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The Spiral of Dysfunction

David Sorn

Jun 28, 2026

Genesis 27:1-28:9

When our families choose sin over God, it’s easy to slide down the spiral of dysfunction. Thankfully, there is another way!

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT

  1. INTRODUCTION
    1. (Life of Jacob Series)
    2. Good morning! My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor of Renovation Church.
      1. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m not exactly all that handy, and sometimes I feel like when I start working on a project at my house (on my own) I just make it worse.
        1. You know what I’m saying?
      2. This morning, as we continue in our Life of Jacob series, we’re going to see one of the clearest examples of all of Scripture of the dysfunction that can occur (especially in a family) when people try and do things their own way instead of trusting in God’s way.
        1. Genesis 27:1-13
        2. Page 18
          1. If you were here last week, we introduced you to Jacob and his twin brother Esau.
            1. And Jacob, the younger twin, tricked his older brother Esau into giving Jacob his birthright.
              1. The birthright was the right to become the head of the family one day, get the double inheritance, and most importantly inherit God’s Covenant promises for their family (The promised land, to become a great nation, and a family that would one day bless the whole earth)
        3. We are jumping over chapter 26 as Jacob is not in that chapter, so start right at the big 27.
          1. We normally read every word of a passage here at Renovation Church, but a couple of times a year we get a very, VERY long passage (and this is our longest passage of the summer), so there will be a few small sections I’ll summarize for you as we go along
            1. But let’s start with verse 1
  2. THE PASSAGE
    1. (Genesis 27:1-13) – NIV
    2. 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 equipment—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 while I have 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.”
      1. (The Spiral of Dysfunction)
      2. Okay, both of these twin brothers (Jacob & Esau) want their father Isaac’s official blessing.
        1. Now, you may be asking, “What’s the difference between the birthright and the blessing?”
      3. The birthright is more like obtaining the official document that you will get the primary inheritance.
      4. But the blessing was like the official, public ceremony where the father publicly places his hand on you and says, “You are the one. This is now yours”
    3. And Isaac, who must have known that Esau had lost his birthright, is trying to circumvent the whole thing and bring everything back to Esau by giving Esau his blessing.
      1. But the mom, Rebekah, isn’t having that.
        1. Jacob is her favorite.
        2. And besides, God had already told Rebekah (when the twins were in utero) that Jacob would ultimately get the blessing
    4. Let’s keep reading and just watch how dysfunctional this family is
      1. Genesis 27:14-27a
      2. Page 18
  3. (Genesis 27:14-27a) – NIV
  4. 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 proceeded to bless 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
    1. Isaac then gives the official blessing to Jacob.
      1. And then basically right after Jacob leaves, Esau comes running in with his food…ready for his blessing.
        1. Look ahead to verse 32 now.
  5. Genesis 27:32-37
  6. Page 19
  7. (Genesis 27:32-37) – NIV
  8. 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? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: 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?”
    1. (The Spiral of Dysfunction)
    2. Esau then becomes so bitter and distraught (even though he kind of got himself in this mess) that he says he’s going to kill his brother Jacob
      1. So Isaac & Rebekah send Jacob off toward his uncle’s house in faraway Harran, to escape the murderous wrath of his brother Esau
  9. CONTINUALLY LIVING FIRSTLY FOR YOURSELF
    1. So what did we just witness?
      1. That, my friends is a very dysfunctional family.
        1. And what I want to show you is that their sin…
          1. (Spiral Image without words)
          2. … is actually a spiral of dysfunction that keeps leading to further & further devastation.
    2. If you’re taking notes (as many of you do), I want you to draw this spiral in the middle of your page, and we’re going to write on both sides of it
      1. When a family lies to each other, it often leads to another lie.
        1. Manipulation leads to frustration, and confusion, anger, shame, revenge, and on and on.
          1. This is the descending spiral of dysfunction that families walk in when they choose sin over God’s ways.
            1. That’s exactly what we see in this passage.
  10. In fact, I want to show you a few patterns of how dysfunctional families often spiral in sin.
    1. (Each person lives firstly for themselves)
    2. Firstly, in dysfunctional families, each person lives firstly for themselves.
      1. And that’s what we see in Genesis 27
        1. Jacob can only think about himself and getting that blessing
        2. Isaac just wants his own agenda to be done.
        3. At the end, Esau just wants to follow his hurt feelings and take revenge on his brother
          1. A huge part of the dysfunction is that everyone is only thinking about what they want, and how the other people in the family should accommodate their desires.
  11. And our families of today can very easily get caught in the same dysfunctional trap.
    1. Maybe this sounds like your family:
      1. Dad comes home from work, and says, “I had a hard day,” and it’s like everyone just knows they have adjust to HIS mood.
      2. Mom says, “I’ve sacrificed so much. Everyone needs to recognize me.”
      3. The kids say, “I don’t want to clean the house or help. And I don’t care what you have going on. My schedule is most important. Take me to my friends house, to volleyball, or some travel tournament in Nowheresville, ND”
