Isaac

One of the most expensive ventures in life is taking a child from infancy to adulthood.

To show you HOW expensive—two years ago the Department of Agriculture released a report that said middle-income families with a child born in 2009 would spend $291,579 to care for that child through high school. The report was entitled, “Expenditures in Children by Families,” and it said that, depending on the age of the child, parents could expect to spend $11,610 to $13,480 per year. Here’s the break-down. The largest cost is of course housing, which averages $69,660—that’s 32 percent of the total cost over that part of the child’s lifetime. Next up is food, child care, and education—which together averages 16 percent each. Add in the price of transportation, health care, and clothing and you’ve got one expensive kid. If we were to expand this to include the next four more years we would have to factor in the cost of a college education—which would add at least $140,000 to our total.

Now you kids out there can stop worrying because I’m sure your parents are going to find a way to pay for all these things. Afer all, they love you. And because they do, they will sacrifice to meet each and every one of your NEEDS no matter what the price. You might want to thank them this afternoon though!

I bring this up because today I want to look at the example of one more Biblical father as a way of putting the spotlight on three other things—PRICELESS things that our children NEED from us. Take your Bibles and turn to Genesis 27 and follow along as I read verses 1-38—the story of a father named Isaac.

1 – When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” he answered.

2 – Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death.

3 – Now then, get your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me.

4 – Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”

5 – Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back,

6 – Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau,

7 – ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the LORD before I die.’

8 – Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you:

9 – Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it.

10 – Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.”

11 – Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I’m a man with smooth skin.

12 – What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.”

13 – His mother said to him, “My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me.”

14 – So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it.

15 – Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.

16 – She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins.

17 – Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.

18 – He went to his father and said, “My father.” “Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”

19 – Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing.”

20 – Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?” “The LORD your God gave me success,” he replied.

21 – Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

22 – Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

23 – He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him.

24 – “Are you really my son Esau?” he asked. “I am,” he replied.

25 – Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.” Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank.

26 – Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come here, my son, and kiss me.”

27 – So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.

28 – May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness—an abundance of grain and new wine.

29 – May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.”

30 – After Isaac finished blessing him and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting.

31 – He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

32 – His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?” “I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.”

33 – Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!”

34 – When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”

35 – But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.”

36 – Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

37 – Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?”

38 – Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud.

This is the Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

In my mind, the experience of this particular father of the Bible—Isaac—shows three things our children NEED from their dads if they are to succeed in life.

(1) First, children need their dads to LOVE GOD.

As Bobby and I have said repeatedly during this series, our sons and daughters need to know that we fathers have a relationship with God that is personal—and growing. They need to hear us talking to God. They need to see us reading God’s book. They need to be able to watch us obeying God’s commands. They need to SEE that we LOVE God—because the example we set helps them to want to do the same. If we don’t walk in obedience to God, they will be far less likely to do so themselves.

In this series we’ve shared several studies and statistics that show this is true but if you need more than statistics you need only look at our text for today….because this is one crucial “need area” where Isaac and Rebekah failed. As I told you a couple weeks back, Isaac saw God’s provision on Mt. Moriah. He saw the sacrifice God provided to take his place. He worshiped God there with his father, Abraham. And over the years Isaac grew in his relationship with God. True, there was a time when, following in his father’s footsteps—like all children tend to do—there was a time when Isaac didn’t trust God to take care of him and tried to pass his wife off as his sister…but Isaac recovered from the disgrace of that faithless act and eventually stood tall amidst the hostile Philistines. He trusted God—obeyed God—and as a result he prospered.

