Auto Generated Transcript
I invite you to Genesis chapter 28. That’s where we’re at together today in Genesis chapter 28. And a rather interesting story. It kind of starts off a little mundane before it gets to the to the climax of the of the great conclusion here. But one of the things that we’re reminded as we get ready to engage the story is that God has this way of meeting us even when we’re not expecting it. Uh, especially when circumstances might have have humbled us. Uh, the Bible tells us that God is near the broken hearted, that God works through those that are humble, really not the proud. But you see the Lord continuing to come to to the humble and to the broken. And in today’s story, we’re going to certainly see that in the life of Jacob, as we’ve been following along from Abraham to Isaac and now more into the story of Jacob. And Jacob has developed this reputation of being a liar, a cheat, a deceiver, and in the bad decisions that he’s he’s made, we’ve learned some of those decisions he’s made have been instigated entirely on his own. All the deception and lying that he did, but also his mother helped him further. That, along with the way that they deceived Jacob’s own father, Isaac. And because of that, it’s brought division to the family. It’s brought conflict into their lives, and it’s ultimately led to to the family breaking up to the point that, uh, Jacob’s brother Esau got so angry with him that he wanted to kill him.
And so while the family last week was together and sure, they had their problems, a week later they’re fighting and ready to kill each other. And now the family’s going through all the consequences of being divided because of the sin, and it’s left Jacob all alone. We’re going to discover in this chapter that that is exactly where Jacob is. He’s he’s all alone. And this is the place where God meets him. Um, but but as this story starts to unfold, I don’t have time to read it all. So I’m going to just summarize here in the beginning as it starts, as we start to to read what’s going to happen here in Genesis chapter eight, the first five verses, we’re finding Isaac now talking to Jacob. He’s talking to Jacob for the future of of finding a bride, but also getting away from his brother who wants to kill him. Right. And so at the end of chapter 27, we see that in the beginning of chapter 28, um, that Jacob is now being told to flee to the the land where Laban lives, which is a few hundred miles away, and there he’ll find a bride. And by the way, get away from your brother. He’s going to lop off your head. And what’s sad in this story is, is his dad. Isaac is conversing with Jacob is. This is really the only time we find in these chapters between Jacob and Isaac, that the two are communicating with one another.
Uh, we we we saw early on that when these twins were born that Rebekah loved Jacob and Isaac loved Esau. And it creates this, this conflict, these, this playing of favorites between the family. It messes up the kids. And now you finally see Isaac talking to his son. And really, the only time we find him having a conversation, it’s to tell them to run away, to flee. And what makes the matter even worse is this is the last time that we know that Jacob even sees his mother. And so this is this is a goodbye for at least until they to meet together in heaven. But but with with his mother and their relationship and and then it goes on in verse six and nine, as if to exacerbate the problem that we’ve seen in this family, that Esau, when he realizes he’s he’s brought division to his family, that he makes another decision that brings further conflict. Um, it told you at the end of the very last two verses of chapter six, the very last two verses of chapter 26 and chapter 27, that that Esau made decisions to marry multiple women. And those women created problems for the family, the greater family. And and Esau realizes the decisions that he’s made, and he decides to go now, make a pact or an agreement with Ishmael. And if you remember the story of Isaac and Ishmael, their brothers, Ishmael hated Isaac to the point that he wanted to kill Isaac, just like Jacob is being threatened by his brother Esau.
Esau wants to kill Jacob. Uh, Ishmael wanted to kill Isaac, and now Esau decides to make a covenant with Ishmael or build a relationship with Ishmael by marrying one of his daughters. And so you see that this, this, this decisions that they’re making, this family isn’t just affecting this immediate generation, that this is going to impact generations to come. From Esau comes the descendants of the Edomites. And if you read in the Old Testament, you see the the Edomites continue to create conflict for Israel throughout the Old Testament. And so these these decisions have long terme ramifications. And because of it, Jacob, though he was with his family last week and they were everything seemed okay, though there were some a little bit of conflict, and he certainly did have, uh, a deceiving heart. Now all of a sudden he’s running for his life. He’s all alone. He he feels lost. But one of the great things we’re going to see in this chapter is that God often does his greatest work in our lives when we feel like we’re in exile. Now, sometimes that could be literal and other. Times it could be figurative, but there’s times in life where we feel isolated and alone. We can look back often at those moments and realize my relationship with the Lord took great leaps during that period of time.