    2. And it isn’t all that different from Genesis 27
      1. Everybody is asking: “How do I get what I want from this family?”
        1. But nobody (NOBODY) is asking about what anyone else wants, or more importantly, what God wants?
          1. And because of that, everyone (literally everyone) in this story loses in some way or another
  12. USING THE WRONG MEANS TO REACH GODLY ENDS
    1. Let me show you another way that dysfunctional families end up descending further down the Spiral of Dysfunction.
      1. (They use the wrong means to reach Godly ends)
    2. So think about Rebekah and Jacob here.
      1. Remember, God had already told Rebekah that Jacob was going to be the twin to eventually be blessed.
        1. “Jacob would become the stronger nation and Esau would serve him”
          1. But Rebekah struggled to believe in faith that God would fulfill His promises, so she starts taking matters into her own hands.
      2. She eavesdrops on her husband telling Esau to go cook up some food for his blessing ceremony, so she runs off, cooks food herself, gives it to Jacob to bring to Isaac, and dresses Jacob up with hairy arms like Esau.
        1. It’s all her plan!
          1. But Jacob willingly endorses it!
            1. To the point that even when his father Isaac asks, “How’d you go out and hunt an animal and get me this food so fast?”
              1. Did you see where Jacob said, “The Lord your God gave me success!”
                1. This is so dysfunctional that Jacob is now even bringing God into his lies!
    3. But what are Rebekah and Jacob doing?
      1. On the one hand, they’re trying to reach something good… one of God’s promises: That Jacob would one day inherit the blessing.
        1. But they’re going about it not in God’s ways.
    4. And this is a really important principle for how you interact with your family.
      1. Whether you live with your parents, you may be a single adult (but you still interact with your nuclear family), you just got married, you have kids, or you’re an empty nester interacting with adult children…
        1. And lots of times, we do have good & Godly desires for our families. Things like:
          1. Wanting our children to obey us
          2. Our marriage to work and thrive
          3. Our parents to treat us with respect
            1. But you can end up trying to obtain those things in ungodly ways
              1. You can force kids to obey you through anger and harsh discipline
              2. You can try and get your marriage to work through nagging or shaming
              3. You can try and get your parents to change by making them feeling guilty or just ghosting them
        2. But see all of those means are dysfunctional.
          1. They are not the way Jesus would act if He were in our situation; they are not the means/methods of God.
            1. And when you try and do something good, but not through God’s methods, you just fall farther down on the spiral of dysfunction.
              1. Jacob wanted the blessing. That’s fine. God had promised it.
                1. But because He didn’t go about it in God’s way, you’re going to see this summer, he’s going to spiral for quite some time.
      2. So I want you to ask yourself, “What is it that I want for my family?”
      3. And then ask, “Am I going about trying to obtain it in God’s way?”
  13. ATTEMPTING TO TAKE CONTROL FROM GOD
    1. There is a 3rd way that dysfunctional families end up descending further down the Spiral of Dysfunction.
      1. And that is when they…
      2. (Attempt to take control from God)
      3. Attempt to take control from God.
      4. This is what we really see Isaac, the father, doing.
        1. He knows the prophecy that God has said Esau will serve Jacob.
        2. He knows that Esau had already brainlessly given away his birthright to Jacob
      5. But Isaac tries to take control away from God and still give the blessing to Esau instead of Jacob
    2. Why?
      1. Because Isaac is no longer trusting God with his children
        1. And to the parents in the room, it’s not too hard to do the same.
          1. Some of you are stuck in this trap right now.
        2. You feel like if you don’t get your child into the right daycare or preschool, or if you don’t keep track of their homework for them, or get them on the right travel team, or hanging out with the right friends, or getting to the right college, or dating the right person, or picking the right career…….
          1. ….if you don’t get that right for them, everything could fall apart.
        3. But listen, too many of us parent like Isaac and Rebekah.
          1. God had already spoken to Isaac & Rebekah, and He told them that He would take care of it, but they disregarded that and felt like they NEEDED to make it happen.
            1. Isaac even felt like He could even improve on God’s plan.
              1. But the more they tried to control things, the more they fell down the spiral of dysfunction.
    3. And at the end of this passage, everyone is at the bottom of their dysfunction
      1. Isaac is old, distraught, and his plan failed
      2. Esau has given away everything, and now in his pain, wants to kill his brother
      3. Rebekah lies again to her husband, sends off her beloved son Jacob, and now actually won’t ever see him again
      4. And Jacob is going to now have to live life on the run, he’s about to meet an even greater deceiver (Laban), and he won’t return to his family for 20 years
        1. All the dysfunction has led to serious pain.
  14. TRUSTING IN GOD’S SOVEREIGN PURPOSES
    1. But….but…there is a way back up the spiral.
      1. (Functional Families)
      2. From dysfunctional families to functional families
        1. I was going to call the left side dysfunctional families and the right-side Godly families
          1. But honestly, being a family is so hard. SO hard.
            1. And the Bible’s exhaustive record of difficult family interactions…proves it
        2. So I don’t want everyone to think every Christian family is perfect Godly
