Jacob Forms a Relationship With God

Jacob Forms a Relationship With God

Pastor Ed Evans

November 18, 2018

Genesis 28:10-22 English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹ And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. ¹² And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder^[a] set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! ¹³ And behold, the Lord stood above it^[b] and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. ¹⁴ Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. ¹⁵ Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” ¹⁷ And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸ So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ¹⁹ He called the name of that place Bethel,^[c] but the name of the city was Luz at the first. ²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, ²¹ so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, ²² and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.”

          Let us pray:

          Father, we t hank You for the time and place, and ask  for Your blessing on each one here, and upon those mentioned here this morning, and those unable to be with us.

          Father, the challenges of this life can be overwhelming and we often don't know the way out. In the face of heartbreak and disappointment, we turn to you even as we study Jacob’s relationship with You and how he was dealt with.  We want to look beyond our situation to the One from whom our help comes, searching the Scriptures, finding Your promises that relate to our situation, praying them, trusting You to bring them to pass in our lives. Help us, Father, to learn how to pray Your promises, for we have experienced that human contracts fall short when compared to Your covenants.

        Lead us, Lord God, to believe in Your promises, and to confess them, even as the scriptures in 2^nd Corinthians 1:20 testify: “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through Him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.” Amen.

          To quickly recap last week’s lesson, Rebekah and Jacob have schemed to steal his twin, Esau’s, blessing from the blind and ailing Isaac.  Esau’s reaction is to threaten to kill Jacob, so Jacob is sent off to find a wife, hiding him from Esau’s wrath.  But Esau does show some restraint.  He vows he will wait until after the period of mourning for the deceased Isaac, before he rips Jacob’s head off.

          Where Jacob has been sent is to Rebekah’s brother, Laban, taking Jacob about a month in travel.  One of the places Jacob stops overnight is just outside of the small town of Luz.  There Jacob uses a rock for his pillow, or maybe for his protection, it’s not clear, and there he has a dream that changes his life.

          In this dream he sees angels going up and down a ladder, and atop the ladder Jacob sees God.  Remember the only time previously that Jacob has mentioned God it was to use His name disrespectfully, and even then, speaking to his father, Isaac, Jacob referred to God as “your God.”

          But God has a plan that involves Jacob, and God’s plan is going to move forward in spite of Jacob’s disrespect and sinful scheming. 

          Now, the more you know about Jacob and his scheming, the more  you will wonder, why does God bother with his guy?  But God now gets Jacob’s attention by making seven unconditional promises to Jacob.

          The first one is an extension of a promises made to Abraham and Isaac about the land.  Second has to do with a long line of descendants.  Third, that Jacob and his descendants would become a means of blessing to “every family of earth.” 

          By the way, can you think of some of Jacob’s descendants who blessed the world?  What did they do to bless “every family of earth”?

o   From within scripture we could point to Joseph, who foresaw a seven-year famine and convinced Egypt to prepare accordingly (Genesis 41:53-57).

o   There were Paul and Barnabas, who proclaimed the gospel (Acts 15:12).

o   And of course, Jesus, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s lifelines.

o   In history generally, we had the scientist Albert Einstein; the musician, Felix Mendelssohn; the person who helped develop antibiotics         , Selman Waksman, and many more.

          In the fourth promise, God said He would always be with Jacob; fifth, that God would protect Jacob wherever he went; sixth, that God would bring Jacob back to this land; and seventh, God told him “I will not leave you.”

          In verse 16, Jacob awakens with a start, realizing he has had a direct and personal encounter with Yahweh, with the Lord.  Next, he realizes that encounter has happened “here”, which was really nowhere.  What Jacob apparently did not know was that this was the same general area in which Abraham in years previous to this had a direct and personal encounter with God.

          As the reality of the dream sinks in, Jacob is initially terrified.  We today might protest that a proper response to an unplanned encounter with God should not be fearful, but scriptural history would say differently.  In Genesis and Exodus, such encounters are wrapped in human fear of the Godly.

          In the song, “Asleep on Holy Ground,” Michael Card captures the precise moment when Jacob, “the deceitful seer”, was “confronted by the friend that we most fear.”

          Well, Jacob now determines this site was “none other than God’s house … the entrance to heaven.”  So Jacob anoints with oil the rock that was by his head through the night, and names the place “Bethel”, which means “house of God.”  In later times, while in trials, Jacob will return to Bethel to renew his vows, and perhaps renew the memory of his encounter with God.

          It’s always good to have a point in time, and in geography, to which we can return, a time when we felt closest to God, a place and time we can renew ourselves and draw nearer to Him.

