Stealing the Blessing

(soft music) Rebecca sent, said to her son Jacob, "Look, I overheard your father to say to your brother, "Esa, 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. "Now my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you. "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. "Then take it to your father to eat "so that he may give you his blessing before he dies." This is the word of the Lord. - What's up, party people? (audience laughing) It's been a little while. I've been galvanting around Spain since I last saw you and it was marvelous. I did bring back a souvenir unintentionally, and so I guess I'd better address it with the worst true story ever told. I was on a jog one morning, delighting in the Spanish sights at dawn. When I took a single step, discovered the hard way that I'm not as young as I used to be and broke my shin bone. So you know, what are you gonna do? Wasn't my favorite part of VK? But what was my favorite part? Was equally surprising. My family was staying at this Airbnb in rural Spain and they had a few board games, one of which was the Spanish version of Guess Who. It just so happens to be a childhood favorite of mine and is now the absolute obsession of my four year old Amos. We played probably 300 games of Guess Who and a week or two. And he kind of dialed in the key questions to ask as time went on, you know. Does your personal facial hair, is it a man or a woman, what color hair do they have? That kind of thing to narrow down the options. But he also got a little bit more creative with his question asking than most people do. Like I remember once he was really studying his card and looking at me for any cues or signals and then said, "Is your person got chubby cheeks?" (audience laughing) And I was like, "It's sort of a matter of subjective opinion." But the best moment was in the championship round of the whole vacation. He hits me early in the game with, does your person tell funny jokes? (audience laughing) And I was just like, "Buddy, there's some things you just can't know about somebody from a photo, right?" (audience laughing) Like sense of humor, for instance. That requires relationship and circumstance, right? You gotta have an established relationship with someone and be in some sort of situation with them where humor is wanted and welcome. And this story is kind of like that. There's some things that we just can't know about other people, even those within our own family, apart from long years of relationship and in particular, usually undesirable set of circumstances. To be totally honest, there are some things we can't even know about ourselves apart from unwanted circumstances. Like what kind of person are you in the midst of a disaster? Like an earthquake or a tsunami or a wildfire? What kind of person are you in the way that you react to unexpected loss? Whether it's the loss of a loved one or a job or an investment? How do you react to a betrayal, like being manipulated and tricked by a friend, a son, a brother? Now there's certain things that Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and E. Sock cannot possibly know about each other or even themselves until the circumstances of this story come revealing them. So we're currently in this teaching series through the first book in the Bible, Genesis. And it is an epic if there ever was one. And the particular section of the story that we find ourselves in currently, is the centers on the character of Jacob, who after introducing himself to us by stealing the family birthright, in act two is up to his same old tricks again. A birthright you'll recall from a week ago essentially means double portion. A birthright in the ancient world was an economic inheritance founded on common relational structures and customs. But now, Jacob also wants to steal the family blessing. But what exactly is a blessing? Why is it ripping these people apart? And what does God have to do with any of this mess? And on top of all of that, what does any of that have to do with me, as I sit here this evening? Those are the big questions for tonight. And the story of stolen blessing is a complex tale that unfolds a lot like a play, a seven act play, because of course it would be seven acts. This is the Bible after all. The scene, the cast, the fruit, the blessing, the consolation, the tragedy, and the promise. That's a map for the way that we're going to trace the whole of Genesis chapter 27 together. So up first the scene, look back down with me at your Bible as Genesis 27, the chapter opens like this. When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for, he saw his older son and said to him, "My son, here I am," he answered. Isaac said, "I'm now an old man "and don't know the day of my death. "Now then, get your equipment, your quiver and bow, "and go out to the open country "to hunt some wild game for me. "Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like "and bring it to me to eat, "so I may give you my blessing before I die." So this is a story about someone struggling to see truly and clearly, and by distorted vision, he sees desires, takes and eats, all in search of a blessing that turns out to be a curse. What does that story sound like? Anyone? It sounds like Eden, right? Like the core conflict on the Bible's opening couple of pages, the cosmic conflict that is found right at the beginning of the book