One of the most enigmatic and intriguing characters in the Bible is Jacob, the second-born son of Abraham's second-born son, Isaac. The Old Testament is replete with references to this famous three-generational triumvirate, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Abraham, the father of faith; Isaac the son of promise; Jacob the ... what?

Jacob the thief? Jacob the liar? Jacob the cheat?

In modern-day parlance, we could simply say that Jacob was a con-man of the first order. Even the name Jacob in Hebrew has the meaning of "deceiver" or "supplanter."

Jacob, with his mother's connivance and encouragement, lied, cheated and effectively stole both the birthright and blessing of his elder brother Esau. Read the story in the Book of Genesis, chapters 25 and 27.

Yet isn't this the same Jacob whom God later re-named Israel, and who ultimately became the father of the 12 patriarchs, the founding fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel?

Why God chose Jacob remains a mystery. He was not the first-born, and he had a deeply flawed character. But surely, he is a great encouragement for the rest of fallen humanity, who also fall far short of God's perfect and holy standard.

Imperfect Vessels For His Perfect Work

God can and will use any of us, no matter how imperfect we are, to help bring about His divine plan. God can use you and God can use me, even if our record is spotty and our efforts are seemingly ineffectual.

God used Moses, a murderer, to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. God used Paul, a blasphemer and persecutor of the Church, to evangelize the known world of his day. And God used Jacob, the archetypical con-man, to birth the mighty nation of Israel, which remains until today a key part of God's redemptive purpose for mankind.

The story of Jacob has many lessons for us as Christians trying to do the best we can as "marketplace ministers," doing God's work in the midst of a corrupt and fallen world, an "evil and adulterous generation."

Jacob did not "get away" with his duplicity. We need to be reminded that all our choices have consequences. After "conning" his brother Esau out of both his birthright and his blessing, he was forced to escape into exile, and spent the next 20 years under the power of another huckster, his uncle Laban.

Laban tricked Jacob into marrying an unwanted and unloved wife, Leah, and consistently cheated him out of his wages. Laban gave Jacob a big dose of his own medicine!

Philip Yancey and Tim Stafford, in their "Guided Tour" to the Zondervan Student Bible, put it very well: "Jacob, willing to lie, cheat and steal to get in on God's blessing, would flunk anyone's morality test (and Genesis surely does not commend his tricks—Jacob has to pay dearly for them). However, his life offers an important lesson: God can deal with anyone, no matter how flawed, who passionately pursues Him. The story of Jacob gives hope to flawed people everywhere.

"Apparently God's choice does not depend on how a person behaves. God simply chooses the people He wants. In this case, He chooses Jacob, the deceitful younger brother. Is this fair? The apostle Paul raises that very question in Romans 9. He concludes that we have no right to find fault with God's choices, because we know so little, when compared to God's infinite understanding. And while we may never understand God's choices, we should note that all the 'rejected' brothers of Genesis—Cain, Canaan, Ishmael, Reuben, Esau and Manasseh—are treated more than fairly.

"For His chosen people, God has a much greater honor in store. Good or bad, they will be made a channel of blessing for the whole world. God tells Abraham right from the beginning, 'All peoples on earth will be blessed through you' (12:3).

"No wonder Paul wrote that we have no business questioning the wisdom of God ... God has a habit of choosing flawed people to achieve great good. Who can say what He is doing with the hypocrites of our day?"

Sovereign Grace

God's seemingly unfair treatment of Jacob teaches us an important lesson about two key characteristics of God—His choices are sovereign (Rom. 9:14) and His grace is always sufficient for us (2 Cor. 12:9).

God's grace is an underserved gift, and never is this seen more clearly than in the life of Jacob. Even while on the run after conning Esau, God meets him in a dramatic personal encounter on the road between Beersheba and Haran, telling him in a dream: "I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth ... All people of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go ..." (Gen. 28:13-15).

Later, in Genesis 32, Jacob is on the run again, this time from Laban and is about to meet up with Esau, his long-lost and wronged brother. Jacob is understandably nervous about meeting Esau, and God, instead of wiping him off the face of earth, touches him with "amazing grace" and changes his name from Jacob the Deceiver to Israel the Struggler, telling him: "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with man, and have overcome" (Gen. 32:28).

In amazement, Jacob says: "... I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared" (Gen. 28:30). Truly, amazing, astounding, stupendous grace indeed!

What did Jacob deserve? Judgment and condemnation.

What did he receive? As Yancey and Stafford put it: "Jacob the cheat becomes the namesake of God's chosen people, the Israelites."

God makes it very clear, many times, that we are not to question what He does with and through us, and why he seemingly makes unfair and arbitrary choices. We are the clay, and He is the Potter (Rom. 9:21), and He makes no bones about telling us bluntly that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have compassion (Rom. 9:14).

God is God. His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts (Is. 55:9). We may never understand His ways and His thoughts, but we do know that His grace, undeserved and sublime, is always there to pull us up out of the hole we have dug for ourselves.

No matter how weak we are, God is there to give us His strength. No matter how dark our situation, God is there to bring His light. No matter how confused we are, God is there to give us His wisdom.

In Paul's moment of weakness, God says: "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." Paul's response is a lesson resounding down the annals of time for us today: "... For Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:9 and 10).