What’s Wrong With Us?

THE PRETENDER

Pastor Hope Flask

March 11, 2026

Main Scriptures: Genesis 27:17-30

Additional Scriptures: John 16:8, Proverbs 10:22, 14:30, Genesis 4:7, 27:6-10, 1 Peter 5:8, Galatians 5:17, Psalm 51:9-13

POINTS:

• Pretense is a sign that sin is the controlling narrative of our thought life.

• Hypocrite = “an actor” or a “stage player” who wore masks to play characters.

• Jealousy is when you don’t like who you are, and you wish you were like someone else.

• “Jacob” means “heel grabber, deceiver, supplanter, and usurper”.

• Parents are the greatest example to children of what it means to trust God and move in faith.

• When we try to get God to bless someone we are not, there is so much sorrow that the blessing we’ve longed for no longer feels like a blessing.

• God can’t bless who you pretend to be.

• God’s turnaround can only start when we turn around.

• Repentance is turning.

• When we encounter God, we will also encounter ourselves, which means we will be given our divine identity.

• Jacob had spent his whole life grabbing, but now God grabbed Jacob!

• The real blessing could only come when Jacob admitted who he really was.

• Israel means “triumphant with God”.

• God will change a “so what” story into a supernatural epic one every single time.