of Genesis. This stolen blessing scene is yet another Genesis replay of the fall of all of humanity and the corruption of all creation. Just in what we've read so far, you've got knowledge, death, man and woman who are parenting two sons who are about to become bitter rivals, you know. Like Adam and Eve, Caine and Navel, who see desire, take and eat, and we're just four verses in. The author of Genesis is echoing the central conflict of the whole biblical story, announcing as loudly as possible to every reader. Here it comes, the same old temptation and corruption, same old tempter in a new disguise. In fact, if we were reading Genesis and the Hebrew was originally written in, you would notice over 30 linguistic connections between this chapter and Genesis chapter three and the fall of humanity. The author is absolutely going out of his way to make very clear that this is the same old story among new people and in a new place. The setting of the stolen blessing is Isaac's hospice care deathbed, but on an even deeper level. The setting of the stolen blessing is back in Eden before that tree that no one seems to be able to resist grasping it. Seem to, the cast. Rebecca, Isaac's wife and Jacob and he saw his mom overhears all of this and to summarize the teaching text that we read just a moment ago devises a plan. And the whole point of her plan is to take the very blessing that God has already promised to give. Remember back in chapter 25 after the whole birth story, God speaks to Rebecca promising the older will serve the younger. So God promised to bless Jacob before he lived a single day or did anything to earn or lose the blessing of God. It was promised to him through his mother. But now here's his mother, years later, trying to scheme and grab for the very thing that God has already promised to give to her beloved son. She's trying to take a gift. She wants God's will, her way and on her timetable. Meanwhile, Isaac, who's now an elderly man and his days are wearing thin, Isaac's got a blessing to give away, but he pulls aside, he saw his older son to whisper, "Hey, I'll give you my blessing." But first, I want you to bring me some of that. tasty wild game that I love. So Rebecca's the new Adam and Isaac is the new Eve. It's the same story with a new cast with one pretty obvious absence. The serpent. But wait a minute. Rebecca devises a plan involving dressing up her deceptive son Jacob as an animal to lie to Isaac the child carrying God's promise blessing for all of humanity tricking him into forfeiting the blessing for a taste of food. Rebecca and a scheme to take the promise of God in her timing hisses in the ear of her own son until she casts her child in the role of the serpent that unwound biblical paradise. She casts her own son in the role of the deceiver and all just because she started to doubt that God really was trustworthy to keep his promises. Seen three. The fruit. The blessing God's already promised to give in Genesis 25. Rebecca reaches out to take in Genesis 27 and hears how she does it. She disguises Jacob in Esau's clothes. But those clothes are described this way back to your Bible's verse 15. Then she took some of the best clothes. Now that English word blessed is the Hebrew term hemda which literally translates desirable as in the fruit on the forbidden tree back in Eden. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable hemda for gaining wisdom. Back in verse 13 the author was already dropping bread crumbs like this leading us back to that forbidden tree. His mother said to him, "My son let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say and go and get." Now that English word get is the Hebrew yaha. Can you say that? Wonderful. I'm just honestly making sure I've not lost you in the weeds here. Just do what I say. Go and yaha them for me. Rewind again to Genesis chapter 3 verse 6. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom she took she yaha dsum and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. Yaha is the biblical word for that irresistible itch to grasp exactly what God has already promised to give but of course blessing is something that can only be received. Never taken. Adam and Eve grasped but the tree Jacob comes out grasping at his brother's heel. Rebecca is grasping at the very blessing that God has already promised to give and you and I find a thousand different ways to follow suit. Rebecca doubting the generosity of God grasped for the very blessing she can only receive. She trades a gift for something more like a transaction and in turn she loses the very thing she's determined to keep. The blessing given to her son slips through her fingers when she turns her hands from open to receive to grasping to take. This is the helicopter parent trying to control their child's destiny. It's the executive manipulating her co-workers bending the narrative her way by the widest of lies the most well-meaning of deceptions. It's the church leader trying to sort out the darkest pattern of his life in private so that it never sees the light of day. This is however you can't bear to believe that God is every bit as generous as He claims to be generous enough to bless you with abundance with more than enough. If only you'd keep those grasping hands of yours open to patiently receive. You know I spent a good chunk of the last year slowly and repeatedly just waiting through the pages