Sermon Notes + Quotes:
Transcript:
We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. We have extra paper copies. If you’d like one of those, raise your hand up real high and we’ll drop one off at your row. If you would prefer to go online, you can jump on the network here at The Village Chapel, up there on the screen tells you the password and the name of the network. If you’re listening or watching us online, hello everybody! So glad you joined us online and glad to be together. That’s a growing group of people. I’m just thrilled to know that they’re out there. We are studying the Book of Genesis and, of course, we’re calling our study In the Beginning.
It says, “In the beginning.” I think that in our day that may be the most offensive verse in the entire Bible. Some people don’t like to think that there might be some other source for life or some other source for truth or some other source other than the self that might have created them. We have right there a huge dividing line in the way people look at the world and look at reality. We happen to believe along with the creed from 325 AD there that we just recited, that actually there is a creator. This isn’t just all random chance co-location of atoms and chemicals that collided and so life is meaningless. No, this is all actually designed. There is purpose written into that design.
We are so grateful that there is a God, that He has indeed spoken and not left us alone. He revealed Himself to us. Back here in the study of Genesis, we now come to chapter 28, if you want to turn there in your Bibles. I don’t know if you can relate to this or not, but some of us have actually messed our lives up from time to time. There’s a couple of smiles and a couple nods. Maybe you’re thinking of somebody else and maybe they’re thinking of you, but some of us have had that experience where we’ve made some choices and we’ve isolated ourselves from others. It might be that we did that by withdrawing in some kind of passive aggressive way in a relationship. Or it might be that we’re a runaway, a prodigal at some point, or maybe you have a prodigal.
What do you do? What does God think of that kind of thing? We come to Genesis 28, and this is a great example. Here we find Jacob on the run. Now he’s not a teenager prodigal, this guy’s 70. He’s been living at home with mom and dad until he was 70, all right? There’s a bunch of years and a bunch of hurdles. We have to jump over those years to understand some of what’s going on. All of what he went through you won’t go through and I won’t go through. But some of what he has gone through we will go through, and this story is here for a reason. We need to ask the question: Why is it here? What does it say to us in our own lives, in our own day and time, and in our relationship with God, if we have one?
If we don’t have one, what does it perhaps inspire us to? That’s kind of where I think we want to go today. I’m going to put up on the screen the map, just to orient you a little bit as to what we’re about to see is happening. Beer-Sheba’s at the bottom of the map right there as you’re looking at it. You can see the blue line, which is tracing the journey of Jacob as the camera lens. The story line now focuses in on Jacob away from Isaac. We’ll see that he’s going to travel north all the way up there to the top of the blue line where it says Haran. It’s probably 400, maybe 450 miles. It’s a long way to go when you don’t have a motor coach or a car or an airplane or a helicopter or something like that.
It’s a long way to go if you’re walking. Maybe he had a camel, I don’t know, but even so that seems like that wouldn’t be such an attractive ride for me. Camels don’t have air conditioning as far as I know. But to travel that far, he’s on the run. As we saw on the storyline preceding this, he’s on the run because his brother Esau is actually thinking about killing him. Jacob knows this because Rebecca, his mother, told him about that. She had heard about that since Jacob had stolen not only the birthright, but also the blessing away from Esau. We’re going to call this moving from greedy schemer to gospel dreamer in this chapter. That’s what’s going to happen.
This is the story of the dream that Jacob has, where God appears to him in the dream and speaks to him. There’s this experience with a ladder or a stairway. Some of you will know this story, but let’s look at it together, make a few points and throw just a few ideas your way about how this might relate to your life as well. Verse 10 picks up with Jacob on the run. He departed from Beer-Sheba, and he went toward Haran. We have him starting to move right out. He had to do that pretty quickly. Why? Because Isaac, his father was aged and close to death. The rumor around the camp was that Esau was going to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac died.
Rebecca says, “Run. Run my son. Run.” Remember Jacob was Rebecca’s favorite. Esau was Isaac’s favorite. We have parents that are playing favoritism. We have brothers that are at each other’s throats. We have this guy Jacob, whose name means heel grabber. He’s a schemer. He’s one that trips others up and he literally has stolen from his brother and lied bold face to his father and his mother. He had been conspiring. He’s got to take off. He’s got to go. How long would that take on foot? I don’t know. I’ve never walked 400 miles. Maybe somebody in the room has. My guess is weeks it would take, okay. He came to a certain place and the narrator isn’t going to tell us exactly where that place is, but that’s okay. That’s not what’s important. However, this place will be named by the end of the chapter, which will be really interesting for us.