I mean, during those good years, Isaac came to live as the prince that he was, heir of the Abrahamic covenant with God. But now, in this morning’s text, many years have passed and Isaac is quite old. In the intervening decades something of Isaac’s spiritual edge has apparently dulled. Creature comforts have become center-place for him. Back in Genesis 25:28 there is a hint of this when it said,“Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game.” We get the sense that wild game and savory delights were laid out by his servants to satisfy Isaac’s longing for good food. Aging had also left Isaac visually impaired and dependent upon his family—to the point of being DEMANDING. But the saddest fact is that Isaac had come to oppose the revealed will of God regarding his sons, Jacob and Esau. Isaac was well aware of the battle that had taken place between the twins in Rebekah’s womb. He knew that she had asked God about this and that God had said, “The one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger (25:23).” Even in his old age Jacob knew this because Rebekah certainly would not have let him forget it. And the fact that Jacob had manipulated his brother Esau—the son that Isaac favored—into selling his birthright to him for a bowl of soup was a longstanding source of irritation to Isaac. Maybe he was trying to even the scales here after that soup for a birthright deal—I don’t know…but Isaac had decided to go against God’s will and give Esau, his blessing. Isaac absolutely DETERMINED to have his way despite God’s Word. We see this when he told Esau that his desire was for his “soul” to bless him because back then that was the same thing as saying, “I desire this with all my heart.” So, the fact is Isaac’s relationship with God had deteriorated to the point that he was willing to ignore God’s clear instruction and bless the elder, Esau, instead of the younger, Jacob.

And Rebekah’s walk with God wasn’t that much better. She overheard her husband’s plan—because tent walls hide nothing. Plus, hard-of-hearing people like Isaac tend to shout. When she heard what Isaac intended to do she doubted God’s power and thought, “My old fool of a husband is about to ruin everything.” Now I have to say—this was a very ignorant thought. I mean did Rebekah actually think Isaac was going to outwit God? Apparently she did because as soon as Esau left, she came up with a plot of her own. She shared her scheme with HER favorite son, Jacob, and led him to deceive his father. Now—if you remember—when we first meet Rebekah back in Genesis 24, she was a beautiful young maiden who lived in the home of her brother, Laban. She was energetic and enterprising—a real take-charge kind of person. But whereas the first time she used these qualities to GAIN a HUSBAND, now she is using them to POISON her two SONS. I mean, she was RIGHT to believe that Jacob should get the blessing—but she was WRONG to think God needed her help, which shows that her relationship with Jahweh wasn’t all that deep.

And let me just stop and say—Rebekah’s actions should serve to remind US that there is no RIGHT way to do a WRONG thing. She should have asked for God’s help but instead she sinned by leading her son to disrespect and deceive his dad. It’s sad but there is a sense in which the curse Rebekah talked about in verse 13 really did fall on her because her life must have been miserable from that point on. If we keep reading we’d see that after successfully stealing his father’s blessing Jacob had to flee because it made Esau want to kill him. Jacob left—and Rebekah never saw her beloved son again. By the time he limped home many years later, his mom was dead and buried. Imagine the life she must lived, let home alone with only Isaac and Esau—not to mention Esau’s pagan wives. Another reason I would say Rebekah’s life was “cursed” from then on—is the fact that the Bible doesn’t set aside any space for this great matriach’s obituary. I mean, Rebekah’s death is never mentioned, which is a clear sign of dishonor. If her relationship with God was healthy and strong when she heard of Isaac’s plan, she would have done as the writer of Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” We’ll never know how God would have answered her prayer and solved this problem, but it would have been a far sweeter story than the one we have here. I mean, if God had been allowed to make this way straight, neither Rebekah nor Jacob would have walked the twisted paths they walked. Listen friends—when you find yourself in a desperately difficult situation, beware of trusting your own instincts more than God. Trust in Him with ALL your heart. Acknowledge Him in ALL your ways. He may have you act or He may have you wait. But God’s way is always the best way.

Well, Isaac and Rebecca’s spiritual immaturity affected BOTH of their sons. This is seen in the fact that Esau apparently had no relationship with God at all—and I say this because he had married two Canaanite women—pagans who worshiped false gods. Verse 34 tells us that these two women made life bitter for both Isaac and Rebekah. Plus spiritual priorities obviously weren’t as important to Esau as physical comforts. Like his father, Esau’s stomach became more important to him than his soul. And Jacob wasn’t much better. He mimicked his mother and from then on became skilled as a deceiver. In fact, right here in our text he lied to his father three times.

