Dennis Tuuri

Amazing words, aren’t they? If you think about it. I think they are. Today’s sermon is found from the text in Genesis 28. We’re kind of going backwards from last week. Last week, we looked at Jacob returning home, so to speak, to the promised land in Genesis 32. This text, Genesis 28, is him leaving home to go away into the area where Laban was, from which he returned in the text we saw last week. Last week we talked about limping to victory and from Genesis 28 and related texts, we’ll see a little bit about what we’re limping toward.

Limping to victory, but what does that look like? And you know, the scriptures give us a comprehensive picture of that, including the words of the psalms that we just sang that are quite distinct. I mean, I think if you take that song home today or the responsive reading and think it over. It’s not typical fare from the preaching of the pulpits in America today and it’s certainly not a major emphasis and yet it’s what the scriptures say is part of what we’re limping toward.

So we’ll look at Genesis 28 and talk about what we’re limping toward. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Genesis 28:

Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan Aram to the house of Bethuel, 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 people.

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 Paddan Aram to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean the brother of Rebekah Jacob’s and Esau’s mother. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan 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 Paddan Aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, 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 Nebaioth. 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 it 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, and 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 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.” And 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 the top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. And 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 full tenth to you.” Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this picture of leaving home, going into a strange place, and the great blessings that you placed upon Jacob as that event transpired. Bless us, Lord God. We remind ourselves what we’re pointed toward, what our lives are all about here on this earth.

We who are spoken to by you as you speak to Jacob as Hosea 12 instructed us last week. We know that you’re speaking to us in the context of what you said at Bethel as well. So help us understand who we are, where we’re going, and the great hope that we have as we travel even into wilderness. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Amen. Please be seated.

So, Jacob now is being sent away from home as I said earlier and last week we talked about his return to home. So, this is the text that sort of prefigures or predates rather or sets up his return that we talked about last week and his return was one of you know you remember that what happened was he was wrestling with God all night and so Jacob was a struggler a struggler And we talked about that last week that we’re to be wrestlers. We’re supposed to engage the things that God wants us to engage. Even the difficulties and trials and tribulations in our lives, we’re ultimately wrestling with God.

And he’s like a dad who wrestles with his son on the floor, right? You wrestle with your son on the floor and your purpose is not to berate him or to chide him or negative toward him. Your purpose is to strengthen him and to get him ready for the next task that he’s got to do to make him strong. And so that’s what God has done. Jacob is a struggler and we saw last week that strugglers are victors, right?

He goes limping off into the sunrise, not the sunset. And so strugglers are victors. So if you struggle, if you have difficult times, it’s not like something’s gone wrong. Depending on the severity of our struggles, some of us can identify with this immediately and some from times past and all of us will in the future. We have various struggles in our lives. And it’s not as if you come to church and try to hide those and say, “Well, there’s a group of folks that are getting along just fine. No strugglers here. I better look like a good person, but I’m not struggling with anything.” No. The Bible says it’s okay to struggle. And actually, it says it’s okay to struggle directly with God. Remember that part of Jacob’s struggling is his prayer in Genesis 32 as well. It is okay in our prayers to struggle with God and to tell him your concerns about things that are happening and to argue with them a bit, so to speak.

Right now, you don’t do that based on your own what you think is best and everything. You do that as the purpose is that blessing that we talked about last week. We’re wrestling correctly with God because we’re seeking the covenantal blessings and the manifestation of his kingdom. But it’s okay to struggle. And in fact, I think we could almost infer from last week’s text that the only people the only people that are limping into victory that are going to victory are those that limp.

And the only people that are limping are those that struggle with God. So if you don’t have any struggles with God, particularly in the context of where we’re at as a country, you know, I would worry about that if I was you. It’s okay to struggle. And very specifically, strugglers actually are the ones that text told us limp into victory. But what does that victory look like? Well, that’s what the text today is going to help us see a glimpse of.

And we’ll get to three aspects of this text after we do kind of a quick overview of the text itself. Make some comments on it. We’ll make three basic points. And the first is where are we limping toward? What’s the goal? You know, if you’re going to struggle and do this journey on your Christian walk, if you’re going to leave Bethel, the house of God today and have a sense of direction and purpose, you got to know where you’re going.

And I think many times these days, the Christian church has sort of lost its moorings. It’s lost its compass. It doesn’t know where it’s going anymore. And so, it’s pretty difficult to take a good path when you don’t know what the destination is.

Secondly, we’ll see in the text today some great gospel assurances as we go through our struggles as we go into in this case strangeness and a departure from one’s home.

And then third, we’ll see a couple of very practical things from the text that you probably already noted that will help us as we discipline ourselves to move toward that goal with the gospel hope that we have. But very specific things that will remind us over and over again of our need to be under the submission to God and to his word as we engage in these things.