He came to a certain place, and he spent the night there, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head and he laid down in that place. He doesn’t have his own bedding with him. He doesn’t have one of those really comfy air mattresses, doesn’t have his My Pillow with him or whatever. He grabs a rock, and he puts it under his head and that’s all he’s got. He’s out there sleeping under the stars. He’s on the run, because his brother wants to kill him. He doesn’t know if his brother is on the chase right now coming after him or not. Think of all the things that could be going through your mind in this particular moment. You’ve run away. You had to drop everything you stole, everything you schemed for. You had to drop it all and go immediately with literally just the robes on your back and the sandals on your feet.
He lays down there and he has got a rock under his head, and he had a dream. Verse 12 says, “Behold a ladder was set on the earth,” staircase, some of your translations might say. Was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. “And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold the Lord stood above it and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants shall also be like the dust of the earth.’” In other words, many. “You shall spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”
Listen, Jacob is kind of familiar with this kind of language and this kind of promise, because he’s been sitting around the campfire with Grandfather Abraham and with Father Isaac. Those two guys were told the exact same thing. Now here’s God appearing to him in a dream and He’s saying those kinds of things that He said to Isaac and to Abraham. “Behold,” and this is the most beautiful part of it, right here, “I am with you.” I’d like to pause at the notion that none of the rest of that stuff matters unless this is true.
He can have all the stuff in the world and still have a completely empty soul, empty life. That’s why so many of our recovery clinics and therapy clinics are filled with the wealthy people who have achieved much, acquired much, but found life still wanting in some way. Why? Because you just can’t build your life on finite stuff. We need, I Am, to be with us. He put eternity in my heart and in your heart. The deepest, most chronic longing all of us have, whether we know it or not, is for Him. He says, “I am with you,” verse 15. I love this. Verse 15 could be a four-part sermon all by itself, but don’t worry, I won’t go there. “I am with you. I will keep you wherever you go. I’ll bring you back to this land and I will not leave you.” That’s beautiful.
“I will not leave you until I’ve fulfilled all these promises,” He says. Jacob awoke from his sleep, and he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.” He was afraid. He said, “How awesome is this place? This is not other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.” Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head, and he set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top and he called the name of that place Beth-El. That means the house of God. Now the place has a name, and the name is given. It’s a given name. It’s like your name has been given to you. Can you legally change it? Sure, you can. But somebody gave it to you before you had any say in that whole process. Here’s the name of the place, Beth-El, House of God.
However, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Now I haven’t got a clue what Luz means, but it doesn’t sound that great. I mean it just sounds like one of those snoring kind of places. Jacob made a vow saying, if, or in some of your English translations the same Hebrew word could be translated, since, which is very interesting little difference, isn’t it? “Since or if, God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take and will give me food to eat and garments to wear and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God.”
Now you guys, we’ve talked about Jacob, he’s a bit of a negotiator, isn’t he? You see him in his dream actually making a deal with God. Now how many of you have… No, don’t raise your hand, but if you’re like me, at some point in your life, you made a deal or you tried to strike a deal with God. You said, “God, if you’ll just do this, then I’ll serve you forever and I’ll tithe 11% instead of 10,” and all these different things. You try to make a deal with God. Jacob is one of these manipulators, I just think it’s still in his bones. As Jacob’s on the run, God graciously shows up and intrudes, intervenes in the course and trajectory of his life, which is going down the hill. God shows up and his response is, “Since,” that feels a little better to me, “Since God will be with me and help me get in this journey and will give me food and all that, I will return to my father’s house and safety, then the Lord will be my God.”
If it sounds like a condition. I don’t know which it is, but I can learn something in either direction, and I think we all can. Then the last verse, “And this stone,” he’s pointing to the one stone that was his pillow, “Which I’ve set up as a pillar will be…” And now it’s a pile of stones. It’s like a memorial, it’s like something to remind him of something and very common practice for them to do back in that day, “Will be God’s house. It’s called Beth-El, the House of God. And of all that thou dost give me, [all that, God, that you give me] I will surely give a 10th to thee.” Now this is an example of what we typically would call tithing in our day and time. This is an example of that in motion.