Listen DADS—AND MOMS—our children are watching how we live. They are copying our attitudes and actions. We have to be aware of this! This past Thursday night I was about to turn in when I had an insight that I thought I should add to this sermon…so I grabbed my laptop and tried to open the sermon file…but every time I tried my word processor would crash. I tried opening it from the copy I had saved on my jump drive—same effect. I tried opening it from other computers…crash. I tried opening it from the Carbonite backup—and that wouldn’t work. So, I re-installed Word Perfect—and it still wouldn’t open. Well, I have to be honest, I had a “pastoral melt-down.” You see, I didn’t have a paper copy and unless I could open that file, I knew would have to start this sermon all over again—with only two-days to finish a five-day job.

And—since misery does indeed love company—I shared my melt-down with my family. I invited them into my pity party—explaining in a “pulpit voice,” how unfair it was that I was going to have to begin this sermon all over again. I even inviting God Himself into my “pity party”—telling Him this was just too much. I said something along the lines of, “God, I’ve already had a hard week and Becca is home…and I don’t get to see her very much…and now I’m going to have to spend this precious weekend trying to get five days of sermon prep done in two!” In short, I was ticked—and I let God—and Sue—and Sarah—and Becca know it. They tried to calm me down. I didn’t want to be told everything would be alright because I “knew” it wouldn’t. Well, Sue said, that I should pray and I said, “I don’t want to pray—I’m mad at God for doing this to me. He knows my schedule! This is just not fair!” And she calmly said, “Well, you should still pray.” So, I did. I prayed one of those “honest with God” kind of prayers and then, knowing I had an early hospital visit to make the next morning…I laid down and tried to sleep—and as I did, I heard the still, small, voice of God telling me to try to open the file one more time. I argued with Him and said, “I have already tried that a dozen times. It won’t open!” And God said quietly, “Try to open it one more time.” So, I did. I got my lap top. I found the file. I was about to tap the same “open” button I had before when God’s still small voice shifted my gaze to the “open as copy” button. I had never used that “button” but I obediently hit it…and it opened! I printed the sermon immediately—and the next thing I did was call my girls in to apologize for my spiritual immaturity and then lead them in a prayer in which I confessed my sin to God….asked for His forgiveness…and thanked Him for one more example—in a LIFE TIME FULL of examples—one more example of God’s great faithfulness to a fool like me. I HOPE—I pray that my girls will learn from this. I mean, I pray they’ll NOT copy my “pity-party-life-is-not-fair-and-neither-is-God” behavior. I pray they will understand that we can indeed talk to God about anything…that He loves us…and that He looks at any problem we have as His personal concern. I hope my girls see that I LOVE God—because I do. I couldn’t get through this life without Him. I want them to have that kind of relationship as well because they NEED it! In my opinion meaningful life in this fallen world is not possible without a love relationship with God….and that kind of relationship is only possible through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Here’s a SECOND thing our children need.

(2) They NEED to see that their dads love their WIVES.

Our little ones need to know that husbands and wives love each other—that we are committed to each other—and one of the best ways they see that is when we work as a united parenting TEAM.

This year in her birthday card to me my daughter Becca wrote me a long note and in it said a wonderful thing. She said, “You always take mom’s side when I disagree with her about something.” And then she added, “…I’m so glad that you do.” It was wonderful to realize that my “little” girl is encouraged by the Sue/Mark parenting team. And don’t get me wrong—I’m not bragging—the fact is Sue is a very wise mom so I have learned it’s best to take her side because she’s almost always right…but you get my point. Our children are comforted when they see that their parents have a healthy relationship…that we love each other…respect each other…that we work together as a team devoted to their best interests in life.