And so the question we want to talk about today is, what do I do when I feel lost? And I want you to know we’re going to look at just three points. What do you do when you feel lost? I came up with these great theological statements. And then and then I realized, you know what? If we feel like that as people, we’re in this place of vulnerability, a place where you don’t want to make things real complicated and heady. So I simplified it. I simplified it down to three points for us. So how do we respond when we feel lost? And for a moment you’re going to read these and think, oh, that’s easy, right? But I’m going to help us recognize the challenge to these simplistic statements. It should be easy for us, but we tend to complicate it as as people and what it is that God desires to do. So point number one in your notes is this what do I do when I feel lost? Number one, be sincere about your position. Be sincere about your position. And that means you don’t need to pretend like things are great when they’re not, nor do you want to over exaggerate where you find yourself. But you do want to be sincere about your position, and you may hear that and think, oh, that’s easy, I got that. But we all know that there’s very few men on this earth that when they get lost, are going to say something about it.
Right? Like, you need some directions and you’re not pulling over to the gas station to ask. You’re you are just taking the scenic route for the day and wherever, wherever it is that you’re supposed to go. Right. And so being sincere about your position is important. And we see this in the life of Jacob in Genesis chapter 28 verse ten says, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 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. This is an interesting verse to really start off this, this discussion with us. But but what is this trying to tell us? Like they don’t make them like they used to. I mean, what man today is like, I need to go to bed. Give me a stone. Right. That is we we’re like, I need my Tempur-Pedic. Right. Her setting, my setting. And and if your pillow is not fluffed right these days, it’s like I will complain about all day tomorrow that. That I just didn’t quite get the right amount of sleep. And here’s this guy sleeping on a stone, right. They they were just tougher back then. You think that is that what this passage is trying to communicate to us? That absolutely not.
Right. That’s that’s ridiculous. But but but looking at this verse, what it really wants us to understand is experientially where Jacob finds himself so that we can begin to connect and relate to his story, to understand, really, Jacob’s story is a lot like our story. Uh, Jacob, in these moments, it’s telling us he’s going from Beersheba to Haran, which is a distance of several hundred miles. And so this would have been a formidable trip for Jacob to go through this. This journey would have been a long journey that would have taken several days. This is not what Jacob had planned, right? He was. He was with his family. Now all of a sudden he’s running for his life. And then all of a sudden it starts to explain to us, Jacob, when he’s going on this journey, notice, notice this, these two verses, it’s telling us something by not telling us something meaning, okay, we know he’s going from Beersheba to Haran, but tonight he’s going to bed. And where is he going? To bed. Nobody knows. It’s not even. It’s not a remarkable place worth even telling you. What it’s saying to you is Jacob in this situation, finds himself in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t even know where he is. There’s nothing to really mark this spot in Jacob’s day. In order for a a people group to settle a land, there’s something typically you need within the substance of that land, either a, well, you know, some sort of body of water, a river, a lake, something, a pond, uh, you need fertile ground.
And what makes this place so unremarkable? There seems to be there’s no markers there. And because of that, there’s no one really living there. And so this town really doesn’t have much of a name. And so because of of Jacob’s decisions, he’s he’s found himself in the, in the middle of nowhere. And then when it tells us he’s using this, this stone for a pillow, what it’s really saying is, you know, Jacob is in a position where he found himself destitute. I mean, at the very least, if you’ve got an extra jacket or blanket, you would expect that you would just ball it up and sleep on it. But the fact that he’s had to choose a stone by which to lay his head on is just helping you understand the predicament of which he finds himself. He is absolutely alone and he knows it. And this is only further exacerbated by the fact that it’s night. And I think this is not just identifying the time of day for you. So you’re aware of the time of day. It’s really a positioning of the state of his soul. Yes, it’s it’s physically dark, but this is more of a metaphorical foretelling of where Jacob is as as God gets ready to intersect him in this point of his life, that it’s not just physically dark outside, but it’s just dark all the way around.
