Sermon Notes + Quotes:
Transcript:
We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel. We have extra copies and if you’d like a paper copy to follow along, raise your hand up real high, and we’ll get somebody to get one to you. The network name is up on the screen and the password for it, if you’d prefer to follow along online.
This is one of those mornings, folks, where it’s going to be really important for you to focus in and look at the text itself. We’re going to cover a large body of text and I know some of you will drift off, although I’m used to some of you drifting off anyway. I’m just trying to equip you to hang in there. And we’ve been programmed into thinking not too long ago, 140 characters, now 280 characters is all it takes to solve all the problems of the world.
But evidently that really isn’t true, and so we’re going to take more than that number of characters and take a look at this historical narrative. It’s a rich text and it talks about something we’re all very familiar with, something Kim helped us pray through just now, adversity, which comes in many forms: misfortune, hardship, wretchedness. It can be brought about by some traumatic event, or it can be a way of life. Adversity. We can live our lives feeling rejected and abandoned by somebody, and that can be our adversity, or we can just have gone through some great loss: job, illness, some unwanted event that happens in our lives. How do we respond to those kinds of adversities? Where do we turn during those adversities?
This is one of the things I love about the Bible, and especially the historical narrative of the Bible, which is what we find here in this section of the Scriptures. As most of you will remember, we’re following along in the storyline of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We focus now on Jacob who is headed for his return to his homeland, which God has called him to do. Remember, he is north and east of his homeland. He’s been living with Laban, his uncle, and he’s been with him for 14 years. Worked for seven years for him for the privilege and honor of marrying one of his daughters. But Laban tricked him. Just like Jacob tricked Esau, Laban tricked Jacob, so the deceiver has been deceived by the master deceiver. This is all way before the Mosaic Law is given at Mount Sinai. But what has happened is that Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah, his older daughter, and then made him work seven more years to be able to marry the one he wanted to marry, which was Rachel, the younger daughter.
A lot of blessing has been brought about as a result of Jacob being with Laban and working in his household, but now he’s ready to go home. Being able to go home is an interesting thing, but it creates a bit of tension, and you’ll see that. None of us have any family tensions, I understand that you guys are all perfect. Let’s look into this story with the eyes of, “Who do I identify with? What struggle, what adversity do I see? How is God presented here? How does He show Himself faithful in the middle of these adversities?”
Pick up in verse 25 of Chapter 30. “It came about that when Rachel had born Joseph,” so there’s 11 sons now born to Jacob and Leah, Rachel, and to the two handmaids, Zilpah and Bilhah. So, there are a lot of kids and there’s a lot of prosperity. But after Joseph is born, Jacob says to Laban, “Send me away, that can I go to my own place and to my own country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you. Let me depart, for you yourself know my service, which I have rendered to you 14 years.”
Fourteen years, let that sink in, 14 years. Laban said to him, “If now it pleases you, stay with me. I’ve divined that the Lord has blessed me on your account.” And he continued, “Name me your wages and I will give it.” Now, Jacob is one of these guys, and I kind of identify with this part of his brokenness, he can’t pass up a deal. How many of you just love a great sale or a great deal, and you just tell all your friends about it when you find one? It’s like, “I got this car. I got this house. I got these six bottles of ketchup, and you wouldn’t believe what I paid for them.”
Whatever it is, okay? Some of us just love the deal. It doesn’t matter how big or small the deal is, we love a deal. And Jacob loves a deal, but so does Laban. He loves a deal. And so, it’s interesting to watch them sort of struggle and negotiate together. And here’s Laban pretending to say, “Whatever you want,” even though he’s done that kind of deal with Jacob before, and he’s changed the storyline and moved the goalpost a hundred times. He doesn’t mind being able to say those kinds of things and then… He sounds kind of like a modern-day politician in some ways, doesn’t he? Being able to say things and promise things and then later find a way to wiggle out of it.
Well, here is what Jacob says back to him, “You yourself know how I’ve served you and how your cattle have fared with me.” In other words, they’ve done well. “For you had little before I came and it has increased to a multitude, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turn. But now, when shall I provide for my own household also?” He’s talking about his household: his wives, his children, his cattle and all that, just in these few verses, multiple times. He’s looking for a little equity. He’s been working for the man. The man happens to be Laban, and he’d like to be building a little of his own something, somehow. We can identify with that sort of desire for equity and for fairness.