Well, this is another area where Isaac—and Rebecah had failed. Now—if you remember your Sunday School lessons over the years then you know these two had a GREAT START in their marriage. Remember? Abraham and Sarah wanted their long-awaited son to have a good wife. They wanted him to have a help-mate with a similar background…especially when it came to faith. I mean, they wanted Isaac to have a wife who loved and feared the one true God. Well, Abraham and Sarah made this a matter of prayer and God answered by guiding them to Rebekah which means that Isaac and Rebekah were literally a match made in Heaven. And, with a start like this it seemed that their marriage would be destined for success but along the way something happened. When Isaac and Rebekah met it was love at first sight…but here in Genesis 27 they are estranged and antagonistic. They were working AGAINST each other. How this happened is fodder for another sermon—but the fact is it had been obvious for some time that the old LOVE was no longer there…and Jacob and Esau were sure to have noticed this.

Listen DADS—and moms—our kids need to know that we are a team bound together by our love for God—and our love for each other and our love for them. They need to know that we don’t have favorites—but both love each of them equally. When it comes to meeting our kids needs—when it comes to parenting, we must remember that, “…A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12) Our children need the anchor that comes from that cord—they need to know that Dad loves mom and mom loves dad and both love God. They draw strength from the knowledge that we lovingly work together as a team for their best interests.

So—kids need dads to love God…they need dads to love their wives…and finally…

(3) they need their dads to love THEM.

Isaac’s example highlights the fact that one of the primary ways we make sure our kids know we love them—is by giving them our BLESSING. Our blessing tells them they are loved and valued.

When Isaac realized he had been tricked into giving Jacob his blessing—I think it was a wake-up call for him. I think he realized God had fulfilled His Word in spite of him…God’s promise that the younger would rule the elder…so he knew he could not rescind the blessing he gave to Jacob…even when Esau asked him to do so. But we can still feel the anguish in Esau’s cry, when he realized he would not receive this from his dad as he said, “Bless me! Bless me also?!” Now…I think if Isaac and Rebekah had worked together from the beginning this painful foul-up could have been averted. They could have explained God’s plan to their sons…in a way that helped them both know they were loved and valued—they could have done this in a way that they could BOTH have honored God’s WILL…but their weak relationship with God and their poor parenting sabotaged this.

Now—customs have changed since then of course but Esau’s painful cry is the same cry and unfulfilled longing being echoed by many people who are searching for their fathers’ blessing,

men and women whose dads—for whatever reason—have failed to bless them with the love and acceptance they need. In their now classic book entitled The Blessing, Gary Smalley and John Trent highlight this aspect of fatherhood…by pointing out several aspects of giving our children the blessing…the blessing that meets their inborn need to be loved. Let’s review a few of them together quickly.

a. The first is MEANINGFUL TOUCH.

You see, God designed us such that one way we feel loved is by being touched—held. By the way did you know that…

• …over one third of our five million touch receptors are centered in our hands?
• …being touched lowers your blood pressure?
• …studies show that men and women need at least 10 meaningful touches a day to maintain emotional AND physical health?
• …getting those 10 meaningful touches can increase your life span by at least two years?

We are indeed designed such that we need to be touched in order to feel loved and valued.

I’ve been reminded of this principle by my granddaughter, Lydia. She’s two weeks old today and like all infants that age she cries out when she wants something…and usually the thing she wants is to be cuddled…held. But Lydia doesn’t like to just be cradled in your arms—no Lydia wants you to hold her close to your chest. Only then does she quiet down. To prove this—here’s a picture of her other grandfather holding her close like that—and you can see by the expression on her face—that she’s happy about it! She feel’s loved and secure.

Well, that need for meaningful touch doesn’t go away as we age. In our text for today Jacob is 40 years old and even at this age it says, “Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him.” Verse 26 says, “Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come here, my son, and kiss me.’”

By the way, this is not an isolated part of Scripture. Almost every time a blessing is bestowed in Hebrew culture it involves TOUCHING…the laying on of hands, a kiss, an embrace…something that conveys acceptance and love. My favorite is Mark’s account of when people brought children to Jesus. In chapter 10 it says He took them and placed them on His knee and laid His hands on them….and in this way our Lord “blessed them.”