          1. So we’re setting the bar today, not at perfect Godliness, but at functional. 😊
            1. Welcome to a real church w/ real people.
    2. You’re going to see that the pathway back up the spiral (to becoming a functional family…hopefully a blessed family…
      1. … includes making the opposite choices of Jacob’s family.
      2. (Trust in God’s sovereign purposes)
      3. So firstly, instead of attempting to take control from God, what you want to do is:
        1. Trust that God is in control, not you
    3. Listen, you can’t stop our God and what He’s going to do anyway
      1. One of my favorite facts about this story that I learned this week is that when Isaac tried to take control of God’s plan, ALL FIVE of his senses betrayed him
        1. Isaac couldn’t see Jacob
        2. He couldn’t hear right that it wasn’t Esau’s voice
        3. He identified the smell of his sons incorrectly
        4. He couldn’t taste right to see that it was just a goat from the flock and not wild game
        5. And he even touched Jacob, and thought it was Esau!
    4. You can’t take control from God.
      1. I don’t know what you’re trying to do right now, but if you’re working against God, you ain’t gonna win
        1. Verse 33 is a turning point in Isaac’s life. Look at it
          1. 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!”
            1. He TREMBLES VIOLENTLY!
              1. He KNOWS he’s been beaten by God!
                1. And so, he basically just says to Esau, “Waive the white flag, son. I blessed your brother and he will be blessed. It’s over”
    5. And this principle doesn’t mean that as a parent, you don’t try and do all the right things for your kids, but at some point, you have to surrender control.
      1. That’s why at all of our Parent & Child Dedications we tell the parents that they are dedicating their kids, they’re surrendering them to God’s control…into His hands.
        1. And so for some of you as parents (or even as family members trying to impact your siblings or others), you have to start fighting some of your battles differently.
          1. You don’t want to walk the path of Rebekah, who got into all of the details of her son’s life, and tried to meddle her way into creating his success…and it did nothing but backfire.
            1. She spent the last years of her life most likely in misery…never seeing her son again.
        2. And so instead of trying to get in there and fix every battle (email every teacher, confront every coach, call every boss, and fix every relationship)…
          1. …start fighting some of these battles for your family on your knees in prayer instead.
            1. Start trusting in God’s purposes.
          2. Repeat this after me: It’s okay (it’s okay) if hard times (if hard times) come to my kids (come to my kids).
            1. You’ll see this summer that God will intentionally bring hard times to shape Jacob and teach him grace.
              1. And He will do the same with your kids.
                1. But you gotta surrender & trust
  15. USE THE RIGHT MEANS TO REACH GODLY ENDS
    1. And as you walk back up the spiral toward a functional (and maybe even a Godly, blessed family again)…
      1. It’s so critical that you do the opposite of Jacob’s family, and…:
      2. (Use the right means to reach Godly ends)
        1. Use the right means to reach Godly ends.
        2. Because, if you continue to use tactics in your family like intimidation, fear, control, nagging, shame, the silent treatment…
          1. …it might get you what you want in the short-term, but it will not lead to anything functional (or blessed) in the long-term.
      3. But if you walk in the RIGHT means…and you walk in God’s Methods WITH Him…
        1. …that is you love, pray, admit wrong, forgive, reconcile…
          1. You can start moving back up this spiral again.
        2. And listen, walking up the spiral is always going to be harder than just sliding down it
          1. Dysfunction is easy. It takes little effort to be dysfunctional.
        3. But if you walk with God, He will give you the grace and strength to walk up it
  16. EACH PERSON LIVES FIRSTLY FOR GOD AND OTHER PEOPLE
    1. (each person lives firstly for God and other people)
    2. And then finally Godly families invert that idea of each person living for their own feelings and agenda and needs, but in a Godly family, each person lives firstly for God & other people.
      1. About 6 months ago, I was at an event for people who were interested in helping to launch our Shoreview location, and there was this dad there from our church with his wife and new baby.
        1. And I noticed how much the dad was helping out.
          1. I even heard him say to his wife, “Honey, why you just sit and enjoy your meal, and I’ll hold the baby and take care of him tonight”
            1. And I was walking by when he said that, and I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I just gave him some sort of encouraging comment.
        2. And he said, “When my wife and I got married, we just decided that we are going to spend the rest of our lives always trying to out-serve the other person. And honestly, it’s the best. I’m always making her happy, and then she’ll turn around, and do the most amazing thing for me”
          1. And friends, that is the way of Jesus, and it’s also the way of functional families, or blessed families.
    3. And so I want to invite our worship band back on stage, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to pray and sing a blessing over all of your families.
      1. And you can stand and do that with us for each other.
        1. And we’re going to pray together that God’s blessing and work in our lives gives us the grace & strength to, not slide toward dysfunction, but to walk toward grace, forgiveness, and love.

Copyright:

David Sorn

Renovation Church in Blaine, MN

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You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own.

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