Introduction
Big idea: See the vision (again)—transform your worship.
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Well, good morning, brothers and sisters, good morning to our visitors. My name is Dan, one of the pastors here, if you're new with us, and it is just a joy to meet you, the newcomers who come those who come back, our church family, we did have a wonderful time at our retreat this weekend. So thankful for what God is doing among you. There's, there's some things that God, by His grace, helps us with. So if you're new with us, here's, here's here's what you get when you come here. It's a faith Bible, church, if you're visiting, you get God's living word that can strengthen you, help you, feed you and make you more like Jesus. You get that through the preaching of the Bible on Sunday morning, study of the Bible in growth groups, various discipleship ways across that, and that's especially good if you're messy. If you have issues you're messy. We help messy people like that's we're messy. So we help messy people various struggles and difficulties you would get help with that. You get a people who care for you and love you, and we also want to equip you to make an impact in your family, in your city and in the world. So we train up leaders. We do leadership development by all by God's grace and mercy. We're watching fruit of that. It's so exciting for us. So I'd love to talk to you about any of those things and connect you to people who can help you in a variety of ways. We're continuing on in our study of Genesis, we're in Genesis 28 throughout Genesis, we have gotten a bunch of firsts. It's a book of beginnings. It's not the first dream, but it's the first big vision dream, and it's the famous story of Jacob's Ladder, or Jacob's stairway. I did extensive internet research. LED zeppelins, Stairway to Heaven has nothing to do with this passage. It's it's just something else. So I wondered how bad they would butcher it. It's not even a reference to it. So I know those of you who grew up in the 70s and played it backwards, you had satanic messages that you found on it, I'm sure. But all humor aside, let's stand for the reading of God's Word. And I do want to say this as you listen through it. This passage touches all kinds of human experience, from being alone, from being exiled, to being single, to being guilty, and God gives Jacob this amazing vision. It's in line with visions like Isaiah had or John had, and it's a powerful scene for us in the for a person who's really messed up, like Jacob's got a lot of problems, and here, God reaches him and transforms him. Let's read it together. I'll read it follow along, starting in verse one, Genesis 128, then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women Arise, go to pad and Aram, to the house of Bethuel from your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. God Almighty, bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings? That God gave to Abraham. Thus Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to pat and Aram to Laban, the son of Bethuel, the aramaean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and esau's mother. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to pad and Aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to pad and Aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, he had married two of them. Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives, he had mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael Abraham's son, the sister of nebaoth. 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, and he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of. Reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. 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. 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. 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. 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 top of it. He called the name of the place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the time. 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 all that you give me, I will give a full 10th to you. This is the word of the Lord God. We thank you because you speak to us. You speak to us from Your Word. Thank you for this dream, this vision that you gave to Jacob. It's our vision. Now we see the truths of your word, and we are seeing your glory and your awe and your work in the world. I pray that You would help us by your Spirit to understand what's here, Lord Jesus. We thank You that You are the great mediator between God and man. By your death and by your resurrection, you have purchased us, and the fulfillment all the families of the earth being blessed is coming through you. We, thank you for that work. You continue to work in this world Holy Spirit. We, thank you for this word that you had penned through Moses, this word now illuminate in our hearts. We want to see the glory of the Lord, and we want to respond in worship and awe, Father, we pray for our city. We think of many, many churches. Pray for Calvary Church south, Calvary Church north. Move in their preachers, their pastors, their leaders, in such a way that they commit to expository preaching. Bless the preaching of your word, and I pray that you would continue to transform us. We are all on a mission here. We're still making disciples of Jesus Christ. Help us be faithful to that mission. Pray internationally. I think of churches that we have sent people to. I think of grace life London. Pray for Mike, Dan and Tom, Dr Ian as they are. There others there as well, that You would bless the word that's already been preached eight hours ago or more. Bless the word in the lives of its people, and may you continue to work in the great city of London. Now we pray that you would work here among us. Many are suffering. Many have great difficulties. So did Jacob, and you showed him yourself, and it changed him. Do that in us, in Christ's name, Amen, you may be seated. You really couldn't pick a more conflicted and sad SAP than Jacob in Genesis, 2811 I mean, if you look at 2811 he had a birthright, he had a blessing, but he's exiled from home. He's sent out. He had cheated his brother, twice lied to his father. Esau, was comforting himself as the last chapter says he was comforting himself by the dreams of how he would kill his brother after dad died. I mean, that'd be a great place you'd want to stay. Your brother's looking at you. I'm dreaming of how I'm gonna kill you when dad dies, he had no network of family and friends to stay with on the journey. He's on a 550 mile on foot trip, and he has no one to blame but himself. He's alone a couple days into the walk from Beersheba, southern Israel to Haran, northwestern Syria, and