Verse 31, “And he said, ‘What shall I give you?’ And Jacob said, ‘You shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock.'” Again, Jacob can’t pass up the deal. He’s got the urge to go home, but he’s willing to set it aside because he feels like Laban just put the Platinum American Express card on the table and said, “Buy whatever you want.” And so, he’s basically saying, “Here’s what I want. Don’t give me any money, but I will again pasture and keep your flock. Let me pasture your entire flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep, every black one among the lambs, the spotted and speckled among the goats, and such shall be my wages.” In other words, “I want a piece of the action, and I’ll even take the piece that might normally have been rejected, not the pure white sheep, but the black sheep, the speckled and spotted, the brindle ones, whatever, and that’ll be my wages.”
“So, my honesty will answer for me later when you come concerning my wages, everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me will be considered stolen.” In other words, “The physicality of this deal will be obvious, and that I’ve been honest will be obvious, and that I haven’t stolen anything from you.”
Well, Laban smells a deal, and so, in verse 34, he says, “Deal.” Laban says, “Good. Let it be according to your word.” So, they signed the contract. “So, he, Laban, removed on that day the striped, spotted male goats and all the speckled, spotted female goats, everyone with white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep and gave them into the care of,” not Jacob, but “his own sons. And he put a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob. And Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.” So, he has literally taken away what he just promised to give to Jacob by removing it from the flock and the herds, giving it to his sons and sending them away three days’ journey.
“Well, Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks and in the gutters, even in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, and they mated when they came to drink. So, the flocks mated by the rods and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.”
So, what is this? Some kind of ancient medicine thing, some superstitious thing, some magic? Is this sort of an ancient version of essential oils? What is this? What’s going on? Is this a Martha Stewart approach to husbandry for the animals and all that sort of thing? I haven’t got a clue; I’ll be honest with you. I read a lot of commentaries on this…All of those scholars, all those great wise men who understand the original Hebrew languages, they’re just all going, “Don’t really know this one.” I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it’s interesting how God sovereignly presides over all of it.
“Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban, and he put his own herds apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Moreover, it came about whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, that Jacob would place the rods in the side of the flock in the gutters so they might mate by the rods.” Now, did you come to church this morning to learn about these habits? No. Probably not, but I think it’s fascinating and interesting. Anybody that would look at the Old Testament and say, “Boring” is just not reading it. They’re just not paying attention. And they have allowed their little social media minds and their ability to pay attention to be shrunk. So don’t do that. Lean in. There are some great lessons here.
“But when the flock was feeble, the weak ones, he didn’t put them in. So, the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger, Jacob’s. So, the man [Jacob] became exceedingly prosperous and had large flocks in female and male servants and camels and donkeys.” And we’ll learn in chapter 31, verse 41 that he’s doing this for six years’ time. So, the 14 plus the six means he’s there how long? 20 years. Lots of time goes by in this story that we read about in just a few chapters.
Verse one of chapter 31, “Now Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons saying, ‘Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. And from what belonged to our father, he’s made all this wealth.” And so, envy is rising in the sons that that took and hid all of the speckled, spotted, and striped and black lambs and goats and sheep. And their envy over six years, as Jacob’s flocks grow, has just increased, increased, increased. You can smell trouble coming.
“Jacob saw the attitude of Laban, and behold it was not friendly toward him as formerly.” How many of you have ever seen the attitude of someone toward you and it wasn’t friendly? You’ve seen the attitude. How do you see an attitude? It’s the face, isn’t it? It’s the eyes, it’s the tone. And you’ve got that. And somebody might have brought that up with you once or twice, as well, about your face and your eyes and your tone. There’s a lot that gets said without anybody saying anything.
Well, “The Lord said to Jacob,” I love this. This is such an amazing thing that God takes divine initiative here, steps in to help a guy that we have yet to see really do much praying, much pursuing of God in his life at all. And God just keeps showing up. “And the Lord said to Jacob, [Yahweh said to Jacob] ‘Return to the land of your father’s and to your relatives.” And here it is. “And I will be with you.” It’s a command and a promise, that beautiful biblical couplet that we see so often throughout the scriptures: a command and a promise.