Well, all this should remind us that one of the main ways we convey love to our children is through touch. And as I said they don’t grow out of this need. Even when they are in their teens and twenties…our kids need our touch. And please listen dads—and moms—if our kids don’t receive the BLESSING of our meaningful touch it can have disastrous affects. For example, promiscuous man and women, women who work as prostitutes and women who repeatedly have unwanted pregnancies….these women have told researchers that their sexual activity is merely a way of satisfying yearning to be touched and held.

Dr. Marc Hollender, a noted psychiatrist, has interviewed scores of women who have had three or more unwanted pregnancies and overwhelmingly, these woman said that they were, “…consciously aware that sexual activity was a price to be paid for being ‘cuddled and held.’”

So parents…touch your kids…HUG them.

b. A second way dads communicate the blessing of love is through SPOKEN WORDS

We see Isaac doing this in the last part of verse 27 where he says, “Ah, the sweet smell of my son is like the smell of the field.” Now, I suppose a child today would not consider this a compliment but to an old outdoors man like Isaac, the smell of a field about ready for harvest was a wonderful smell. This was a compliment, a positive message that communicated his love and affection.

Tragically, so often the only way we dads use our words with our kids is to criticize and to remind them of their mistakes. Of course there is room for constructive criticism—that’s part of parenting. But it’s ALSO important for us to communicate love through words that say, “You’re worth something. You’re such a wonderful son or daughter. I’m glad that God gave you to us!”

In his book, The Total Man, Dan Benson says that for every positive word that most dads say to their kids they say ten negative ones. And he’s right. We are really good at words like “Don’t” and “You can’t” and “Stop that,” and “No,” but we are not very good at using positive words.

We must remember that as Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death.”

In his book Trent writes,

“A tragic misconception parents in these homes share is that simply being present communicates the blessing. Nothing could be further from the truth. A blessing becomes so only when it is spoken. For a child in search of the blessing the major thing silence communicates is confusion. Children who are left to fill in the blanks when it comes to what their parents think about them will often fail the test when it comes to feeling valuable and secure. It is not enough to provide a roof over our children’s head or to provide them with food and the material necessities of life. Without spoken words of blessing they are left unsure of their personal worth and acceptance.”

c. A third way dads meet their children’s need to be loved is by PICTURING A SPECIAL FUTURE.

We see this in verse 29 where Isaac says, “May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.” Issac was helping him to raise his sights and see that his future is bright…and all kids need their dads to do this. They need to know that we BELIEVE in their God-given potential. If they do, not only will they feel loved—they will also be more likely to be successful in life.

Michael Elmore is a medical doctor. On his medical school I.Q. test, he scored 126, which is considered a superior rating, yet 34 years earlier, in grade school, he was diagnosed as nearly retarded by his principal because of a low score on an I.Q. test. Michael’s mom and dad never told him about that until he became a doctor. You see, they refused to accept the bad news and continued to encourage him. They always focused on what he could do, rather than the many things he couldn’t. His grades steadily improved over the years, and by the time he was a pre-med student in college, he made the dean’s list with a 3.5 grade point average. He was accepted into Indiana University School of Medicine before he finished his junior year in college. When he graduated his parents told him of his childhood diagnosis. At first he thought they were joking. Now he says, “My parents never told me I couldn’t be a doctor.” Dads do your sons and daughters know that you believe in them? Do they know you ROOT for them in life?

I began this message by telling you how EXPENSIVE it is to meet your child’s needs from infancy to adulthood. Isaac’s example shows us that three of our kids’ most important needs cost us nothing.

• They need us to love God—and there is no monetary cost associated with that.
• They need us to love our wives—and once again the cost of this is ZERO.
• They need us to love them. You will never have to pay a bill to do that.

Giving a son or daughter the blessing of your love through meaningful touch, spoken words, or picturing a special future for them doesn’t cost us a cent. Yet—if we fail to meet these needs—both us and our children will pay a very high price. Well—dads how are you doing in meeting the most important NEEDS of your kids? Where do you need to invest some time and effort?

LET US PRAY