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he's in such a poor and difficult situation, he takes a rock, positions it just right, and that's his pillow. That's a pretty pathetic place, isn't it? A rock for a pillow. One expert on storytelling calls this kind of character a hero in a hole. I mean, Jacob is a hero in a hole if you're writing the score for the scene to Jacob's life, there's a movie about it, you'd probably have Mahalia Jackson, or my preference, jubilant Sykes singing the old spiritual sometimes I feel Like a motherless child a long way from home alone, exiled, incomplete, guilty, nowhere to find rest. This kind of story touches human experience at some point in every life, but at the very core, it's about recapturing worship. It's about recapturing worship. Jacob is at a low point because 40 plus years of his life have been lived for self worship. One of the team this week said, you know, he's kind of like a church kid who grew up knew knowing the promises, but never knowing the Lord. He cheated to get both the birth right. He connived. He cheated to get the blessing and and yet, at this low point, God gives Jacob a vision with a promise that will transform his worship and the worship of 1000 generations, according to David, 1000 years later, roughly, David dedicates the Ark coming into the tabernacle in Jerusalem, and he cites the fact that God is keeping His covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob, a covenant to bless 1000 generations unworthy, Jacob becomes the third great witness of the patriarchs. They're often listed this way, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it's the third witness. Very often we find that God wants to establish and confirm realities based on two or three witnesses. Find it in legal settings, and here is three witnesses. You have three gospels plus one, and God is unfolding a promise that began with his grandfather, Abraham, you and I are still living in these realities. We're still living in them. There are many promises in the Bible that had a specific announcement and a very specific fulfillment. The virgin shall be with child, very specific fulfillments. There are some. This is one of those that are unfolding promises. This unfolds in Jacob's life. It unfolds in the nation that comes from Him. It unfolds at Pentecost, when Jews hear the Gospel, are transformed by the Holy Spirit, and they take the Gospel to other portions of the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire. It is unfolding today through the Great Commission this. This promise has been standing for 4000 years, and it is unfolding, and it's not finished yet. You it. There is an end in which Jesus will enter human existence again as the king and judge in Revelation 19, and he will set the kingdom up in Revelation 20 and and men and women from east, west, north and south will be included reigning with Christ. This this promise here sets the trajectory for the Bible. It's a significant promise. Ian. Yeah, and what you see is there's very specific issues that he is dealing with. Jacob is dealing with. He's alone, he's exiled, he's being he's going to be sanctified through various trials that he's going to face. And what you find is that God justly and graciously rules the universe and the nations, while he justly and graciously rules singleness, guilt, interpersonal conflict, national strife.
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Today as Galatians 329 talks about, if you are in Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs, according to the promise, he is still doing the same thing. The sovereign, gracious all wise God rules the cosmos. And the pillow where you place your head, transcendent above all things close and personal. I struggled with figuring out what the big idea is like, one that's easy and memorable, but I don't have anything better than this. Is you need to take a close look at this vision. You need to see the vision that's here. For some of you, it's again. See it again. Been walking with the Lord for years. You're walking through this passage again. You need to see the vision, and you need to transform your worship. This is what happens with Jacob. He goes into his sleep alone, exiled a long way from Mama, and he wakes up a changed man. Change you. In this passage, we're going to see that God is only beginning his work in Jacob. God is only beginning his work with the nations. God is not through with Jacob. God is not through with the nations. God is not through with you. God is not through with the nations. If you keep your eye on his work, his goals, his promise, and you worship Him, all the troubles, all the troubles and Jacob has plenty, are put in their proper place. All the triumphs are put in their proper place. I know there's a little potential euphoria for the mariners fans. They finally might get somebody who is they might get a team going to be beat down by the Dodgers. I want a tiny to get an injury, honestly. But even if they won like compared to this, you should go like this compared to this promise a Mariner's victory today is like, I mean, it's better than the laws. So it puts your triumphs in perspective, it puts your troubles in perspective, and it keeps your heart directed to the completion of Christ's work in you and in the world. Let's follow through it as a process. We see Jacob in his preparation. God often does that with us. We see a word of caution by the life of Esau and his response to the situation. We see the vision itself that we need to respond to.