“Raise your children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. And when they’re old, they will not depart from it.” It will have an impact. This is the way it usually goes in life. Proverbs 22:6 that Pastor Matt quoted as we dedicated this little one this morning. It’s God’s wisdom for everyday life, describing the way life usually goes when we employ wisdom.
“Return, Jacob, to the land of your fathers and to your relatives and I will be with you. Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to his flock in the field.” He wants to have a little conversation with his two wives, the formal two wives. There’s Zilpah and Bilhah as well, but they are still sort of in that category of concubine or secondary wives in this ancient culture some 4,000 years ago. Remember, we should expect to jump some hurdles when we read stories from this long ago, from this far-away culture, from this still developing theological understanding that some people had. And I love to watch his theology develop. And he brings his wives, Rachel and Leah, together and he says to them, “I see your father’s attitude,” again, seeing an attitude, “that it’s not friendly toward me as formerly. But the God of my father has been with me.”
See what he understands about God here? He’s got a growing and focused faith emerging. It may not be in its fullest state, but it’s interesting to watch it grow. “You know that I have served your father with all my strength.” So, he has integrity of heart. And that, for Jacob, remember this guy, his name, he’s a supplanter, he’s a deceiver, he’s a heel-grabber is what his name actually means. And he got to where he is now because he stole from his twin brother who was the elder one. He stole the birthright and the blessing. And then Esau was going to kill him, so he had to run to this land so far away. His whole life has been about manipulating, stealing, lying, deal-making, negotiating and taking advantage of other people. And yet, God is softening his heart along the way, and now he actually recognizes that the God of his father, whom he’ll call the fear of Isaac at some point, has been with him.
“Yet your father,” in contrast to that, see? Even though he served Laban with all his strength, “Your father, Leah and Rachel, has cheated me and changed my wages 10 times. However, God, Elohim, did not allow him to hurt me.” So, his understanding is that God is providentially taking care of him and watching over him and protecting him in this adversity. “If he spoke, ‘Thus the speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flock brought forth speckled. And if he spoke, ‘Thus the striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock brought forth striped.” He’s saying this to the daughters of Laban, saying that when Laban said, “Well, you get the striped ones.” Then all of them were striped. “You get the speckled ones.” Then all of them were speckled. Why? Because the Heavenly Father is overriding the wives’ father, the father-in-law.
And here he continues to say to his wives, passing along this budding, blossoming faith of his own to them, “Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me.” Interesting. Are we passing along our faith to those in our family? And it could flow a bunch of different ways. It can flow from a husband to a wife or from a wife to a husband, or from parents to the children or from children to the parents even. What are we passing along? Can we open our mouth once in a while and speak?
“It came about at the time when the flock were mating,” he’s telling the wives this, “that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream. And behold, the male goats which were mating were striped, speckled, and mottled.” He has a lot of dreams, Jacob does, doesn’t he? And later, Joseph will be a man of dreams as well. But here, he is explaining to Leah and Rachel a little bit more. This is just interesting, because he says, “The angel of God,” verse 11, “said to me in the dream,” this is new information to us. “The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ And I said, ‘Here I am.'” And that’s a good thing to say whenever the Lord or His messenger speaks to you, “Here I am. Yes. What?” Open the empty hands of faith. Listen. Humble yourself before Him.
“And then, the angel of the Lord said, ‘Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. I am the,” and here it is. This is so beautiful. Under underline this even in the pew Bible. “I am the God of Bethel.” That’s the same thing as God saying, “I am El-Bethel.”
Bethel means “the house of God.” This isn’t just going to a building like the house of God. This is going to the God of the house of God. And it’s a great reminder for us. What do we do? Do we just go into church, just go into a building? Or are we going to the God of the building when we come through the door? It’s so important for us. And let us do that together whenever possible, as often as possible, that we might encourage one another to see and to meet and to praise and to sing to and to worship the God of the house of God.
And so, we read, “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to me. Now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.” There’s that command again and he’s conveying it to Rachel and Leah. And here’s their response, Verse 14: “Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, ‘Do we still have any portion or inheritance in our father’s house? Are we not reckoned by him as foreigners? For he has sold us,” which is exactly what he did when he made the deal with Jacob for each of their hands in marriage, “and has also entirely consumed our purchase price.” So, the bride price, the labor of Jacob for seven years for Leah’s hand, for seven years for Rachel’s hand. Laban has taken that. Now, typically some of that would go to the bride, not just the bride’s family. And yet, Laban hasn’t given that to Leah and Rachel. “What do we have left? Do we still have any inheritance?” they ask.
