Occasionally, people ask really, really good questions.
On Sunday, we talked about God’s unconditional love for us despite our sin… If you missed it you can download it here. We looked at the life of Jacob a little bit, and we concluded, based on Genesis 27 and Deuteronomy 7:6-8 that “it was simply that the LORD loves you, and he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors. In other words, He loves us because He loves us!
On a response card, someone asked the really great question… “If God loves us because He loves us, then why did he reject Esau?”
I think this is a great question. I was talking with a friend about it on Sunday afternoon, and I pointed back to the passage in Romans that we had looked at earlier that day in the service…
Romans 9:11-16
But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes; he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.” In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.”
Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not! For God said to Moses, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”
So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.
The point being that God DIDN’T choose to love everyone equally! He chose to love Jacob and he chose to reject Esau. Esau was outside God’s promise to Abraham.
Well, this did NOT sit well with my friend. She said “I just don’t like that. I can’t believe that my God would love some and not love others. That just makes me mad.”
“But,” I said, “don’t forget that God CREATED us to represent HIM on the earth… To reflect HIS glory and to be in relationship with Him. But God didn’t break that deal… WE did. We broke the deal when we chose to rebel against him by sinning in the Garden of Eden. We rejected God. At that moment, ALL of us were guilty of being criminals against God, and we fell under the death penalty. None of us any longer deserved God’s love at all. But God chased after us by CHOOSING to love one people among this world of sinners. He called Abraham and promised that the entire world would be blessed through his offspring. That line of offspring went from Abraham through Isaac, to Jacob, and then to all of Jacob’s children, who became the 12 tribes of Israel. Israel was the chosen nation… Unique in this world because they were loved by God.
And then it happened. The fulfillment of the promise as God wrapped himself in flesh and became a Jewish man, living without sin while here. He took my punishment and opened the door for me to have a relationship with God. That same passage goes on to say:
Romans 9:25-26
“Those who were not my people, I will now call my people.
And I will love those whom I did not love before.” And,
“Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ”
So, in the Old Covenant, you were born into God’s promise and His love. In the New Covenant, you are BORN AGAIN into His family!
Romans 10:9-10
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.