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We see, ultimately, Jacob's transformation. He receives it, and he is transformed. So let's, let's start with this. Let's start with the preparation. Jacob needed preparation. Isaac knew it. God must prepare you for what's next and for eternity. It's no accident that Jacob ended up on a Lonely Mountain. God was preparing him. It's no accident that you're here. I know you might have been invited by a friend, or you might have gone online and you said, I'll decide I'll go here, but God brought you here today. It's no accident. God's preparing you. And from the previous passage, unworthy Jacob needs radical transformation. So do each of us. God fits his people for work here as he transforms them and he fits them for their home in His presence. Let's see how this unfolds. Verse one, then Isaac called Jacob, blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Now, back in Genesis nine, Canaan and his sons were cursed because of their immoral and idolatrous disposition and. And there Canaan's father had seen his father in decent Noah and two of the boys acted to cover their father's decency, to protect his decency, and Canaan's father did not. Canaan, most likely because of the disposition was cursed. So marrying a local girl, for Jacob, would have meant joining himself to their corruption and curse. So he says this verse two, Arise, go to pad and Aram to the house of Bethuel for your mother's father, take as your wife from there, one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother, Laban, comes from Abraham's line, terah's line, and we want to be clear, Laban is idolatrous too, but his family is part of the line that's going to get blessed out of this clan God is going to bring salvation to the world. And then Isaac prays for the second time. We have a recording of Isaac's well, not sec, but we have Isaac praying here, God Almighty, bless you, make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples. Isaac's praying in line with Genesis, 127 and 28 and God made man and woman in His image. They were to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, exercise dominion, subdue it. And Isaac is praying that this would be true in his life. He prays in line with Genesis. One, two and three, talking about him becoming a company of peoples, and you notice he's calling on God, Almighty God, the all sufficient one God, the all powerful one God who can bless and multiply this blessing is going to include his transformation, his marriage and his children now, as an aside, how big are your prayers For your children? You think of this prayer for Jacob, along the lines of God's great saving purposes.
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You might be a parent of kids in their 40s. Jacob's in his 40s. He's known about the blessing. He's known about the birthright. He's known, but he has not yet known God. How big are your prayers for your children? You might have kids in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, some of them aren't doing well. Some are still holding their fist up at God, or their hand against God. Let this kind of passage renew your resolve to pray to God Almighty, if there's anybody who can do it, God Almighty can do it
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in line with Genesis 12, one through three. He says, May He give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham. He wants him to fulfill the blessings thus Isaac sent him away. And don't let this pass you by. Many times you need to be I need to be. Our kids need to be. Our grandkids need to be sent into an exile, a time of deep struggle, so that their eyes are pulled off the world and they are shown the glory of God. We need to pray those kinds of prayers, and we need to go through those kinds of experiences. Isaac new Jacob's transformation is going to be part of a much greater plan preparation. Two caution. There's preparation for Jacob. There is caution in the story. How might I summarize it? If you're looking at the story and you look at Esau response, you have to say something like this. You can't go through the motions anymore. So you have a. Pair, what's going to happen with Jacob? What's happening with Esau? Esau, his response, I think, is given here as a warning to us. Verse six. Now, Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to pat and Aaron to take a wife from there, and that, as he blessed him, he directed him, you must not take a wife for the Canaanite women. Esau very much. Wanted a blessing in the last chapter, didn't he? Isn't there a blessing for me? Father, kind of, I mean, that's a summary of the blessing that he got. You're going to serve your brother one day he'll break off his yoke from you. So he's like, Oh, I get it. The two Canaanite women that I married weren't pleasing to my parents. I should have asked about that before I know what I'll do. I'll take a third wife. Jacob had obeyed His Father. He had not obeyed his parents. He wanted a blessing. Verse eight. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took it as his wife, besides the wives that he had, mahaleth, the daughter of Ishmael. Now remember, Ishmael is a son sent off as well, and the prophecy about Ishmael is that he would be a donkey of a man, and he would be set against his brothers. So he's thinking, if he gets a cousin, Jacob's going to go get a cousin. I'll get a cousin. That'll make mom and dad happy. But he picks ishmael's line. Ishmael is set against his brothers. It's going through the motions, seeing the spiritual realities, handling it in an unspiritual way. The commentary about Esau in Hebrews 11, bitter, immoral, trading away the birthright, and when he sought repentance for him, it was too late. He stands as a warning. The warning is what happens when a person sees all the truth, hears all the truth, wants the blessings. Doesn't want the God of the blessing. It's a cautionary tale. We move from the preparation, we see a caution, and then we come to the vision itself, the high point of the passage. We see God's work and God's promises unfold. God's grand promises here have an immediate purpose for Jacob. They have an ultimate purpose for all of God's plans. He's he's taking this trek alone. He arrives in the ancient city of Luz, about six miles north of Jerusalem, high peak. He's somewhere nearby on a hilltop. Sun is going down. He settles down to sleep. Life is so disappointing for him, he has no creature comforts whatsoever. He takes a rock, he sets it just so, and he lays his head on it for a pillow. Now maybe he was a really tough guy. No, that's not true. He was a man in the tents who liked his comfort. Esau would have picked a rock and been happy. No, he's exhausted. He's alone with his thoughts. He's a long way from Haran and a lot longer way from getting back home. And here comes this stunning vision. He dreamed and behold. Notice there's three beholds like, Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. I mean, here, here's the scene, this great ladder, there's a debate whether this is a stairway or it's a ladder and it's set on the earth and it extends all the way to heaven. This is a massive scene. This is not all too dissimilar from Isaiah and Isaiah six, seeing the Lord high and lifted up with the angels surrounding him. Here is Jacob's version of this. He sees the ladder extending into the heavens. Earth connected to heaven by stairway, by a ladder. Behold, look again, the angels were ascending and descending on it. Who are angels? Angels are God's ministering spirits, according to Hebrews, God's ministering spirits, Hebrews. One these ministering spirits are going up and going down, going up in worship, carrying out duties of Yahweh, coming down, carrying out his bidding to help the his people on the earth. So think of it this way, Isaac is going through his guilt, his loneliness, his exile, he's single. He's on his way, and God is working actively in the world, which is a really bit of good news for you. Whatever difficulty seems to be taking the entirety of your dashboard, the entirety of your attention. You think, alone, single, suffering guilty, a long way from resolve, and it just seems to consume you God in this dream opens Jacob's eyes to see that he, the sovereign, is at work in the world through his ministering spirits, God's plans are still active in The world. Jacob is still a part of them. Then God who is standing over the ladder high above speaks, he speaks. He repeats the fundamental elements of the Abrahamic promises. When you think of this god standing above, when he sees him, it's nothing other than seeing Jesus, Christ. Jesus is the visible expression of the invisible God. Jesus, standing over the latter speaks, I am the Lord that is Yahweh, eternal, ever existing. One covenant keeping God, the God of Abraham, your father, the God of Isaac. Remember what we end up learning from Jesus in Matthew 22 Abraham is living and is going to be resurrected into the land. He's the God of Isaac. So here are two living ones. I am the God of your father, the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. This land, the land of Canaan, he's right in the middle of would be his and his descendants, according to what was given in chapter 17, forever, he has promised a land
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there's to be a great people, land people. Verse 14, your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, just like what he said to Abraham, dust of the earth or stars in the heavens, the two different pictures given so widespread so many, they will be impossible to count. And not only will there be a lot of them, they're going to be spread abroad, to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. They won't just be in Israel, but they will spread worldwide. It's going to happen in two ways. In God's providence, Jews are going to be exiled out of Israel and form enclaves all over the Parthian Empire, all over the Roman Empire. When the Apostle Paul gets saved, he is commissioned to go to Gentiles. But every city he goes to, he talks to the Jews first. And they're everywhere. They're everywhere. All those who trust in Jesus Christ, according to Galatians chapter three, are offspring of Abraham and over the 2000 years of the Great Commission, there are disciples of Jesus Christ everywhere. You're sitting here, you're sitting here in answer to the promise to Jacob.