Verse 16, “Surely all the wealth which God has taken away from our father belongs to us and our children. Now then, Jacob, do whatever God has said to do.” And you see the seed of faith being planted in their hearts. “Do what God has said to do.” Never too late for you and me to start doing that, by the way. No matter where you are, no matter how far you have drifted from the Lord, no matter what the disposition of your heart has been, today, right now, this minute, start doing the next right thing the Lord calls you to. Never too late while you’re breathing, while your heart is pumping.
Verse 17, “Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels, drove away all his livestock.” They loaded up the SUVs and there they go. Okay? “And all his property, which he had gathered and acquired, livestock which he had gathered in Padan-aram to go to the land of Canaan to his father, Isaac.” And that’ll be south and a little bit west. We saw this on the map when we first looked at all of this, but it’s about 450 miles. It’s a long way to go, right?
So, he’s got all this stuff, all these flocks, and 11 kids, and he’s headed for Canaan to his father, Isaac. “When Laban had gone to shear his flock, then Rachel stole the household idols that were her father’s.” Now listen, just a little theological point I’ve got to insert here as a pastor and as Bible teacher. If your God can be stolen, you have no God at all. You’re worshiping the wrong God.
Why did she do this? Well, it may have been a sign or a symbol, these little, tiny statues, these sort of mini deities that had been carved out by human hands. They had eyes but couldn’t see, feet but couldn’t move, eyes, all of that, right? And she’s taking them because perhaps they’re a symbol of the family possessions or something. It could be that, that’s true, but she steals them for some reason.
“Jacob deceived Laban, the Syrian” or the Aramean, some of yours will say. It’s just that Aram, A-R-A-M, was simply the land that we today in our own day and time call Syria, and so that’s up where they are. “Jacob deceived Laban by not telling him that he was fleeing. So, he fled with all that he had. He arose and crossed the Euphrates River and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.” And that’s down near the Sea of Galilee on the other side of the Jordan, so east of the Jordan River, just south of the Sea of Galilee. You guys will remember, most of you, the Sea of Galilee is a northern third of Israel itself. And so, he’s headed for the Promised Land. He’s headed back to where Isaac is, just as God had instructed him and told him to do. He’s got a whole lot of stuff with him and a whole lot of people with him, but he heads for the country of Gilead.
Verse 22, “When this was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, he took his kinsman with him and pursued him at a distance of seven days’ journey, and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.” Jacob was almost home in Gilead, in the hill country there. He’s almost home. And yet, here comes Laban, probably with all of those sons that were so filled with envy and anger at what Jacob had stolen from them. He’s almost home and it’s just in sight, and it kind of builds tension in the story, doesn’t it?
Well, God, verse 24, “God came to Laban, the Syrian, in a dream of the night and He said to him, ‘Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.’” In other words, “Don’t speak to Jacob in such a way that would change his mind from what I want him to do. Don’t you dare say a word.” And God is showing up to this pagan, Laban, breaking in just like he did with Abimelech. And He’s showing up and He is preserving and protecting His promises to send Messiah through the line of Jacob by holding back Laban.
I love that God is sovereign, that in our adversities and in our trials, in our times where we can’t figure out what’s going on, when we are outnumbered and outgunned like Jacob would have been with all of his little wagons and all his sheep and all his kids and all that to slow him down. Here comes Laban with his force, his little posse. And they seem pretty rough and tumble, yet God shows up in a dream to Laban and says, “Don’t even mess with this situation.”
“Laban caught up with Jacob though, but now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country and Laban, with the kinsman, camped in the hill country of Gilead.” What’s going to happen? What will happen? Will they start just killing people? Will they kill Jacob? What will happen? “Laban says to Jacob, “What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?” He didn’t do that, but Laban’s accusing him of that, right? “Why did you flee secretly and deceive me?” He did do that. “And did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with timbrels and with the lyre,” as if he would have. “And you did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters. Now you have done foolishly.” Well, he just stepped across the line in my book from what God told him to do. “Don’t speak to him either good or bad. Don’t try to deter him from this.”