of Genesis and as I did I began to notice something in me this reaction that would well up as I was reading the story again and again. I don't really like Jacob. I'm really put off by him. I find his character flaws off-putting not endearing and Jacob's story is the longest of anyone's story in the whole book of Genesis making his unheroic qualities all the more pronounced and while sure all of the Genesis heroes are flawed to the very core Jacob is particularly unlikable to me and then finally one day I admitted why. It's because in Jacob I see a whole lot of myself. The very parts of me that I don't like and don't want to see and whence and turn away from. The name Jacob is we learned a week ago literally means supplantor or deceiver. Jacob from start to finish and the Genesis story struggles manipulation and controlling outcomes and even trying to control other people effortlessly bending perceptions to his way. He's really really good at it. Jacob wants God's will the serpents way and that doesn't work. If you want God's will you have to choose God's way too which is trust not control surrendering not scheming receiving never grasping and a word God's way is love and love is patient kind forgiving and slow man it is so slow. Jacob wants God's will at his pace he wants God's blessing only not by love and there's only one other way to try to get blessing and that's by scheming controlling supplanting deceiving tricking manipulating taking and I saw some of that in me. More than I care to admit to be entirely honest I saw some ways that I was so subtly practicing the ways of the serpent and trying to get God's blessing in my own life and so this one Saturday morning months ago now I I said you know God this hasn't always been in me I don't think I can remember a time in my life when I wasn't grasping in the way that I am now can you trace this to its root with me Jesus can you show me when this started in me and it shocked me but this memory flashed to mind of a time ten or more years ago now I was living in Brooklyn and and I was dealing with the situation that's so overwhelmed me that I collapsed weeping on my kitchen floor and I felt so alone like I was being left to deal with all of it to clean up this mess all on my own and as I saw this memory come back to my mind that I had buried and done away with a long time ago I could hear the spirits whisper like a gentle monologue or narrator over the scene saying this is when you decided you were alone Tyler this is when you started believing that blessing is something you needed to take to grasp to control in order to get that's my story how about you when did you stop believing that God knows you loves you and wants to bless you when did you start believing that abundance is life according to your plan your timing your schemes as Paul says to the believers at Corinth already you have all you want already you have become rich already you have begun to reign all things are yours in Christ Jesus family and for you all of his promises are yes and amen when did you stop believing that back to the story then Rebecca took the best clothes of his son which she had there in the house and put him on her younger son Jacob jumped reverse 18 he went to his father and said my father yes my son he answered who is it so Jacob approaches his father in the disguise to try to get his father's blessing that is the most ancient most personal and most common deception the belief that I get the father's blessing in disguise rather than nakedness as my false self rather than as my true self and what does the father say back to his son who is it as not far off from the voice of God back in the garden to Adam when he was hiding in the brush right where are you and then when Adam emerges from the brush in plain view of God he says who told you you were naked just like Adam just like me just like you maybe Jacob reaches for the blessing and discovery. God, He stands in front of His Father, asking to be blessed, dressed up as who He thinks His Father wants Him to be, rather than who He actually authentically is today. Jacob fears being seen by His Father as He really is all of Him in all of His humanity and weakness. It's almost like He's saying with His body, "Well, I just can't march right in there as I actually am and ask for His blessing." And so a theme is emerging here in the life of Jacob, one that we're going to see again and again throughout the years of his unfolding story. He hides His true self from everyone, even in this instance, the one who begot Him. Why? Because the hardest thing for Jacob to believe is that he can be blessed abundantly just as He is. Let's let that settle for a second. The hardest thing for me to believe is that I could be blessed abundantly by my Father just as I am. This is the most personal and often most deepest lie that's buried in a spot sin. It's a lie traditionally called the false self. That constant effortless mask that we all tend to wear, the image that we subconsciously project to others without even thinking about the part that we learn to play by second nature. The mom who has it all together, the effortlessly fashionable forty something, the succeeding without even trying executive, the life of the party, the virtuous justice advocate, the quiet, unpretentious intellectual on and on and on. It goes, there are a thousand versions, but all of them have at their