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I imagine Abraham and Jacob and Isaac Marvel, just as well as the angels, every time a sinner repents from one of the nations, they watch these promises unfold, and they have been for almost 4000 years, in you, in your offspring, shall all the families of the earth be blessed? Jacob is going to have a unique role in blessing the world. It's going to start to unfold in coming chapters, through Joseph. Joseph is going to become the deliverer of the nation. Actions through a wise food savings plan, the offspring mentioned here would eventually lead to Jesus Christ, Jews and Gentiles would be saved and the world would be blessed through them. It's a profound vision for a guy who needs to escape Esau to get a wife. It's very personal and focused. You're really going to get a wife. I will really bring you back to the land, and through these very practical, very detailed promises, problems that I will help you overcome, I am going to carry my blessing to the world. God is going to use him in a global plan, as we've been singing, to save men and women from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, a people. He promises His presence. There's a land, there's a seed, there's a people, and he promises that his presence will be with Him. Verse 15, Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. Look, I will be with you. It's the same thing that he said to Isaac in chapter 26 I will be with you wherever you go. I will bring you back to the land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. This promise gets reiterated. This is a promise that doesn't just unfold. This is a promise that is real all the time, for the rest of eternity, for those who turn and trust Yahweh, trust Jesus Christ.
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The the identity verse for us as a church, when we think of what we are as a church, what we strive to be a loving community, comes from John 14, they will know you are my people by your love. And from Matthew 2818 through 20 go make disciples of the nations, and Jesus says to His disciples, Behold, I will be with you even until the end of the age God's presence continues forward, so here is a profound and marvelous truth for your life. God has big plans for your little life. Through fulfilling His promises in little ways in your life. He is carrying out big plans for the world. He is preparing you. He's preparing you like he prepared Jacob. He is preparing you for further fruitfulness, effectiveness, usefulness, right here on this world, in this life, and he is preparing you for greater plans for the world. This promise here has had ongoing fulfillment for 4000 years. I
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there's one other thing we should connect this to, which is set in one way. In this passage, through your offspring, shall all the families of the earth be blessed. That great offspring is Jesus Christ. We're always asking the question when we read through Genesis, how did God bring us Jesus? Through Jacob, you're like, Who would have thunk every time you read one of these passages, how's God going to bring us Jesus? And you look at the people that he is, and you go, I wouldn't have picked that, but he's going to bring us Jesus. But there's another thing here. John 151, Ian, one finishes the story where Philip finds Nathaniel first early on in John, Philip finds Nathan Ian says, I found the Messiah. You've got to come and meet him. Nathaniel comes to Jesus, and Jesus says, Oh, I saw you under the tree a long ways away. Nathaniel goes, No way. I mean, I was miles away and you saw me, surely you're the Son of God, like he has this conversion experience, and Jesus is like because I said I saw you under the fig tree. You were impressed. I'll tell you what's impressive. Listen to this truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. You thought the latter was impressive. I am the mediator of heaven and earth. You thought. That was cool God working in the world that is only possible through me. Jesus is the ladder, the stairway to eternity with God. There is no other way but through him, and it will be through him that his angels do their work. He is preparing a people now for eternal life with Him and a new heaven and a new earth. This very one will be renewed and remade. God's not done with this earth. Jesus will return in glory and set up a glorious kingdom. Satan will be set aside. Then Satan will be utterly defeated, cast out. All sin will be eliminated, and a new heavens and a new earth imperfection will be created all through Jesus. This vision is far reaching. I know there's sometimes you're going to read a vision. You think, I wish I could get a vision like this or a dream like this. I do too. I would love a dream like this. Who would like a dream like this? Raise your hands. I bet you would fall asleep with your head on a rock in the middle of it. God reveals His holy plan for all of eternity. And for you, I want to tell you this. You do have the vision. You have this one. You have Moses' sight of God at the burning bush. You have isaiah's vision. In Isaiah six seeing God high and lifted up. You have the disciples vision of Jesus when they lived with him. They walked him, watched him walk on water. They