          Finally, Jacob responds by making a solemn promise, which in your lesson begins with “IF God is with me and protects me on this trip I am taking, and gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God.”  If, if, if … doesn’t sound like Jacob is yet convinced, does it?  Or maybe he’s bargaining with God?  But, the Hebrew word translated “if” can also mean “because” or “since.”  That would put a more solemn light on Jacob’s promise.  But, we’re going to see that even though God has promised to always be with Jacob, care for him, and protect him, Jacob loses sight of that time and time again. 

          But I think we’ve got the picture by now that Jacob was not exactly a paragon of virtue.  Crafty, yes, a master of deceit, and even willing to throw his own family members under the bus if it would gain him an advantage … yep.  Not a particularly likable fellow.

          And yet, God honored Isaac’s blessing of Jacob, even though that blessing was illicitly obtained.  And God even established a seven part covenant with him.

          Think about this, now.  God’s willingness to bless Jacob forces us to come to grips with the fact that God’s salvation has little to do with our morality and everything to do with God’s mercy.  That doesn’t mean that morality doesn’t matter, but it acknowledges that our morality will never be good enough to place God in our debt.  So, instead of depending on our goodness, we had better just cling to God’s grace and be grateful for God’s mercy.

          About now, perhaps, we begin to see that this lesson is not about a conniving Jacob who eventually got even God to bless him.  It’s about a God who is big enough to be able to love even someone as unlovely as Jacob, coming to him, undeservedly, in a dream.

          There are times when our dreams appear meaningless to us. 
There are other times when our dreams could get us into trouble.  There are still other times when our dreams offer us a way beyond our troubles.  Jacob’s dream offered him hope at a moment when he must have thought he was out of options, on the run, separated from family, with no future.

          Has that happened to anyone here?  Anyone recall a dream that deeply influenced you?  Did the dream seem to convey some sort of divine message?  And if so, what led you to think that?  Did you feel alone, or comforted by the dream?

          Let’s go back for a moment to Jacob on the road, traveling for weeks, forging ahead on this 500-mile trek from Beersheba to Haran. 

          Were any of you ever off by yourself, like that?  Maybe you were on your way to college, or to take a job in another state, or maybe you had decided you just needed to get away.  Have you ever been in Jacob’s shoes, leaving home with little understanding of what waited for you at the end of your journey?

          If so, do you recall the emotions you felt when you first left home?  What were you feeling?  Suddenly orphaned?  Afraid?  Maybe empowered?  Can you understand how Jacob must have been feeling?

          And although Jacob left behind family and familiar places, some of what he was running away from stayed with him.  You own brother has announced he’s going to murder you.  How do you put that behind you?

          Your student book mentions several phrases, such as “Forget it!”, “Put it behind you,” “It’s over and done.  Let it go.”  Many phrases capture the advice we’re given by well-meaning friends, but they and we know it is not that easy.  So we, like Jacob, keep on running, even if that running takes place within our own minds.

          Have you ever had conflicts that caused you to run away, literally or figuratively?  Why did it seem preferable to you to avoid the conflict and those involved, rather than stand and try to resolve the issue?

          The 19^th-century German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher said that John 1:14 is the most significant verse in the Bible  because of all the world’s religions, only Christianity believes and claims triumphantly that God – not a spokesperson, not an angel, not a messenger – came to earth to live with us and among us.  And even the frightened liar, cheat, and coward named Jacob discovered and experienced this fully during that night in the wilderness.

          So we come to the question:  Have you ever experienced the presence of God in your life?  How have you felt God’s closeness challenging, lifting, loving, and calling you? 

          - - - - - - - -

          Well, you and I have probably never had an experience quite as dramatic as Jacob’s.  Yet God is with us in a variety of ways and speaks to us through a variety of means.  We belong to almighty God, and we are called and equipped just as the renegade Jacob.

          There is a chorus from a song, “Holy Ground”, that’s one of my favorites, and I sing it and hum it often to remind me.  The lines go: “We are standing on holy ground.  And I know that there are angels all around.  Let us praise Jesus now.  We are standing in His presence on holy ground.”

          Wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you are up against, always remember as a child of God you are standing on holy ground.  

          Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” writes, “It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us.  If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!”  If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally.  All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.” 

          Even as you are standing on holy ground.

          Any comments or questions about today’s lesson?

          Let us close with prayer.....

          Ever present and ever grace-filled Lord and God, let us sense and know Your presence with us as You were with Jacob.  Let us know Your nearness and love, despite our failure to live according to Your will.  Give us the courage and the tenacity to live by Your way of love, even in the midst of a world that seems to trust power, wealth, and status instead of trusting in Your presence.  We ask this in the name of the Word made flesh, Christ Jesus.  Amen.