That Jacob is kind of reevaluating how he got where he is, and he doesn’t really know how to get moving forward. He knows a destination where he’s about to go, but how this is all going to play out when he’s just left everyone that he loves, he’s he’s just lost. And so we find in the story he’s being honest with the position in which he finds himself. He’s being sincere. Let me say about the position in which he finds himself. And what Jacob is saying to us is he he knows he’s lacking. I mean, anytime you’re going to bed at night laying on a rock and using a rock as a pillow, you’re saying to yourself, I need to do something different. And so these opening verses help us to see the sincerity of where his heart is. Maybe, maybe even saying all the deception, all the games he was playing. He’s kind of come to the end of himself. So point number two, what do I do when I feel lost? And I’m going to give you this in a little bit in advance and explain this. Cling to God’s word. Cling to God’s word. And I know again, it’s an overly overly simplistic statement, but when you’re in that state where you really you do feel alone, the importance of God’s Word needs to be cherished in in our lives. Sometimes when life gets difficult.
The temptation is to determine our steps by our circumstances and our feelings. Rather than on our God and His promises. And the unfortunate thing about our feelings is that our feelings can be misleading. Um, and if you use that to determine what is true or what you think might be true, it can really lead you astray. And on the other side of that, God, God’s word is is full of his presence. It’s full of his promises. It’s full of his power over and above our problems. And in in verse, what you need is, is hope. And there’s no greater hope than in the Lord. And so this is exactly what God brings unexpectedly to Jacob. And I want you to see this story in verse 12. This is what God does. He says, and he dreamed. Talking about Jacob. And behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth. I love this like he’s learned. Jacobs. Jacob’s a talker. Jacob’s a storyteller. Jacob likes to manipulate situations. Jacob likes to lie about it. God’s like. The only time I’m going to get this guy’s attention is when I got him closing his mouth, and the only time he’s closing his mouth is when he’s dreaming. So I was like, I’m going to get you when I need to. And so God’s talking to him in his dream, and he dreamed. And behold, there was a ladder 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. And behold, there the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac, the land of which I will give to you, and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be 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 you and your offspring shall be all. Shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So here in the story, Jacob, he immediately sees this ladder, and this ladder really becomes a reflection of God’s presence with with Jacob. In fact, I don’t know that the Hebrew word translated ladder is really the best way to translate this. Um, this word really can also be translated as a ramp or a staircase, which I think is a far better picture, because if you think about what what it means to use a ladder like angels ascending and descending on a ladder, that you see angels coming and going, but when you’re on a ladder, you can’t really do that. You go one direction and you got to wait till you’re done going one direction and you can go the other direction. But but this ramp carries this idea of the, the heavens being open, and there’s this ascending and descending and the way the ascending and descending happens is important to recognize, because we’ve already seen the idea of a ladder being built in the Tower of Babel.
If you remember, early on in Genesis we talked about the Tower of Babel. Man said, we’re going to build this tower to show how great we are. It’s going to reach to the heavens. It’s going to be for our glory. And that’s very much a picture of all religion. All religion is this idea of of you availing yourself to the love of God, you doing the work to demonstrate how great you are. So God has impressed with you and can’t do anything but accept you, right? He? The reason God loves you is you just can’t be turned away. That’s not Christianity at all. Christianity is the exact opposite of that. That the story is not about us reaching to heaven, but rather heaven reaching down to us that God finds us in our mess, that God pursues us by his grace and God. God delivers himself to us, that we may know him, which is a very powerful concept when it comes to Christianity. What makes Christianity different than all religions in this world? That that the transcendent God would love you in such an intimate way? Um, sometimes we have this erroneous way of thinking about God where, when, when things might be a little difficult in our life, we might say to ourselves, you know, but I can handle this. I don’t want to. I don’t want a busy guy with my problems.
He can go handle the bigger problems. And, you know, I’ll just take care of me because it looks like I’ve got this right now. So let God let God take care of those other problems, and I’ll just deal with this myself, as if to think erroneously, that God only has a limited amount of power. And if you use it, it’s going to be all used up. Right? And that’s not true. That’s not biblical, and that’s not who God is. God made you for relationship. God made you to know you, uh, to to know him. It’s incredible to think the God who created all things spiritually and physically would, would be that intimately concerned with your well-being, that he would make his presence known. And that’s exactly what he does with Jacob. Here. You either see the story of this angel’s coming and going, and sometimes people get infatuated with the idea of angels. In this passage, I want you to know, the point of talking about these angels isn’t to fixate on the angels, but to recognize that in the midst of darkness that God is still active. Jacob in the midst of darkness, that God desires to make himself known in, in, in our faults and our shortcomings, that heaven has opened up and God has declared himself. God has come near, and I love the way he gets. He gets Isaac’s attention in the story or not. Excuse me not Isaac.