watched him calm the storms. You have John's vision of Jesus, who showed up on a Sunday at worship time and revealed himself in glory. John passes out in fear and trembling, like everybody does. And then you have the revelation itself, where Jesus planned for the future is because you have it all in the Scripture. You have all the visions. You don't just have this vision. You have all the visions recorded in the Word of God. To see God in His glory, and the Holy Spirit of God is speaking to you to right now, to show you his glory, so that your heart would call out to him if you have not done that. Number four, the reception of the vision. You need to receive the word recorded, hear, receive, believe, revere God Almighty, and you might be 80, remember Isaac is over 100 Jacob is 40. You might be older, and you need to see the vision again and be renewed again and again and again. Jacob's response is profound, knowing that he was on a long journey. He makes this commitment to God. He has this understanding of God now. Then Jacob awoke and from his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. Why didn't he know it? Because his 40 plus years had been lived as a conniver, deceiver, self, self, worshiping. Everything had been focused on him, and even what God had provided was for his selfish ambition. Of course, he's blind to the presence of God, and God in His grace reveals himself, and he says, I know it. I see it. So if you're 1112, 1314, you've been hearing truths. You've gone to Sunday school, 1314, you've been in youth group, and you're kind of like, I see blessings. I see truths. Receive these truths. Receive the glory of Jesus Christ. Stop being self focused. And of course, Jacob's 40 some of you, 40 year old men, 40 plus, 50 plus, have been on the outskirts of God's blessings. You've seen truths, but you're still living your life now. 40. How much of it have you wasted? Plenty. Now is the time to see and receive these truths. We could add the women too, 40 year old women, 40 plus.
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It's time to stop going through the motions. Recognize the truth for what it is, receive it, believe it be transformed by it.
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This whole point, Jacob had known about the blessing of God, the blessing of God, but never known the presence of God. Do you know the presence of God? Like Abraham did before he erects a marker? Abraham had built an altar early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up for a pillar, poured oil on it. That's an anointing of this, he is creating a memorial, a marker. God met him here. It's going to be a very significant place. I bet you have had seasons and times in your life at a very specific place and a very specific time, and you look back and say, God met me there in a very powerful way, and you're grateful for that place. You go back and you remember he called the name of the place, Bethel, the house of God. Every time something is named, you should pay attention for what's going on. God revealed himself here. I He receives the vision, and then he's changed. He takes a vow, which leads to the transformation. Preparation, caution, vision, reception, transformation. He commits his whole life as worship to Yahweh, his whole life. This is a person who has committed his whole life to self worship now commits his whole life to the one true God. Will he stumble? Will he have weakness? Will there be issues Absolutely, but there is a transformation here. Verse 20, Jacob made a vow, saying, if God will be with me, I will keep 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. There's two ways to read an if. Clause one is conditional. If you do this for me God, then I'll give you this making deals with God. There's another way that conditional statements happen in Hebrew and Greek, and that is if and I assume it's true. And I assume it's true first class conditional statement for all the Greek students or Hebrew students, if it is this way. And I assume it's true, you could translate that as since How do we know which one this is? I think the clue is, in the end of 22 then the Lord shall be My God. This stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house. He is making a commitment that this is going to be a place of worship for him. And all that you give me, I will give a full 10th to you. Is Jacob bartering with God. If you give me, then I'll give you back. Just Just imagine how ridiculous that would sound. God Almighty, the all sufficient one, the one who provides, the one who sustains, gives somebody life, clothing, abundance. He's going to have 12 kids and lots of flocks. He's going to come back rich. God's going to give him that, and then Jacob's going to give him a 10th and go, Oh, that's so good. I got 10% back. I didn't know what I was going to do without all of that stuff. Is God had a need, or that God would be really impressed. Oh, you gave me 10% that's amazing. 