Genesis 32:9 “I am not worthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.”

You can’t argue with Jacob’s view of his life. You know how he had behaved. Here was a man who tried to turn everything to serve himself. If ever there was a man who had lived under the theme, “It’s all about me,” that man was Jacob.

He had dealt dishonestly with his own brother and father to cheat his brother out of the rights of the firstborn. He ruptured his own family just to get what he wanted. When he started a family of his own, he adopted the heathen practice of polygamy. He created a family more dysfunctional than the family from which he had come. As much as his father-in-law Laban labored to take advantage of Jacob, Jacob was constantly scheming to take advantage of Laban. No matter whom he hurt, Jacob looked out for number one.

Living a life that tries to turn the whole world into a device to serve ourselves, using other people for our own advantage is not a lifestyle that began or ended with Jacob. From the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, we are involved in the game of trying to bend everything in life to serve me, of trying to line everyone and everything up in the way that makes me happy.

I have little experience in the world of business. I have gotten a little taste of it, perhaps, the three times that I have bought or sold a home. With a little advice from your realtor, you try to make the defects in the home you are selling appear as small as possible. You are ever wary of the possible pitfalls in a home you are considering to buy, things that seller tried to hide from you. The mortgage company hires an assessor to protect itself from losing money if you default. Everyone is trying to get something from someone else. At times it seems like no one is your friend. And in the process, you get sucked into the game of looking out for your own best interests, because no one else is going to. It’s how “business” works. Jacob would have felt right at home in the process.

This isn’t limited to real estate, or even business. We import it into our families and friendships. People who should work together end up acting like competitors. We aren’t so interested in serving and protecting the people closest to us. We want what’s “fair” for me. And what’s “fair” for me isn’t based on some objective formula. It is what involves the least work and the most gain. Even my love for family or friends can be based on “what’s in it for me.” We deserve no better than Jacob, neither in this life nor the one to come. Like him we can pray, “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.”

How has God responded in light of our unworthiness? As Jacob says, with “kindness and faithfulness.” We are still here, aren’t we? How does the author of Psalm 103 say it? “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

The God of our fathers, who gave us this country, and has made us prosper, showed the ultimate kindness by giving up his only-begotten Son and making him a sacrifice for our sins. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor repay us according to our iniquities, because in Jesus Christ he has completely erased them from our records. Of all the kindnesses he has ever shown, none is greater than this: that he has removed our transgressions and declared us innocent of our sins.

In doing so he has made sure that there is a far better country waiting for us than any that Jacob ever knew, or we have ever known. In doing so he has been faithful to the promises he has been making to his people for thousands of years. His kindness and faithfulness have provided far more than we ever could have prepared for ourselves. They will continue to do so.