root the seed of the ancient lie that we cannot stop believing that darkness is safer than light, hiding is safer than being seen. A perfection is more satisfying than repentance. And so we master the careful dance of coming in and out of the presence of God, in and out of the church, in and out of our bridge tongue communities, in and out of our covenant rule of life, confessional groups, fearing confession and trumpeting competence. When all along the truth is first John 1, this is the message we heard from him and declared to you, God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin. The truth is light is safer than darkness, being seen as far safer than hiding and repentance is more freeing than perfection's ever been. But most of us like Jacob and Rebecca and every member of this tragic family spend our whole lives trying to get God's blessing our way, wearing our preferred disguise, attempting to become the first human being in history to make it all the way back to Eden with a mask on. That brings us to scene 4 of the blessing. After successfully deceiving his father into believing his ease, off feeding pops a good helping of mom Shepard's pie, he gets a blessing, the very one he's been grasping for. Verse 27, "Ah, the smell of my son is like a smell of a field that the Lord has blessed." You even smell blessed by God. That's where this whole thing begins. Keep breathing. May God give you heavens do in the earth's richness and abundance of grain and new wine. 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. So this blessing is essentially to translate, "May you eat from every fruitful tree and plant. May you rule and reign over creation. And may you be fruitful and multiply." The blessing is, "You smell like Eden. May you live and eat in all the days of your life." The blessing is Eden. His life has God intended it before the serpent's corruption. Isaac thought he was blessing his firstborn son, Esau. He thought he was directly contradicting subverting God's promise. But by using the serpent's way of deception to reach for God's blessing, Jacob snuck in there and took it. He snatched. He stole that blessing. And it certainly seems at this point in the story at least, like his plan worked. Jacob acted like the serpent and God exactly what he wanted. Isaac tried to subvert God's will and becomes the conduit for keeping God's will anyway, but not so fast. The plot thickens. Next verse. After Isaac finished blessing him, Jacob had scarcely left his father's presence. His brother Esau came in from hunting. So realizing that Jacob who took his birth right has now taken his blessing to Esau begins to plead with his father, "Isn't there anything left for me?" And Isaac essentially responds, "I gave him all of Eden." What else is there? And then he proceeds to offer him the inverse of Eden, something that sounds more like a curse than a blessing, but it's not exactly a curse either. That's why I'm calling it a consolation. Verse 39. Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother, but when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke off from your neck. It sounds like the consequences, the Yahweh lists of Adam and each rebellion back in the garden. You will struggle for food. You will fight and toil for everything you've got, but in the end there will still be a way for you to overcome. Maybe you've been turning a question over in your head as we've been trudging through the details of the story, a really important question. What even is a blessing if it's something that can be stolen? It certainly seems like if he was taking his cues from God, the father and the Jacob and Esau story should have been acting a whole lot more like the father and the prodigal son's story. Of course, there's more than enough blessing for you both, because God's economy is based on abundance. There's always more than enough. Isaac's economy, though, and maybe yours in mind, too, is based on scarcity, a zero-sum game. If he got blessed, you can't receive the same blessing, right? If he's already gotten this particular blessing, then there's none left for me, is there? These two fatherly blessings reveal two very distinct ways of seeing and living in the world. By blessing or cursing by the economy of heaven or of earth, by the abundance of Eden or the scarcity of life, east of Eden. Jacob's blessing was one of Edenic abundance. All of heaven is yours. Esau's consolation was one of the serpent's scarcity by the sweat of your brow. You will toil and struggle. Isaac's understanding of blessing is based on scarcity, but of course, blessing by its very definition is an abundant resource. Don't you have any blessing left for me, father? The obvious answer should have been, of course I do. There's more than enough for you. But if I believe the serpent's scarcity is more real than God's generosity, well, then I find myself becoming the helicopter parent trying to control their child's destiny, or the executive subtly manipulating, bending narratives, telling the very widest of laws for the best intentions, I become the church leader trying to hide the dark patterns and sort those out before they ever have to see the light of day. Scarsity is however you can't bear to believe that God is generous as He claims to be generous enough to bless you abundantly if only you turn over those grasping hands and patiently wait to receive. Already