We’ve seen it before with Abraham and we’ll read about it a few more times. The idea of giving, of course, in our New Testament is there’s not a number that’s given to it in the New Testament, but we’re told to give cheerfully and generously. Actually, it’s “hilariously” and generously. That means it’s supposed to be a real kick, a real exciting thing to give. Around The Village Chapel, since the beginning, we’ve always said no grumpy giving, because if you give in a grumpy way, you might help fill the box a little and that’s fine. But you’re not going to receive really any kind of blessing yourself in this regard, because you’re still grumpy about it. We always remind ourselves that God owns it all. The question for us is not about is it 10% or 2% or 30%? How much am I comfortable keeping for myself when I know God owns it all and he wants us to be generous givers? That’s so important.
Here a lot happens in this chapter, and I just want to throw a couple of things up on the screen to highlight some of these things. First one, sometimes God comes to us when we least expect it, where we’d least expect it and when we least deserve it. This is the first thing I thought about. This is kind of Jacob’s who, what, when, where moment. Who is God? God shows up. When does he show up? When Jacob’s on the run. In his life, I don’t see him looking for God. I haven’t read anything yet about Jacob that leads me to believe that he’s like Mr. Example of strong, solid faith, committed to the Lord.
I haven’t seen that yet. This is going to be a real pivot point. That’s why I’m saying this might be his who, when, where, what moment. The where is, he’s on the run. He’s out in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t actually know exactly where he’s going, just like his father Abraham. He’s starting to have to live this life as a sort of a nomad, just going and then trusting that God will show him at some point where to go. That’s somewhat the life of faith as well. The who, when, where, what moment. The what is God showing up. Reiterating His covenant promises to Jacob and God reminding Jacob of who God is and what God promises to do and what God intends to do. It’s interesting, some of us might think that God would show up and unfurl the list of religious things that Jacob has to do.
Here’s the rules, follow ye them or burn in hell. No, that’s not what happens. God shows up and says, “I’m going to do this,” and then He unfurls a list of things that God promises to do. Even though Jacob’s response might be if, and it might be since, either way, he’s still the recipient of grace and that’s the what. The who is God. The, when is when he’s on the run. The where is, en route, running the other way, away from God, away from his responsibilities, away from his family. The what is grace. It’s so amazing. Jacob is on the road, running on empty as some of us would say, no hotel, didn’t have a pillow to lay his head on. He had miles to go and didn’t even know how far he’d have to go. I think sometimes God comes to us when we least expect it, where we’d least expect it and when we least deserve it.
If I’m Jacob, and I’m reading him the way he’s presented by the narrator in this book, what he’s doing and what he’s dreaming of is going to be more, since he’s such a manipulator. He’s going to be writing narratives on how he’s going to control the outcome. Do you do that? I do that all the time. When I’m not thinking about laying it at God’s feet, I lean into anxiety and even unbelief, because in the place of anxiety, I’m actually saying, “God, You’re probably not going to get this right. You’re not trustworthy with the outcome.” I get anxious or worried. For me, as I sort of look at my own life and think about this guy being a manipulator, as we’re all manipulators in some level, but when we fall into anxiety, it might be something we need to repent from and not just try to patch it up.
That’s how his who, when, where, what moment comes from God. He’s asleep, he’s on the roadside, nothing but a rock, lost everything he had collected and manipulated and stolen, with no idea of what his future holds. It’s so surprising that God would do that. Some of you have heard of Tish Harrison Warren and the book that she’s written called, Prayer in the Night, which Kim and I have read and enjoyed. She talks about sleep and she’s saying
“…we’re all helpless when we sleep. No matter how important our job is, no matter how impressive we may be, in order to live, we all have to turn off and be unconscious for about a third of our lives every day. Whether we like it or not, we must enter into vulnerability in order to sleep. “
–Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night
If you’ve been around at all, you’ve seen pictures of dogs that are cashed out on the couch and just totally vulnerable, their bellies up.
If you’re a parent and you see your kids sleeping like that, you know how vulnerable they are. Sometimes when you go to sleep, you yourself feel quite vulnerable. Some of us have our alarm that we turn on at night so that if somebody comes in, some never-do-well breaks into the house or whatever, it’s going to go off and wake us up. But sleep is a vulnerable place to be and that’s exactly where Jacob was when God showed up during Jacob’s vulnerability. I love the way Spurgeon said it. You guys have heard this quote before I think,
“When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon
So, you and I have the blessed opportunity, as we studied Genesis 28, to look back and learn from our older brother Jacob, this season of his life where it was quite a struggle.
