hope as we live in these latter days.

God, as indirect as please, Lord, be with my mouth.

Help me to only speak what would be pleasing and acceptable in your sight.

1 of my favorite things to talk about is Bible stories.

The last time I was here I told my favorite Bible story about Mephibosheth and David.

And there's a second 1 that is number 2, although it could vie for number 1, depending on the day.

And if you've been going through the quarterly, you know that you've been going over the story of Joseph.

So we can go back just a bit and you'll kind of have a prelog to the story of Joseph, but we're gonna be talking about him today and his life.

You know, Bible stories, hopefully, if you guys are parents, that you teach them to your children, and if you're not parents, hopefully that you, I encourage you to invest in, of course, the Bible, but a good set of Bible stories to teach and educate your children, because I remember when I first came into the church, some kind-hearted people at the church gave my mom a 10-volume series called The Bible Stories, and then a five-series called My Bible Friends.

And to this day, I really believe that that's, you know, what kept me throughout the years, you know, in the church, reminding all of these, remembering all these stories of how God used individual people in their lives and how God worked in miracles and miraculous ways.

I remember the story of Joseph and how the Bible story said, you know, in the Bible story says, he swept in every corner.

And to this day, when I'm sweeping, that's what's in my mind, gotta sleep in every corner.

And all of these stories, just wonderful lessons.

You know, in Deuteronomy 6, you know, God tells Moses, Moses tells the people, listen, you know, you gotta, the law, you gotta memorize it, you gotta talk about it When you rise up in the morning, when you're going to bed at night, you've got to write it on your doorpost, you've got to have it everywhere.

So I want to encourage you, 1 of the biggest blessings in the world is to have the scripture and to be able to share that with your kids and talk about it as you wake up and as you go to bed and have it everywhere in your house to saturate your lives with the Word of God.

And I want you to imagine in your minds with me for a minute, to go back in time, and I want you to picture in your minds a big room.

And in this big room, there is a giant window, and out of the giant window, you can see the pyramids of Giza there and the sun is setting and you can visualize a old man, a very old man.

And this is a moment that we'll all get to in life at some time, where we realize that we need to begin to talk to the people, the people that mean most to us in our lives.

And we were talking last week about how Jacob himself had been blessed, excuse me, but now he's bringing his 12 sons together to bless them, each 1 of them, every 1 of them.

And I imagine as he's sitting there in his bed, and as he's struggling with his life, knowing that he's soon to pass away, that he thinks of back in his life, of another struggle, a struggle that happened even before he was born.

And I want you to turn with me please to Genesis chapter 25, verse 22.

All right, reading in verse 22, it says, But the children struggled together within her.

And she said, If all is well, Why am I like this?

Jacob, even before he was born, there was a struggle in Rebekah's womb.

And Rebekah is inquiring of God, you know, if all is well, Why am I like this?

And I think each 1 of us can look at periods in our life says, God, if all is well, why am I like this?

If everything's good, why is this going on in my life?

And God explains to her the struggle, what's going on.

He says, the Lord said to her, verse 23, 2 nations are in your room, 2 people shall be separated from your body, 1 people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.

I know that we're a big enough audience here where you can relate, where your foundational life, when you were born, started with a struggle.

You know, oftentimes we see, especially in this area, we see a lot of poverty.

But honestly, not all of us were as blessed to be born into having as many choices as a lot of us had.

You know, if you're born on a ship that's sinking, you only have a couple choices, you know?

And some of those choices aren't the greatest, they're survival choices.

And when you look back at scripture very early on, he was there.

If you look at John chapter 9, you don't need to turn there with me, but you find Another story where Jesus is with his disciples and his disciples come up to Jesus and they say, Jesus, this man that's born blind, we're just gonna, you know, why don't you tell us why he's blind?

It was so that the works of God could be manifested in his life.

So often we look at others and we say, well you know why are they going through this?

But for God, the way he looks at humanity, the way he looks at us, much differently than just that.

Verse 25 and 26, and the first came out red, he was like a hairy garment all over, so they called his name Esau.

Afterward his brother came out and his hand took hold of Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob, which means supplanter or deceiver.

Now, I don't know about you, but names are important to an extent.

Now, probably a lot of you wouldn't like that, but I suppose Esau at a certain age probably thought that was pretty cool.

Because I know when I was like 13, 14, and I started looking at the mirror and looking for, you know, facial hair.

You know, that was a big thing, the first time you shave.

The first time you cut yourself when you shave.

And even that's a big deal because then you can actually show people you shave.

Yeah, I got this, you know, or how I got that.

But, you know, so, you know, but the parents called him that, and okay, that's, you know, I guess he didn't mind.

But when you look at the name of Jacob, Deceiver, I don't know, if I was a kid I might have a problem with that.

I'm sure you've all looked it up at times, look up what your name means.

I think we all go through a time where we want to change our names when we're kids.

Like, stop calling me Bob, you know, call me, I don't know, Emanuel, or call me some other name, you know.

I don't know, I think we go through this time where we're like, well, I didn't choose my name, my parents chose it, so I'm going to choose my own.

My grandmother changed her name, my aunt changed their names.

And there was a time where I didn't love my name.

I was in Barnes and Noble the other day and someone said Oliver and I looked around, I heard Oliver again.

I looked around, I was like, oh, this is weird.

And then this little kid came running, and that was Oliver.

So it's trending that all of names trend on a scale.

And based off its scarcity, it depends on a lot of different things.

When a name becomes scarce, it becomes essentially more desirable, okay, if you study economics.

And then when it becomes too popular, it'll go back through the cycle and go back to the bottom.

So eventually I'll be back at the bottom again, on some level.

But as a child, I didn't mind it because my name meant peace.

Well there's several meanings, but that was the coolest, right?

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Jacob’s Struggle

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