He gets Jacob’s attention in the story because he says in this passage, when he introduces himself, he says, I’m the Lord. He says in verse 13, the God of Abraham. Your father and the God of Isaac. Notice he has yet to say, and the God of Jacob, meaning Jacob, hasn’t developed that personal relationship with the Lord yet. He hasn’t truly surrendered his life to Christ. He’s made life all about himself. That’s the reason he’s been lying. He’s been deceitful. He’s just there for his own pleasure, being his own God, trying to serve himself. But now God is introducing him in the midst of this place of humility. And God is telling him, look, I’ve been walking with your fathers, and and here I am, my desire. And this night, when you find yourself on a rock at your most vulnerable, my desire is is to walk with you. And. And I want you to see what God says to him. This is incredible. Verse 15 he says, behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Uh, a couple of things. God’s in these statements, both the I am and the I will. I love this before before Jacob gets to the I wills or the promises of what God wants to do. God wants to begin with an act of promise in these moments, right? Which is I am.
I am with you, Jacob. You may feel a certain way. There might be what we feel, but there’s the truth of what God says. And it’s more important to align your heart with the truth of what God says than how we feel, because our feelings can deceive us. And so there may be times where we go through these, these seasons where we might feel a certain way, but God says, says differently. Have you ever gone through situations like that? Can I just tell you, it’s a beautiful opportunity to communicate to the Lord that your love for him and by faith exceeds how you feel? Feelings are important. I don’t want to diminish those. I hope you have wonderful feelings today, right? I hope today is a glorious day where you get to appreciate all kinds of things. But. But the truth of God is what is always consistent. Feelings. Feelings come and go, and anytime our feelings may be lacking or may be in a struggling position, it becomes this beautiful opportunity to acknowledge the truth of what God says to demonstrate to God, God, my, my love for you, my commitment to you far exceeds the way I feel because my faith is more important. And so God is. He’s giving Jacob these promises to to Jacob to be able to to trust in this situation, despite his his circumstances and the way he might feel.
He says, I am I am actively with you, Jacob. You are not alone. You may feel alone, but you are. You are not alone. Then he goes to the I wills. I will keep you. Though Jacob, in these moments may feel, he may feel vulnerable. He may feel unprotected. Being out in these elements as he’s making this long journey. The reality is, is that God will be with him. He promises to protect him and he says, I will bring you back. You think when you when you journey with the Lord and trust in him, we could be people of great anxiety trying to figure out every problem that we need to solve, right? How do I know I’m going to come back? Right? How do I know I’m going to be taken care of? How do I know that all these things are going to work out? And God is saying that that’s that’s his promise to Jacob. I will bring you back, Jacob. You you you will not lose your way. You’re not going to get lost. You’re going to have your needs met. And he says, I will not leave you. Not only is he with him now, but he’s going to continue to stay with him. And every one of these statements, the I am, the I wills, just screams the grace of God into Jacob’s life. See, if we were to start before. Before I read to you what God said. If I were to say, okay, God is going to appear to Jacob and everything that you’ve learned about Jacob up until this point, none of it’s been really spectacular, right? He has been a man of shady character, lying and deceitful.
And if I were to say to you, God’s going to come to Jacob and he’s going to say something to Jacob, what do you think God would say to Jacob? I would think our human tendency would be like, oh, well, God’s going to get the hoop and stick out, right? That’s that’s what’s going to happen here. He’s going to tell him exactly what he thinks he’s going to say, man. Man, Jacob, I really loved Abraham. He wasn’t perfect, but I loved him, I loved Isaac, but you, man, I must have messed up here somewhere. Like maybe a comment like that or something along the lines of, I’m giving up now, you know, something like that. But that’s not what he got at all. Rather, he got the exact, exact opposite. When God speaks, we might expect God to to chastise Jacob for his deception wrongdoing. But but what God does is give his grace. And what what Jacob is learning is that God is the opposite of everything he is experiencing in life, and even in his own feelings. It’s incredible when when you read in Scripture even how Jesus interacted in the gospels with with sinful people, when you read, it seems like really the crowds that Jesus interacted with, it became very polarizing.