Now, this is a story of leaving home and home you know this idea of exile leaving home having to leave home for whatever reason and you’ll remember that in this story one of the biggest reasons at first is his fleeing from Esau who wanted to kill him. There’s a second reason given here that’s very significant. and that’s to obtain a wife. But when you go into exile, when God calls you to leave your home and to go into a place that you don’t know, that’s troubling. And many times this happens without our ability to do anything about it. In the financial times of the last 8 years, many people have had to leave their homes and end up someplace else or living in somebody else’s house, whatever it is.

And that’s difficult. There’s deep in our hearts as image bearers of God a desire for home. A desire to be at a place of peace, rest, assurance, comfort, encouragement, a place that we know and feel attached to, right? This is home. And it’s not just, you know, the houses we grew up in or whatever it is. It’s something much grander than that. Our home ultimately is our relationship to God through Christ.

But it’s very significant in the human heart. And when we’re called to leave home, texts like the one we have today that are encouragements to Jacob as he’s told to leave home and to go into a strange place. This text can be a great encouragement to us. So to the extent that you may be wanting to be homeward bound, right? Where friends are and all this sort of thing, this text is an encouragement to you.

I think I remember when I got serious about following Jesus again in the early 70s and I started to go back to church and I was alive spiritually again after kind of being in a deep snooze for years of rebellion. And I the metaphor in my head always for going back to church was I’m going home now. And I realized that I was like, you know, the prodigal son. I had wandered away from home in, you know, wanting to go after the lights or the buzz or whatever it was. and what I really desired most in my heart was home. And so a return to Christ and specifically a return to his church in my mind, the metaphor I always thought of was home. This is one of the great themes in scripture. And as we go about talking to people about God and talking to people about the Bible, which is kind of what we’re headed toward this year is thinking through how we can get involved in the lives of the people in our neighborhoods and cities and be intentionally missional to the people in our lives.

As we go about doing that, one of the great themes throughout the scriptures is this theme of exile and return home. And of course ultimately we can see sort of behind all of this Jesus, right? Who leaves his home as it were in heaven, comes to earth for our sake and then goes back and then merges the two homes, right? Heaven and earth. And that’s pictured for us here, of course, in the merging of heaven and earth.

Now, why did Jesus, you know, leave his home and come to earth to suffer and die for us on the cross. Well, he was doing just what Jacob was doing here. He was going after the wife that the father had told him he would have here. He came to seek a wife, a bride, a church, a people. And so, this text really can be sort of seen in the big picture of things as a wonderful metaphor of what Jesus does when he comes and seeks a bride.

And if we’re going to put ourselves in the story then I think to some extent when we put ourselves through difficulties when we leave home whether you know voluntarily or not I think we should resonate with that aspect of it to some extent many of our inability to stay at home in places of comfort is because God wants us uncomfortable so that he might expand his church and his kingdom. So home and this text as we’ll see in a couple of minutes has great gospel assurances for you if you’re struggling in your life right now and I know some of you are I know in the last year or two tremendous struggles where home has been just abolished blown up blown apart and if you think just a little bit probably you can think of lots of people in our church that’s gone that’s that’s happened to and over the years most of us had similar experiences so to you this text should bring comfort and encouragement but I want to put it in this broader context as well And the broader context is where we’re at as a nation.

You know, it’d be hard to get up here today and ignore, you know, what’s going on in our country. Although, honestly, if I got up every Lord’s day and kind of thought about what’s happening in the country and the various problems, that’s all I’d talk about every week. I mean, they happen so fast now, right? Well, they’re happening fast because we’re leaving home. This country was founded not at all explicitly Christian but in very Christian ways upon the word of God and we had a home here and the home that we had was you know not perfect mixture of sin and heterodoxy and everything else but it was a pretty good home and in my lifetime and in our lifetime we’re leaving home we’re headed away from that place of comfort assurance where God’s laws are manifest where people live their lives to try to achieve goodness We’re we’re headed towards something completely different now.

And there’s no sense in denying that, I don’t think. There’s no sense in whistling past the graveyard. We’re leaving home. We’re headed into wilderness. And so this text can help us as well as we prepare ourselves to go through whatever it is we’re going to be going through as a country. And you know, of course, I’m thinking here of the DOMA case and others this last week.

but I’m also thinking of immigration bills that you know one of the maybe unintended consequence maybe not depending on how that is handled will be that our children who are already struggling in the workplace this will become a permanent struggle for the rest of their lives. I mean if we add you know 35 to 40 million people to the workforce and primarily people who are doing you know jobs that are already being done then what’s going to happen?