you have all you want. Already you've become rich. Already you've begun to reign. When did you stop believing that? But maybe that still does leave you wondering. So what exactly is a blessing? What did Jacob get that Esau didn't? And what role did Isaac actually play in all of this? The words he spoke to his sons actually have a consequential role over their futures, or is this just ancient superstition cloaked up in religious robes? Well, there's so much in this story that isn't exactly clear. What is very clear though is at least this much. people have real God. like power. I mean, Imago Day vested authority in the world to rule and subdue to bless and to curse one another, but because of sin, we distribute that divine power not abundantly, but scarcely, coercively, manipulatively and selectively. Blessing, as it's revealed on the pages of Scripture, is at least this much, speaking words of great power over the identity and future of another. That's what blessing is, it is speaking words of great power over the identity and future of another. And whatever you want to call that, blessing, encouraging and belittling, healing and trauma, whatever you want to call it, we all still know that words spoken in great love or great hate tend to set things in motion in the interlife of the recipient that are very difficult to undo. Right, the entire field of psychotherapy is based on the fact that we know that human beings have experiences in this world, experiences often born from the blessing, cursing words or relationship with another person. They get lodged so deeply into our consciousness that they dictate our becoming whether we want them to or not, and in some cases, even whether we can remember and recall them or not. Curses are words that exponentially shape our destruction. Blessings are words that exponentially shape our redemption. You see, what I'm trying to show you is that in the biblical story and just in your own life experience, human beings have real God-like capacity in the world to shape one another. We speak words over one another that echo the voice of Yahweh himself and others that echo the voice of the serpent. We are always parroting the truth that sets you free or the lie that enslaves. We make and we mask one another through our words and we do it all at the time. God really has vested us with divine image-bearing power to rule and reign in His creation by His character and the serpent really has tricked us into using that power to rule and reign by scarcity, competing with and destroying one another. Verse 41, "Esa held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him." Now that English word judge is the Hebrew satan. Satan. When Paul writes in Ephesians later, "In your anger do not send, do not let the sun go down while you're still angry and do not give the devil a foothold," he is alluding back to this moment in Genesis, holding a grudge against someone, defining them as anything less than made in God's image and known by God's grace is biblically depicted as the personification of Satan. Who in my life are present and my defining is less than made in God's image and known by His grace? Who am I relating to by some measure of scarcity rather than abundance? Whose prosperity and my subtly defining is undeserved? Whose job promotion or positive pregnancy test? Whose new house or new car, whose most recent achievement do I think should be mine or at least not theirs? Whose blessing am I subtly, internally defining as stolen or askew biblically? Who am I sataning? We're nearing the end now. Seen six. The tragedy, this whole blessing and stealing drama, is that there is no outright villain and there is no hero. We don't have a victim and we don't have a perpetrator. Sin is running so rampant that it's made its way into the motivations, thought patterns, and reactions of every member of this family. The simplest and clearest way I know to explain it is this 27 chapters into the ancient tale. Sin is now a lot like salsa. Maybe there was a day when we could parse out all the ingredients and separate the flavors, but today if you don't like onions you're just out of luck. All the flavors have mixed in with each other and you got to take the whole thing down at one bite. Sin is in everything we think, everything we do, every word we say, even the way that we hear the words that are spoken to us. Sin is in every member of this family. Isaac, in the first verse in the story, he's trying to bend God's will his way. He calls, "Esa, his older son, the great one." That is the identical title by which God called Jacob in his promise to Rebecca. And Rebecca is not fairing any better either. She's trying to deceive her husband and to fulfill God's will and getting God's will done the serpent's way. Jacob is getting his very namesake from the serpent and in spite of being granted the favor of God blessed by the maker of all of creation before he did a single thing to earn or lose that favor, he still relates to his world and even his family. Like God's blessing is something he has to take by his own effort and merit. And Esa, at the very end of the story, images Satan himself by defining his younger brother by his worst moment rather than by God's grace. Lies and deception are so woven into the fabric of humanity at this point that we're constantly imaging and parroting the serpent to one another and we can no longer