Sometimes there were the religious. Leaders, the the elite of society, the ones that people looked up to. And then there were the sinful people. And Scripture says to us over and over, Jesus was a friend of sinners. But then we read passages like Matthew 23 when he comes to religious leaders, that’s when he gives the the, the 8 or 7 woes. Depends on your theology in that, but he gives the woes to them, the warnings, he tells them they’re whitewashed tombs on the outside they may look beautiful, but on the inside they’re dead. And the Pharisees hated Jesus because of that. But but when it came to the sinners, Jesus was compassionate. Why? I can tell you that the difference is, at least for the sinful people. They knew they were sinful people. They had the brokenness and the humility of the situations in which they found themselves in life. And Scripture says to us over and over again that God works through the humble, that God opposes the proud, the religious elite. They think they have it all together that are impressing God with who they are. But but the sinners Jesus came to in the midst of their brokenness and offered grace. And this is what you find in the life of Jacob, that God’s presence is there, that God is loving him, and he’s speaking truth into his life, though his circumstances and his feelings may may tell him otherwise.
And the same is true for us. Our feelings can often conflict with what God says, especially when we’re the ones that mess up. When you know that the reason you might find yourself in a situation might be because some decisions that you’ve made or or some crowd that you’ve run with, and all of a sudden you, you find yourself empty and you might think to yourself, well, God, you know, God loves other people, but what about me? I feel destitute, I’m just metaphorically sleeping on a rock. And what do you do? The answer is to let the truth of God speak into your life over and above your feelings. I think the the warning in Scripture over and over again is that your feelings are can be misleading. In fact, if I gave us a freshness up just a moment on our Satan theology, which is a you’re welcome. If this is your first Sunday, I want to talk about Satan for a minute, but I think it’s important to know how the enemy works in our lives and what he’s trying to accomplish in your life versus what God desires to do. In Second Corinthians chapter 11, verse 14 very clearly says about Satan, no wonder even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Um, you know what? Angel of light really represents? Positive, warm feelings, right? That’s that’s really what it’s like. Satan does not show up with pitchfork to scare you away.
How can he deceive you if he’s just scaring you all the time? You’re not going to listen to that, right? But but here’s what he’s saying. He wants to give the deception of the choices that you’re making, being the right choices when when they’re contrary to the Lord. In fact, if you read the whole context of Second Corinthians chapter 11, that’s what it’s talking about a different message, a different gospel, this angel of light giving the warm fuzzies about the trail that you’re on. So, so while while feelings can be great and you want to have great feelings as you follow the truth, right? Feelings can also mislead you and and make you feel good about things that are. They’re a lie. Like, I think when Jacob made the decisions to deceive, he completely felt that this was going to work out to his advantage. And so feelings can be a lie to us. Not only that, in revelation 12 it says, um. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, the authority of his his Christ, have come. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. Now, I’m not going to give the whole theological context of this verse, but I do want you to just the last half of that verse, it’s really giving you a picture into the demeanor and the purposes of Satan, and it gives them a title.
It refers to him as the accuser of the brethren day and night. He’s accusing you. And the question would be, what is he accusing you of? And because he’s relentless in this right day and night, but what he loves to do is to throw your past on you. When you’ve messed up the feelings of shame and worthlessness, all the brokenness that you might have in your life, the reasons that you might give an excuse of why God may not love you right? That’s what he loves to do. Because if he can get you stuck in your past, he knows he’s going to keep you from appreciating the presence of what you have in the Lord. And so one of those two ways this is these aren’t the only ways, but these are some of the ways that acknowledges that he, he, he he moves in our life, right? He he wants you to feel like, you know, the decisions you’re making for you, isolated from God, you know, is the truth that you should follow, which is no truth at all. And it is not freedom. And then the other side of this is this this idea of this accusing you in your life of the brokenness that you have and the things that you’ve done wrong. Just like Jacob sleeping on this rock, he finds himself in this position. He’s probably replaying all the poor decisions that he’s made in his life.