10% is that how tithes work. That's not even how tithes work. Here's the idea of a tithe. It's a first fruit offering. First fruit offerings. Crops come in. First fruit offering comes to the Lord to say this, I'm giving you as a tangible expression that all of it's yours, all of it's yours. He is saying, if you bring me back, and I assume you will, I. I'm going to give you a 10th, because me, my kids, my wealth, it will all be yours. He gives himself in total worship. He has been utterly changed. Vows are permitted in the Bible. Jacob is making a massive expression of faith. I will be fully yours. Step back and think about this. You all find various times, alone, exiled, growing up in a hardware store, I usually call it the lesson of the two by four, not exile. Lesson of the two by four. Sometimes God needs to take a two by four to hit you over the head before you kind of go, oh, I should wake up and see what he's telling me, exiled. Put in a time out. Sometimes you feel guilty. You're really guilty. You're really bearing consequences of your sin. You feel incomplete in some way. Rarely, those things all happen at once, but they happened all at once. For Jacob,
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you've got to recognize this about life, thinking about it, everybody should watch, you know, a couple of drives of football sometime soon. To get this illustration, every play, every offensive play, you've got a quarterback receiving the snap. And there are 11 players whose entire purpose is to either thwart the will of the quarterback or kill the quarterback. There's four, 325 pound defensive linemen who are trying to snap your ribs, and then when they get you and they sack you, they dance around you. That is the Christian life for every Christian, for every Christian, every day you're snapping the ball, you're trying to make forward progress. You do have a team more than a coach calling plays from the sideline a God who is empowering you. You've got all kinds of things coming at you, and sometimes you fumble the ball, sometimes you throw interceptions, sometimes you fail, and it's your sin. You
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You think that today's play is just one snap of one day, but all the little things, all the little things, are part of God's great plans preparing you, marching you forward in Kingdom, work, making yards, as the football illustration goes, making passes, seeing completes, getting goals, seeing watching people come into the kingdom, seeing them Grow. All of those things are happening. God is doing not just one little thing on a given day. He is unfolding his cosmic plans, and he has made promises to be with you and sustain you and help you and transform you all through life. I
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These promises are to remind you that God is at work in you. God is at work in the world. God is at work for eternal purposes. You're not home yet, and you could be like Jacob at the start of the passage. You could feel like a hero in a hole, singleness, childlessness, family strife, loneliness, guilt for your own sins. You could think like they're the thing, but hearing it, hear this, they're real things, but God Almighty, Jesus, the mediator, is working in them to bring you to the thing in his presence, in his kingdom forever. You could think, looking at Israel, that the bets are off. Most of Israel has and Jews have rejected the Lord, but at the end of this exposition of the gospel in the book of Romans, the issue of what about Israel shows up in Romans 11, and to warn Gentiles to not be too wise in their own eyes, he promises to them that. There will be a revival of Jews, 1126, and in this way, all Israel will be saved. THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION. He will banish ungodliness from Jacob that means Jesus is going to complete the sanctification process. This will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins as the regards to the Gospel, their enemies for your sake as regards election, their beloved, for the sake of their fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. God's never going back on his promises. This is written to the church to know that the church God will never go back on his promises. Ian,
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it. God will never go back on his promises as a result of this. Romans 12 turns the page after the exposition of the gospel, God's not going back on his promises to Israel, to the church, to any believer. He says, I appeal to you, Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, a whole life in worship to God. Gary Morgan loves to say this, the problem with the living sacrifice is that it keeps climbing off the altar.
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Total Transformation. Let's pray for that right now, Father, we thank You for this vision that you gave Jacob, this dream reminding us yet again of the great promises to Abraham Isaac and Jacob. It was the mission control for Israel. It prevented mission drift, as it does today. You are doing work and and we certainly have problems, but you are working in such a way in through or over our problems to bring about your eternal purposes. And I pray that we would rely on your presence all the more. I pray that you would bring many to yourself through the proclamation of the gospel. And now as we celebrate the Lord's Supper, help us remember. Help us remember the great price that was paid to include us in Jesus name.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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