This is based on a sermon I preached to the congregation at Church of the Living God in Moulton, Alabama.
Jacob is the John of the Old Testament, the disciple whom Jesus loved. “Jacob have I loved,” God says, and the phrase “the God of Jacob” appears ten times in the Old Testament. Hebrews 11:16 tells us that “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” The Almighty is not ashamed to be called the God of Jacob, and God forbid that we should be ashamed to call Jacob our brother.
But Jacob’s life was marked by profound adversity. Not from strangers. From his own flesh and blood: his father, his brother, his father-in-law, and nearly every one of his sons. The focus of this study is the adversity that came from his father, Isaac, and the extraordinary grace that kept Jacob from bitterness in the face of a lifetime of paternal neglect.
Isaac: The Best of Men Who Went Badly Wrong
Isaac was no ordinary believer. He had the best of fathers: Abraham, the father of the faithful. He grew up watching Abraham’s faith in action for decades. When Rebekah first saw Isaac, he was meditating on Scripture out in the field. He prayed faithfully for twenty years for a child before the Lord answered. God appeared to Isaac twice and blessed him directly. His name is forever joined with the name of God: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Most of all, in his youth, Isaac became a type of Christ: he allowed himself to be bound to the altar as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. We cannot deny that Isaac genuinely knew God. He was a model of obedience, self-sacrifice, and prevailing prayer.
And yet Isaac, who was so upright for so long, went radically crooked after his sons were born. He consistently favoured the Ishmael in his own house, Esau, for the basest of reasons: because he loved to eat Esau’s game. He dismissed God’s Word to Rebekah that the older would serve the younger. He loved his evil, reprobate son even though Esau despised the birthright, married two Hittite women steeped in fertility-cult religion, and brought mental anguish upon both Isaac and Rebekah. Worst of all, Isaac knew what God wanted, and he schemed in secret to overturn it.
How do we make sense of this? We can only take the data of Scripture and say that Isaac was an exceptional believer who went very badly astray. We can marvel and take comfort at God’s patience and mercy with His straying ones. We dare not rush to the nuclear option of accusing someone of never having been a Christian because of their faults, even very serious ones.
Jacob’s Lifelong Wound
Now consider all of this from Jacob’s point of view. From his earliest days, Jacob knew from his loving mother that the right of the firstborn was his. He knew the stories of Isaac’s piety, his father’s meditative life, his decades of prayer, his encounters with God. Jacob knew that his father was a genuine man of God.
And yet, according to Scripture, not one ounce of support did Jacob ever receive from his father. Not one word of approval. Not one pat on the back for decades of faithful service in the family business.
It must have been confusing and hurtful, a constant stone in Jacob’s shoe, to watch Isaac’s face light up when Esau came in from the hunt, to hear them feasting together, while Jacob laboured day after day in obscurity. The truth was unavoidable: Isaac loved Esau, not Jacob.
Jacob served his father faithfully from his youth into his twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and by the time he finally secured the legal right to his inheritance through his father’s blessing, he was seventy-one years old. Seven decades of faithful, unrewarded service.
And then, when at last the blessing came, Isaac sent Jacob on a 651-mile journey to find a wife, alone, with no servants, no camels, no gold, no silver, nothing but the staff in his hand. Abraham had sent his most experienced servant along the same route with ten camels laden with treasure to secure a bride for Isaac. But Isaac, who was richer than Abraham ever was, sent his own son away with nothing but words: “Go in peace, be warmed and filled.”
Isaac treated Jacob worse than a slave. The Lord commanded in Deuteronomy 15 that Hebrew bondservants were to be sent away laden with gifts after six years of service. Jacob served Isaac for sixty-plus years and received nothing.
How Jacob Avoided Bitterness
How does a man stand up under the constant grind of work with no affection from his father? Why did Jacob never speak up, never let rip, never succumb to bitterness?
The answer lies in God’s covenant promise.
Jacob had a guarantee from God that he would inherit. The older would serve the younger. Like Mark 11:24 says of prayer, Jacob “believed that he had received it, and it was his.” He possessed the blessing by faith long before he possessed it in fact.
Jacob knew the terms of the covenant. God had said to Abraham in Genesis 17:1-2: “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless, that I may make My covenant between Me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Before the benefits came, the conditions had to be fulfilled: walk before God, and be blameless.
This is exactly what motivated Jacob’s uncomplaining obedience. He plodded along for seventy-one years, serving his unloving father faithfully, because he knew that only the faithful and obedient can inherit God’s blessing. Murmuring and complaining were sins that would cause the blessing to evaporate. Dishonouring his father would disqualify him from the covenant promises. And so Jacob’s fervent desire to take possession of the fullness of the promised blessing was so intense that even the abiding coldness of his father could not cool it.
Even on his deathbed, Jacob honoured the man who had been the author of his lifelong woes. Genesis 48:15 records his words: “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked.” Not a word of bitterness. Not a hint of resentment. Jacob never once spoke ill of his father.
Do You Face an Isaac of Your Own?
Perhaps it is your father who has never loved you and never will, who withholds the approval you so desperately want. Perhaps it is not your biological father but your father in the faith: a man who has been good and godly for many years but who is now wilfully blind to the obvious evils in the world, favouring the reprobate and hindering the godly, wanting nothing more than his belly filled with his pension while the church crumbles around him.
Does your Isaac bless you with words but never give you what you need to move forward? Isaacs cling to tradition. They mouth the words of Scripture, “be warmed and filled,” but withhold the substance: the doctrine of God’s covenant, the teaching about dominion and inheritance, the truth that the righteous shall inherit the earth.
Are you still waiting for your Isaac to change? Are you expecting him to wake up from his comfort-induced slumber? If he is an Isaac, he will never wake up. You must follow Jacob’s lead and walk the long road of trust in God’s promises.
The Homework of a Lifetime
The solution to bitterness is not stoicism. It is not gritting your teeth and pretending the wound does not exist. It is wrestling God’s promises into your mind and heart until they are more real to you than all the hurts you have received from father, brother, uncle, or employer.
Victory is sweet. A man will die inside if he thinks that defeat is inevitable. But Jacob knew he would win, because God told him he would. The older would serve the younger. And that is how we save ourselves from bitterness and despair: by laying hold of God’s covenant promises and refusing to let go.
Never give way to bitterness. Do not whine. Do not rail. Forget the passive-aggressive backtalk. Lay hold of God’s promises. Walk obediently with God. Fulfil your daily duties as Jacob did, believing always in God’s promise that the righteous shall inherit the earth. If you do this, you too can realise the unique blessing God has reserved for you, in God’s time, in spite of all the Isaacs in your life in positions of power and authority, and in spite of any and all setbacks you may face.