But I can tell you, this is exactly why the Lord came. This is exactly why the Lord’s coming into Jacob’s life right now. This is. This is what is grace ministers to us. This is why God, rather than chastising Jacob, offers to him the opportunity of hope in knowing him and walking with him. He’s saying, Jacob, look, I was the God of Abraham. I was the God of Isaac. They were broken too. But I want to be your God. It’s the it’s the truthfulness of who God is. Jesus died on the cross for your sins, for your sin, to carry your guilt and shame. So if you carry that around, you’re doing something Jesus has already taken on your behalf. Why in the world would you listen to the enemy trying to throw that back upon you? When Jesus wants you to enjoy the presence of of God walking with you right now? In fact, Second Peter five eight says this be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a lion, seeking whom he may devour. I mean, his whole goal in your life is to destroy you. In fact, even this week, if you’re doing our yearly Bible reading, reading through the New Testament and Mark chapter five is where we were this week on Friday, I think we read the story about Mark five, which is the man who is demon possessed and not just by one demon.
He’s possessed by Legion, which is like thousands of demons. He’s really possessed. And you know what’s interesting in that story? And I don’t want to get us too freaked out here, but I’m going to. I’m going to share something, and then I’m going to tell you why. I don’t want you going around freaking people out of this. Okay. Um, you know, when you read about demon possession in the in the gospels, when Jesus interacts with people who are demon possessed, there tends to be one of two, one of two things that is almost always there and sometimes both of those things. You see one of those things with this demon possessed man. If you remember the story this guy’s demon possessed, Jesus calls out the demons. The demons go into pigs, and the pigs just destroy themselves. They jump off a cliff. Right? And it’s really profound. You think, man, this this demon is tormenting this guy, or these demons are tormenting this guy. But when it’s removed from an image bearer of a human being, the image bearer of God, and it’s placed on an animal, the animal just instantly goes mad and kills itself. But when you read the story about this individual, what’s happening in his life is that he is he’s harming himself. I mean, he talks about he is physically harming himself in the story. And when you read about demon possession in the Gospels, when Jesus interacts with them, one of two things is always present.
Sometimes both. They’re hurting themselves and their sexual perversion. Nudity, meaning the what’s happening when the demon is present is they’re diminishing the image of God in a person. They’re literally destroying the image that God has placed on them. That’s how Satan works. Now, the reason I told you I want I don’t want to just get flippant about saying those things is I don’t want you to go around anytime you see someone harming or, uh, you know, some sort of sexual perversion immediately pronounced, they’re demon possessed like that. That’s not going to go well for that’s not that’s not what I’m trying to tell you at all. But but what I, what I am saying is the mark of the enemy is there anytime time we’re devaluing the image of God in another human being, the mark of the enemy is there. That is not the truthfulness of the Lord. The truthfulness of the Lord is what what possesses his presence, his power, his purpose for your life. And that is what God calls us to follow over and above our feelings. Feelings come and go, but the truthfulness of God’s Word is what sets us free. So when when we’re lost, what do we do? Number one, we we’re sincere about our position. Uh, number two, we cling to God’s Word. And even for us in that struggle, it’s important to know what God says about us and what God says to us, that he desires to want to to relate with us, to enter into our suffering.
I mean, this is exactly what Jesus did for you and for me, right? He went into exile for us so that we we could know him. He went. He went to the grave and was resurrected to to bring us freedom. God cares about us in fact, Psalm 103, verse 11, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the West so far does he remove our transgressions from us, as a father shows compassion to his children. So? So the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. So then, because of that, it gives us the opportunity then to take number three, which is take a step of faith, no matter how small. Take a step of faith, no matter how small. And when you start to see the goodness of who God is, his grace in your life, no matter if you’re the one to blame or not, it gives you the opportunity to start to move in that. I once heard a pastor say it like this. Some days you just feel like you’re charging hell with a squirt gun. Meaning, you know, sometimes just taking a little step feels like a great leap. And honestly, if that’s where you’re at, then that’s pleasing to the Lord. Take a step of faith, no matter how small.
And each day that you take that step, one day when you look back, you’ll realize you’ve you’ve traveled miles and following after faithfulness faithfully in the Lord. It’s like when a when a child learns to walk for the first time, you don’t just sort of toss them out and they just take off running, right. They learn to pull themselves up, they learn to crawl, and they learn to just wobble with their big old heads. And eventually they get to the place where they run. And and it’s the same thing in our relationship with the Lord. For Jacob, he’s just really personally starting to know who God is and for him. He he starts to take those steps and you see how that unfolds in the story. And it goes on in verse 16 it says, Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it. 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. I want you to see what’s happening now in Jacob’s life. First, he was focused on everything that he wanted selfishly, right? And as he tried to live for his own glory, he found his own demise. But he’s still very self-focused. He’s on that rock thinking, woe is me. It’s still all about him. But then all of a sudden, God opens his eyes to something greater than himself.