We can learn from that. I can look back and go, you know what? The sovereignty of God is where I should really trust and not my own ability to manipulate things, not my own ability to ensure the outcome goes the way I want it to or to ensure that someone else behaves in a certain way. I can’t control other people. That’s so true. Secondly, you can never outrun God’s reach. You can always trust God’s grace. I see that in this chapter as well. There are no indicators, like I say, that Jacob was looking for God. We don’t read much here about his spiritual life, but no matter how isolated or lonely we might feel, I just want you to know God has not forsaken us or left us alone. This story is great example of that. Out in the middle of nowhere, God can still reach him. God’s grace is still going to be enough, and he comes to Jacob in this dream.
It should be, and I believe ultimately it was, a very important pivot moment in Jacob’s faith journey in terms of his relationship with God. It’s a very humbling experience as he’s en route to his mother Rebecca’s homeland and everything has gone south for him. It’s a very humbling experience. He’s vulnerable in his sleep. Here comes God to him and I think it’s a great example of God being trustworthy. What Jacob didn’t know is that, while he had his father’s blessing behind him, he had our father’s blessing ahead of him. We have our father’s blessing, the one put on offer to all of us, which is this salvation, this redemption that God intends to weave into history through the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all the way to Jesus. Our Messiah would come and offer reconciliation between sinful human beings like us and a holy and righteous God. Life forever, in a sense living in Beth-El, in the dwelling place where we dwell together with God.
Because of Jesus, God has taken the initiative, just like he did in Genesis 28, to come to us where we are on our dark, strange, lost journey. Jesus has broken into the world that’s dark and a world that loved darkness more than it loved light. Jesus, the greater Jacob, brings us this opportunity to dwell with God forever. As we’ve quoted before, Keller says,
“We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.”
–Tim Keller
Although Jacob is homeless and, on the run, right now, he has his real dwelling place: the opportunity to know God. No mess that Jacob had made of his life could put him beyond God’s reach.
No amount of guilt and shame that he might have felt could short circuit the transforming power of the grace of God at work in his life. The same thing is true for you. The same thing is true for me. No matter where you’re at spiritually in your journey, you can’t outrun God’s reach. You just can’t. We’ll also see later in the book that our arms are far too short to box with God. That is one of those sort of battles that we think sometimes we want to fight, but we’ll learn that little bit later on even with Jacob. But here it’s more about the fact that you can’t outrun His reach and you can always trust His grace. Thirdly, and lastly this morning, I want to say Jesus invites us into the house of the Lord, Beth-El, and life everlasting. Jesus, the greater Abraham. Jesus, the greater Isaac. Jesus, the greater Jacob. All of those personalities and all of this storyline pointing forward to and finding its fulfillment in the finished work of Christ on the cross.
Before that, there was the incarnation itself, that He came for us, and then that crucifixion He gave Himself for us, and after the that glorious resurrection. He’s defeated our last and greatest enemy. All of that’s so beautiful and foreshadowed in all of this. If we want to move from being a selfish schemer to a gospel dreamer, as I’m titling this chapter, the question is how we will respond to this God who intrudes into our lives on His schedule with His agenda. He comes when we’re at that place of running out of our own resources and senses our isolation. When we’ve run out of ourselves, He shows up. When we’ve run out of our own ability to manipulate, we can hope in Him. God shows up and reiterates His promises.
We see this even in the life of Jesus. Turn to John chapter one with me. I want you to see what Jesus said. In John chapter one, He’s collecting up a couple of His disciples and He’s meeting some of them for the first time. Look at verse 44 of John chapter one in your Bibles. Here it is, verse 44 says, “Philip was from Bethsaida of the city of Andrew and Peter.” They’re all from the same hometown there on the shores of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee. Philip found this guy named Nathaniel and he said to him, “We found Him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.”
In other words, we found this guy who all of the Old Testament points to, and the one the Jews of the first century were looking for: Messiah. He comes to him, Philip is great this way, and he says to Nathaniel, “We found him who Moses wrote about in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And he’s the legal son of Joseph, of course, we know that. Nathaniel said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” That’s like him saying, “Can any good thing come out of Hillsboro village?”
I mean, it’s kind of like a little slam on Nazareth, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s like from that side of the tracks. Are you kidding me? And Philip said to him, “Come and see,” and that’s the invitation to you as well. That’s the invitation to me as well. Come and see. Come and see Jesus. Consider Jesus the one to whom all of that stuff in Genesis points forward to. Genesis one of the books of the law of Moses. Books of Moses would be considered those first five books. Here in the New Testament, way before the Nicene Creed, way before anything that somebody wrote a fictional novel in our own day and time, suggesting that some weary followers of Jesus tried to prop up his image after he died. No, they already are seeing Jesus as Messiah here.