parse out who's playing what part. All that's for sure here is every last one of us is gathered around that tree grasping at the same fruit. Verse 42, when her Rebecca was told that her older son, what her older son Esa said, she sent her for her younger son Jacob and said to him, "Your brother Esa was pointing to avenge himself by killing you. Stay with him for a while until your brother's fury subsides. When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I'll send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?" You see, in this final scene, the cameras are painting out and the credits are about to roll on the story and Rebecca is still trying to use the same faulty methods. She sent Jacob to live in her ran with another relative because the two of them have been found out, cooking up a scheme for how and when he's going to come back and everything's going to work out just fine. She's still grasping at the tree, still trying to get God's will her way. She's still reaching for the blessing that can only be received. The great tragedy of Genesis chapter 27 is Rebecca is still trying to use manipulation to fix what manipulation broke. This moment, these are the last words she ever speaks to her son. It's the last time in the story she will ever get to lay eyes on him. She will pass away before he ever returns home. So by trying to bend God's will to match his own, Isaac becomes the very medium through which God keeps his promise. And by trying to take the blessing, the God has already promised him Jacob ends up alone and on the run from his own family. And by trying to avenge his loss by his sword rather than Christ's cross, he saw only inflicts more pain on himself and others. And by trying to keep her blessed son by her own scheming rather than trust God's will in way, Rebecca loses the very son that she's trying to keep. Genesis 27 is the great human tragedy. And we would be so blind to read a story like this without admitting the truth that Jacob's sort of dishonesty, the subtle manipulative scheming bending of the narrative to my benefit, the narrative of my family conflict and the role I play in it, the narrative of my resume or my work performance, the internal narrative of my moral or spiritual scorecard bending the narrative to my favor will get you a long way in this world of ours. And we will be foolish to pretend that isn't so. And that Jacob's subtle form of dishonesty isn't in every last one of us to varying degrees. But in the end, what did all this subtle dishonesty get him? I know because I'm a pastor you expected me to say nothing, but that just wouldn't be true. So far all this dishonesty has gotten in the family birthright and the paternal blessing. dishonesty has been working for Jacob in the ancient world, pretty much exactly how it still works for people in the modern world. dishonesty will take you places. Scheming manipulation and dishonesty they've built Jacob's resume advanced his business role authority and set his feet on the pedestal. And Scheming manipulation and dishonesty will do the same for you. They will build your resume, advance your positional authority and set your feet on your preferred pedestal, the very one that you're climbing for. And this is how sins always worked and always will. It will give you what you want, but it will not satisfy you. It will give you what you want while destroying you in the process and setting in motion unintended consequences wreaking havoc on everyone in your relational sphere. Genesis 27 is the great human tragedy, but the curtain doesn't drop on this story, apart from a much better promise. You know, one of the things that's happening in this story is we are seeing very plainly that God sometimes gets his purposes done regardless of human beings trying to thwart those very purposes. Right? Rebecca is trying to accomplish God's promises for him and she somehow cuts herself out of the experienced reality of those promises and Isaac is trying to get his way as soon as God and then somehow accidentally becomes the medium through which God gets his way. This theme, it's not specific to Jake, but I believe it is the primary theme of the whole book of Genesis. It's summarized most succinctly on the very last page of Genesis in chapter 50 when Joseph says to his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." People keep on scheming and scheming and corrupting, well meaning or not, it just multiplies corruption, but God has a scheme too. God has a scheme for good. And however much people multiply sin, God just keeps on multiplying good all the more. He is tireless in doing good. Human beings just keep on making it difficult for God to renew the world and even to bless them abundantly, but God just keeps coming and keeps coming and keeps coming with blessing. He is relentless in redeeming and inexhaustible in blessing and there is nothing we can do to outrun the reach of his blessing in his grace. Thanks for joining the Bridgetown family as we engage in this teaching series. To learn more about the life of our church and how you can get involved, visit Bridgetown.Church/Welcome. If you're interested in contributing financially to Bridgetown Church and to our ministry, you can do that at Bridgetown.Church/giving. Wherever you're joining us from, we hope this resource blesses you and encourages you to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.