God opens his eyes to the to the greatness of who he is now for the first time, rather than thinking selfishly, Jacob is thinking selflessly, and he describes it in verse 17. He says, I was afraid. You see this, this fear of the Lord, this awesomeness. He sees the greatness of God in the midst of his, of his promises. What I mean is the transcendence of this glorious God, and yet the imminent intimacy that God wants to bring into his life. And it is overwhelming for him. It finally gets him to think beyond who he is and look to how great God is. I mean, this becomes the the solution to his problems, this this reverence for the Lord. And then verse 18, it goes on, it says, so early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of the place Bethel. But the name of the city was Luz at the first. So he finally learned that the area that he was living in before it was unremarkable. No one really cared. But this place still is so unremarkable that when he goes to change the name of the town, there’s not like a talk to the to the local mayor first. No one cares like no one lives here. So you can call it whatever you want, right? So.
So it goes from Luz to, to Bethel. But he’s he’s acknowledging this desire to want to connect to God because he’s seeing the goodness of of who the Lord is. And so for the first time, Jacob’s really he’s entering into worship of this God, just showing the display of God’s worth and his connection to the worth of of who God is. And so he worships here. He calls this place Bethel, which is the house of God, the place where God dwells. And then in verse 20, he goes on, it says, 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, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace. Then the Lord shall be my God. 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 10th to you. I want you to see in this story exactly how Jacob steps, right? He hears God’s promises and he starts to move forward. But notice the caveat that he puts in this statement. He says, if right, God, if this is truly who you are, I’m willing to follow this at this point, he he has nothing really else to follow. He’s all alone. But what he’s saying is, God, I want to go on this journey.
But Lord, I want to experientially discover the truth of what you’re saying, right? That God, if you are this God and I’m taking these steps and it will be it will be determined, it will be displayed if that is truly who you are. But God, I’m willing to follow. Can I can I tell you for us this morning, you may find yourself in a similar place where you know where you’ve been just hasn’t worked, and you realize that deep in your soul there’s this longing for more. And so you’re willing to put yourself out there. You’re willing to say, Lord, what is it? What is it that you’ve called me to? What is it? You’ve created me. Before to trust in him. Can I, can I tell you? Um. For all of us, we’re always on that journey. We’ll spend the rest of. Of eternity discovering the depths of who God is. He is that deep, but yet experiencing the goodness of who God is because he desires to make himself known. I mean, it’s it’s incredible, right? But but I think for all of us, the most important question we can answer. Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? When we discover the truthfulness of who he is, and we let the Word of God speak to us according to who he is, we let Jesus speak for himself rather than someone else trying to tell me. And I start to own that. And I’ll walk in that, and I get to experience the freedom of who the Lord is.
You know, it’s interesting when you study the life of Jacob, there are two times in in his, I’ll say, journey with the Lord, that he finds himself alone. Two times we’re going to encounter in Jacob and Jacob’s story, where he’s on a journey and he finds himself destitute. He really finds himself broken. He finds himself alone. But can I tell you what we discover in Jacob’s life is that in those two journeys, that those are the places that God spoke to him most deeply, that his relationship with the Lord took the greatest of leaps and the darkest of moments in his life. Can I tell you it’s it’s the same for us. And there are times in our lives where we struggle. I mean, we get on our knees just crying out, and in the moment we can’t see the beauty of what God’s doing. But when we start to get removed from that situation, we’re able to look back from a different lens. We see God’s hand all over it. But yeah, we we necessarily we don’t necessarily want to go through that situation again, but what we discover is the goodness of God through it. I can tell you in my own life, if I wish, I could look back and say my, my greatest spiritual peaks, when was when life was perfect and therefore my prayer all the time is, Lord, continue to make my life the best life ever.