And I think sometimes this happens to all of us, don’t we? We step out on a limb with some words that fly, and as they leave our mouths, we’re going, “Whoops.” And we kind of start to reel it back in. Watch what happens here. “It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night saying, ‘Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.'” So, his bluster is laying there in front of everybody to see including himself, and he starts to remember, “Oh, yeah. I had that dream last night, right?”
“‘And now, you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house. But why did you steal my gods?’ Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, ‘Because I was afraid for I said, lest you would take your daughters from me by force.” Interestingly, he’s not talking about the stuff, he’s talking about the daughters. He’s talking about the wives that he has come to love. And we were told earlier and moved by this, that he loved Rachel, and that God noticed it.
God opened the womb of Leah first and Rachel was barren for some time. But you watch as this storyline goes on, Jacob loves Rachel, but when Leah dies, he will be buried next to Leah in that same tomb. So, it’s just really a precious, kind of an interesting twist on the one who was rejected, the one who was unloved, the Lord still shows Himself strong and shows dignity to each and every human life in this crazy, mixed up set of things that are happening in this storyline. It’s just amazing.
So, Jacob is going to respond here to this guy, Laban, who’s in hot pursuit of him. And he basically is going to say, “‘I was afraid of you, lest you take your daughters from me by force. The one with whom you find your gods,'” in other words, your little statues, “‘shall not live.'” And remember, Jacob doesn’t know that Rachel took them. This creates a little tension too, for the listener to the story. Is this going to be the death of Rachel? Is this it? “The one that stole these statues shall not live. In the presence of our kinsman, point out what is yours among my belongings, and take it for yourself,’ for Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.”
“Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. He went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s tent.” Interesting. “Now, Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel’s saddle, and she sat on them.” Another little point of theology for today, if you can sit on your god, you do not have the right god. You need to worship a different god. Okay? If that’s all you get, I think that might be worth something.
“Laban felt through all the tent, but he did not find them. She said to her father, ‘Let none my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is upon me.’ So, he searched but did not find the household items.” In other words, she’s basically saying, “I’m having my period. I’m not going to get up off the saddle. You don’t want me to, and I don’t want to, and that would be improper.” And so, he’s searching through all the tents. That’s where he thinks they are.
“Jacob became angry.” After he finds nothing, Jacob’s ire gets up. “Became angry with contempt with Laban, and Jacob answered and said to Laban, ‘What is my transgression? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? Though you have felt through all my goods, what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsman and your kinsman that they made decide between us two.'”
“‘These 20 years I’ve been with you. Your ewes,” your little lambs, “and your female goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten the rams of your flocks. That which was torn of beast I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of that myself. You required it of my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus, I was, by day, the heat consuming, the frost by night. My sleep fled from my eyes. These 20 years I have been in your house, I served you 14 years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you changed my wages 10 times.'” You can hear him. I don’t think I’m exaggerating. I think his voice is going up and up and up and it’s getting louder and louder as he makes his case with Laban.
And then, he turns to the Lord here, verse 42, “‘If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac,” and oh, what an interesting phrase this is. And you can go home and search it out all you want. Once again, the commentators will do their best, but they will basically tell you this is Yahweh. This is the God of his father, Isaac, the fear of Isaac. Why? Because it’s proper to fear the Lord. As a matter of fact, later on the scriptures that are written by guys like Solomon will say, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord leads to life so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil.” One of my favorite of all of the proverbs.
And so, he says in this one verse, just jams it all in. “If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the fear of Isaac had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty handed. God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, so He rendered judgment last night'” when he spoke to who? Laban in a dream. “Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, ‘The daughters are my daughters. The children are my children.’” So, it’s ramping up again. “’And the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these, my daughters, or to their children whom they have born? So now come, let us make a covenant.” He ramps up and he backs down a little bit, and now he wants to make a deal again. There are deals being made everywhere here, right?
“Let’s make a covenant, you and I. And let it be a witness between you and me. And then, Jacob took a stone.” It’s interesting, he’s taking a lot of stones. He took a stone and put it as a pillow under his head when he had that very first dream from the Lord. “He took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Jacob said to his kinsman, ‘Gather stones.’ So, they took stones, made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.” And so, this is basically an Aramaic and a Hebrew word. Laban would have used the Aramaic. Jacob would have used the Hebrew.