He says, “Come and see,” Phillip says that. By the way, he’s such a great evangelist. He’s always inviting people to come see Jesus. Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming and He said, “And behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile.” Here we’ve just been told that Nathaniel’s got a little bit of city prejudice, it might be akin to a racism. Here Jesus says, “In whom there is no guile,” and I love this, Nathaniel says to him, “’How do you know me?’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.’” This is one of those times where Jesus does something supernatural and there’s not a lot of time spent dwelling on it, but something happened there.
Nathaniel answered Him and said, “Rabbi, you are the son of God.” All right. The light just went on. You are the King of Israel. “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You’ll see greater things than these.’” Now check this out and see if you think this connects with Genesis 28. Jesus said to him,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
John 1:51
Turn to the right to John chapter 14.
This image of this ladder or this staircase in heaven was not just the inspiration for some Led Zeppelin song or something like that. I don’t think it actually was the inspiration for Stairway to Heaven at all, some of you guys who know music history can help me out with that a little bit later. In 14:6, here’s Jesus saying,
“I am the way, the truth and the life.”
John 14:6
Pretty bold claims, all three of those,
Our dear friend Edgar Arnold has just taught about this. He’s 83-ish, right? Living out here in Bellevue at the NHC center. Leads a Bible study at age 83, leads a Bible study every Wednesday at 10 o’clock. He’s just been teaching on the “I am” statements of Jesus to the residents.
They wheel them out in their wheelchairs and Edgar has little microphone that he wears, one of these kind of things, and he does the Bible study formal. It’s just so beautiful. I love hearing him tell stories about the way he’s been teaching. But this is one of the things he just taught on. “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me.” Jesus the staircase, Jesus the bridge. There are so many metaphors we could use. Jesus the one who has reconciled sinners like us to God. Jesus is the one who has connected heaven to earth, while religion is people on earth trying to reach up and connect to heaven. The Gospel is God saying, “You’re never going to be able to reach me.” Here’s heaven reaching to earth, coming in the person, in the work, of Jesus. That’s just how beautiful and powerful it is and how much we see it in the life and ministry of Jesus.
You see folks, the symbol of the Christian faith is not a ladder, it’s not a set of scales. It’s a cross and an empty tomb. I, for one, I’m really glad about that. A ladder… And I understand that the image has been used down through the years and art for people to be shown in their advancement in holiness and that sort of thing. I get it. I get all of that. Do we need to see visible growth and all that? Yes, we do. Do we hope to see that? Yes, we do. But it isn’t by our own power. It’s by the grace of God that we become Christians at all. It’s by the grace of God that we grow at all.
Just when you are thinking you got this one, “God, you can go manage the rest of the universe.” You don’t have this one and you need Him to come to you in those who, what, when, where, how moments like this. Jacob goes from greedy schemer, and now I really think he’s on the road because of what God says to him, to being a gospel dreamer. God is going to come and do everything necessary for His redemption to be put on offer to us. I want you to know something today, if you don’t hear anything else, please know this. He’s coming for you.
Some of you think, I don’t need Him. I walked down there when I was five years old. I just want you to know something, He never stops coming for you. I also want you to know something else, that’s not a threat. That’s good news. I mean, aren’t you glad that He’s still coming for you, given who you are, given how you’ve messed up like Jacob, like me. Given how inconsistent we are, given how fearful we are sometimes. Given how manipulative we can be sometimes. He’s coming for you and He’s coming for me. That is such sweet, good news. Amen.
Let’s pray: Lord, please keep coming for us and open our eyes to see that You have done that. Open our ears to hear of Your covenant promises. These are so rich. As we look back through redemption history into the Book of Genesis, we are reminded that for so long You have put this plan in place. For a long, long time, You have been guiding history to this moment where each one of us might hear this and learn from this story about how much You have been in pursuit of a people You can call Your own. You’ve done everything necessary to make it possible through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Though our sins are many, Your mercy is more, and You keep coming for us. So please, please, Lord, open our eyes to see that we might delight in You and in this good news of the Gospel. That You haven’t left us alone out on some dark road filled with all kinds of fear and unknown, Lord. But You actually meet us right where we’re at, and You speak to us Lord, and You bring us this good news. So, give us then, grant us then, the faith that leads to repentance, that we might turn to You, trust You and hope in You. I pray in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen and Amen.
(Edited for Reading)