Like that’s that’s. But but rather it was in in the brokenness of where I find myself that that the Lord used that to nurture my spirit before him. Um, that God grew me. And this is what we discover in Jacob’s life. So, so here’s here’s what’s important for us then. Um, maybe when you look at this this morning and you see this story, you may say to yourself, you know, this is great for for Jacob, I’m glad to read this story, and I’m glad this happened for Jacob. But how do I really know that this is my story? How do I really know that this story was intended for me, and that this is what God desires to to also relate to my life? How do I how do I know that this isn’t just some kind of one off narrative that God did for Jacob, right? Well, this is why I say the rest of the Bible becomes relevant to communicate that, because in the Gospels, in John chapter one, this is the story where we we read about Jesus gathering his disciples for the first time. And in John chapter one, verse 45, Jesus is already interacted with a man named Philip. And you immediately see verse 45, what Philip does, it says, Philip went and found Nathanael and said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and all the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
So Philip, when he meets who he thinks is the Messiah, his immediate response is he wants to tell his friends and family. And so he he immediately goes out and finds Nathanael, and he begins to to tell him this, what he believes is this life changing story. And then verse 46, Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip just said, come see. This is like I try to relate this today and say like, it’s like us asking the question, does anything great really come out of dushane? Right? Like that’s a kind of a unique town, right? Like most people don’t even know how to pronounce Dushane. It’s plainly Duchesne, right? This is not not even. They need some help there. That’s what he’s saying here. He’s looking out. He’s looking at this little, little town, Nazareth, and he’s thinking, what is God going to do with a town like that? And, and Philip or Nathaniel goes and he and he goes, he walks with Philip to go see. And I don’t think it’s necessarily because he believes what Philip is saying. I think it’s more because he’s built the time for that friendship to just give, give Philip a little bit of a trust to to at least support his friend. And then verse 47, Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said to him, behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.
Uh, what Jesus immediately does is give this gives this pronouncement of Nathaniel, uh, that really shocks him, something very intimate, detailed about him. And because of that, Nathaniel immediately has a question like, why in the world would you how would you do this? Why would you do that? He says in verse 48, Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? And Jesus answered him, look at this before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Jesus is revealing something very private and personal here. I’m just like Jacob thought he was all alone. It now connects the story of Jacob to the story of Nathaniel. And you know, the Bible doesn’t tell us the exact reason Nathaniel went off by himself. But I just knowing human nature, the tendency in our lives when we feel led to go somewhere isolated by ourselves, it’s typically because there’s not a lot of great things happening at the moment. And there’s been some bad news, something difficult that we’re going through. Our minds are just trying to wrap around it. We we need to meditate, pray, get away. And whatever’s happening in Theo’s life has led him to that place where he is on his own, and he feels like he’s sleeping on a rock. And what does God say to him? I was right there. I was right there to the point where when? When Jesus says this, Nathaniel goes on in verse 49, Nathaniel said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.
And look how Jesus responds, guys, because this becomes important for all of us. Verse 50, Jesus answered, because I said to you, I saw you under a fig tree. Do you believe you will see greater things than these? And he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, which means, like, listen to this. This is what Jesus truly, truly means. You need to really pay attention to this. I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. What is Jesus describing? Jacob’s ladder? Well, Jesus is saying, is Nathaniel the same God that was there with Jacob? Is the same God who is there with you right now. But here’s what’s interesting. There’s a little bit of change to the story. In the time with Jacob, the angels descended and ascended upon Jacob, but now, in the time of Jesus, the angels are ascending and descending on Jesus. And there’s a reason for that, because when we read the story in Genesis 28, what we saw is the promise that God gave Jacob that I promised through Abraham that would come a seed, and through that seed I would bless all people groups. And that promise was given to Isaac. And now Jacob, I’m going to bring that promise to you, and that promise is going to be passed on to Judah.
And through that, the lineage of Judah, it’s going to go to David through King David. Ultimately, the Messiah will come. And now all of a sudden, what we’re seeing in the story with Nathaniel is the fulfillment of that story is that the Messiah has finally come. And the reason for the presence of the Messiah coming is not just for Jacob and Nathaniel, but for all of us. And so what God is ultimately doing is tying his grand redemptive story in all of Scripture, so that we can see the same way that God worked in the Old Testament is the same way God works in the New Testament. Ultimately, the way that God desires to work in your life right now. But the God who is willing to meet Jacob in the middle of nowhere. Broken and sleeping on a rock, is the same God who desires to meet with his people today. God is near the broken hearted. God’s desire for you is that his truth would fill your life, that you would take a step in the goodness of who he is, no matter how big it is. We’re not here to impress God, but to be impressed by the Lord. And with that, God transforms us. It’s when our eyes get on the greatness of who he is that leads us into the beauty of worship. Trusting in the one who supplies.