“And Laban said, ‘This heap is a witness.'” And so, that’s what it means, heap of witnesses. Okay? “‘Between you and me this day.’ Therefore, it was named Galeed, meaning heap of witnesses and Mizpah, which means watch tower. For he said, ‘May,’ and listen to this. “May the Lord watch between you and me.” And now he uses Yahweh, verse 49, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from another. If you mistreat my daughters or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, see, God has witnessed between you and me.'”
And interesting that it’s Laban using the name of Yahweh, isn’t it? Fascinating to me. Faith is becoming a witness. The way people are living their lives in the midst of adversity is becoming a witness. How’s that for a timeless truth? And I don’t know what your adversity is. Yours is real. And this pandemic we’re all living through, it’s not the first or the worst pandemic to hit the world, but it is the one we are living in. And it is the one that has broken our hearts at so many turns and divided us as a people in so many ways.
The question is what will we do in the midst of our adversity? Where will we turn in the midst of our adversity? I’m not going to turn to Twitter. I’m not going to turn to social media. I’m not going to turn to posting and boasting and angling with all my anger at people. I’m going to keep turning to the God of the house of God. And that’s what we’ll keep calling us to do as a church as well. Okay?
But in this particular moment, let’s finish the chapter. He calls for the men to come and gather stones, and they all do. They name the place. It’s called Mizpah. “‘May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent from one another. If you mistreat my daughters or if you take wives,'” Laban is saying all this to Jacob, “‘besides my daughters, although no man is with us, see, God is witness between you and me.’ And Laban said to Jacob, ‘Behold this heap and behold the pillar which I’ve set between you and me. This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness that I will not pass by this heap to you for harm, and you will not pass by this heap and this pillar to me for harm.'”
“‘The God of Abraham,'” this is fascinating. “‘The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor and the God of their father, judge between us.'” In other words, the God who’s really there, who’s the God of everybody even if they acknowledge it or not, is the witness between us. “So, Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac. And Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, called his kinsman to the meal. And they ate the meal, and they spent the night on the mountain. And early in the morning, Laban arose, kissed his sons and his daughters, blessed them, and Laban departed and returned to his place.” Fade to black, close scene.
Wow. Okay. Some of you’re going, “Okay. Man, that was a long one, wasn’t it, Jim?” It was. But I’ve got three short things I want to highlight for you in five minutes if you’ll allow me to do that. First of all, some people want the blessings of God, but they don’t want God. I don’t want to be like that. And I learned that in this passage. Sometimes I’m Laban. Sometimes I’m Rachel and Leah. I know that’s messed up, but sometimes I’m like them spiritually and the way I think, and maybe you are, too.
Sometimes I’m like Jacob. I don’t just want the blessings of God. I don’t want to just come to the house of God. I want to come to the God of the house of God, and I want to know, love, walk with honor with the God of the house and the God who has blessed me. And He’s blessed you, every single one of us. You see, when we talk about adversity, especially as Christians, I almost didn’t want to use that word this morning. Why? Because there are a lot of people in the world with look at us and go, “You don’t have any adversity. You’re not in Afghanistan. You’re not even in Waverly, Tennessee right now. Look at all you’ve got. Where’s your adversity?”
And yet, at the same time, I would say this, your adversity is your adversity. My adversity is my adversity. The adversity of those in Waverly, the adversity of those in Haiti. And let us understand something. Every single person on the planet is fighting a great battle. Can we not be kind to one another? Amen. Can we not be kind and generous with one another? Can we not take every act of violence, every cause of trauma, every bit of suffering, can we not take those as a diving board, a springboard for us to move into action as God’s people, and to rise up and be God’s hands and feet in some way?
And I think that’s important, but some people are just fascinated with the shiny stuff. Some people just want the warm fuzzies of God, but they don’t want God to be God.
“The ultimately lost person is the person who cannot want God. They cannot want God to be God. The reason they do not find God is that they do not want Him, or at least they do not want Him to be God. Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help me.”
–Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart
So, you may believe in a God who is just the utilitarian God. You present your list of things to do today to make your life better and make you more comfortable, make you have to suffer less or whatever, without even thinking about the people in Haiti, without even thinking about the people in your own block who may be alone or despairing in some way because of the darkness all around us. Acrimony fills the entire stream of communication in our culture right now. There’s a lot of people that are under the weight of that. It’s too much for them. And where are we with the Good News? Where are we doing what God wants us to do?
Secondly, our adversity is often God’s opportunity, and that’s the opportunity for the Gospel. You see here, we see a story that I’m going to call personal, relational and international. Personal, God speaks to Jacob in these dreams. God speaks to Laban directly in the street. It’s personal. God moves in a personal way. But He also works relationally. He moves in and among this family. He’s going to bring this family of Jacob back together. I can’t wait till we get to the story of Jacob’s reunion with Esau. Watch God work. Somebody who wanted to murder the other person, watch God work. It’s just an amazing grace, isn’t it?
And then, it’s international because what we have here is Jacob going back to the other country and Laban representing that country. And our God is sovereign over this entire universe, folks. And He’s involved in the smallest minute details of my life, in your life, as much as tonight’s sleep, as much as the little rock you’re going to put under your head for a pillow. And He can use anything and everything.
Michael Goheen, this professor at seminary that a bunch of us went to, he says,
“The Bible is a story of universal history that is moving toward the goal of cosmic renewal.”
–Michael W. Goheen, The Church and its Vocation
And see, folks, this is why we study the Bible from cover to cover. That’s why we did Revelation, now we’re back at the beginning with Genesis. We want to see how the thread, the narrative, runs all through it. If you pull a thread in Revelation, the whole Bible crinkles all the way back to Genesis. And it says, “God is looking for a people He can call his own, and He’s done everything necessary to make that possible.” Will you believe? Will you turn to Him?
Lesslie Newbigin, some of you know that name, great missionary thinker and theologian,
“The revelation of which we speak in the Christian tradition is more than the communication of information; it is the giving of an invitation. It is more than an unfolding of the purpose, which was otherwise hidden in the mind of God, but He is now made known to us through God’s revealing acts; it is also a summons, a call, an invitation.”
–Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence
And that puts us on the side of responder. How do we respond? Such an important thing for us to think about when we think about the third point. Not only do some people just want the blessings of God, but they also don’t want God to be God. Our adversity is often God’s opportunity, and so He does that. He uses these opportunities to present us with an invitation to trust Him. But the promise of God watching over us gives rise to worship and witness at the end of this chapter.
I love these guys that didn’t go to seminary, don’t have it all figured out, haven’t memorized Psalm 23, don’t even know the Lord’s Prayer. And they’re throwing some rocks together and they’re going, “That’s going to remind us that God doesn’t want us to do X, Y, Z. And that God was watching over you, Jacob, and your house and His promises. That little pile of rocks.” Folks, gather the stones. Remind yourself over and over what God has done. It’s really a beautiful thing what He has done.
Eugene Peterson,
“The church at worship is centered and gathered at God’s throne, receiving the revelation of the preached and preaching Christ, singing the great hymns, affirming and being affirmed…”
I love this as well.
“…This is the reality in which we participate in every act of worship, which shapes both our lives and our history.”
–Eugene Peterson, Reverse Thunder
If you are tired of being dragged down into the sewer sludge of despair in this world, I invite you to consider your diet, your intake up here with your ears, with your eyes. Reconsider. Have you been before the Fear of Isaac? Have you spent that much time with Him? Don’t make the first thing you do before your feet hit the floor to check online, to check your feed. I was talking to my mom, I think I may have shared this before, but I have to praise her all the time. Before her feet hit the floor every morning, the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23. She’s 89 years old. I love that. I’m challenged by that same thing.
I’ll close with this quote. “We should praise God again and again. Stinted gratitude is ingratitude. Infinite goodness there should be measureless thanks.” Somebody say, “Amen.” Amen.
God is faithful and keeps His promises to bring salvation into the world through the Redeemer, Jesus. The Gospel of Jesus is not a demand, it’s a declaration. It’s not a demand for you to do something, but it’s a declaration that Jesus has done everything. How will you respond? I say gather the stones. Let’s remind ourselves over and over again. We’ve done it for 20 years, let’s do it for 20 more. “Here’s what God can do. Here’s what God has done.”
(Edited for Reading)