Wages are going to drop. And they’re already dropped. You know, it’s been a fairly self-conscious attempt on the part of America to lower wages because the powers that be think that the income disparities between America and other countries is what produces warfare and tension. So the idea is to try to level everything. but unfortunately for us, that’s a leveling down. Well, I don’t want to get off into a big thing on that, but the point is there are very real difficulties that we face as a nation.

And we have now moved away from a submission to God’s word. And we’ve done it because of the 4th of July to throw another contemporary reference. Why is this happening? Freedom. If you trace the root causes of abortion and the acceptance of aberrant sexual activity of various kinds, lots of kinds. If you trace that to its root. It’s I was there. I was in the Bay Area in the late 60s and early 70s and for the sake of sexual freedom and liberty, we have now entered into all kinds of other things that are clearly opposed to the word of God.

So freedom is this thing. Now the Bible talks about freedom and and as we prepare for this year of mission into our cities and into our communities, I think it’s going to be very important for us to think about freedom, what the Bible says, how our culture defines it. I’m not going to spend much time on it this morning except to say that’s a big topic. You know, if you’re going to talk to somebody about sin, Tim Keller has suggested the best way to talk about it in our culture is idolatry and enslavement because our culture no longer puts goodness as the ultimate goal of what everybody’s trying to accomplish.

It’s replaced goodness with freedom. Okay? And now neither of those terms are necessarily defined by God’s word. But that’s what we’re into now is freedom. And what’s happening, what happened this last week at the Supreme Court is freedom. Now, in pursuit of that freedom, those of us who are in opposition to non-Christian marriage, non-biblical marriage, we’re told we’re basically bigots and want to hurt people by the Supreme Court ruling, the majority ruling.

But the point is there freedom. And so We share that value. The Bible has a lot to say about liberty and freedom. And so we want to know what that’s about and we want to be able to resonate with people’s desire to have freedom. But we want to show them that your freedom ends up the freedom of a woman for instance to choose to terminate her child ends up in the death of the child who has no freedom, no life at all.

And so it’s an important thing. So a as a country We’ve left home. We’re not going back. We’re not in Kansas anymore. Okay? Everything’s different now. And we better get used to it. And we better accept the situation and ultimately recognize that ultimately the chief source of our difficulties, you know, is not this drift. It’s that we’re wrestling with God. He’s having his way with us. He’s sending us into the wilderness.

And so, the text today is one of leaving home for strangeness. And eventually he comes back greatly blessed. And that’s what I am convinced will happen with our country as well is eventually as we go into this wilderness knowing that God is sending us and try to understand how we can minister to people in the context of the wilderness that we’re all going to be sharing now. Then God will bless us as he blessed Jacob.

So this text today can have great assistance for us individually and it also has a relationship to us as we enter into this situation in the world that we’re now in. All right, I know that was a long introduction. The points will go quickly, however, have no fear. I’m sweating more than you are, but you know, doesn’t bother me so much anyway. Okay, so now what we’re going to do is we’ll look briefly at the text itself and then talk about three kind of takeaways from the text.

All right. So, if you look at the Bible, if you look at this text or just listen to what I’m what I say here, the first section is Isaac sending Jacob away. And do you notice it’s hard to miss the first piece of assurance as Jacob leaves home is that God has kind of gotten his dad and his brother somewhat squared away. you remember that, you know, he had to steal the blessing, so to speak. but now Isaac freely blesses him.

Isaac tells him to do what God would want him to do, not to marry outside of those that would be faithful to God. And so he sends him away with his blessing upon him. And not just his blessing, he says, “May the blessing of Abraham be with you, too.” So we have at least a partial restoration, a repentance of dad, and he’s gotten his right mind back. And even Esau here, right, he hears this going on, and he should be talking to his dad, but he’s not.

He sees this going on, and he says, “Oh, that’s why they got mad at me for those last two wives I took. I guess I better try to do what dad wants me to do.” And so, he marries a daughter, you know, one of the descendants of Ishmael, because the idea was to, you know, marry your past, that family line that came forth from Abraham. So even Esau sort of halfway repents and that’s good news, right? I mean I think that’s good news.

And so one of the first comments I have on the text is it begins by kind of putting us in the right frame of mind to say, well this is this is kind of a good text. This is a very encouraging text to us. And it’s encouraging right away, right out of the shoot. It’s encouraging because it seems like there is a change of heart on the part of Isaac and on the part of Esau. So that’s the first thing we can notice in this text.

Secondly there are the blessings of course so in the text Isaac says may God that is the Lord give the blessing of Abraham to you and your offspring with you that you may take possession of the land. So, it’s land and offspring. It’s seed and land. So, we have the blessing given as well. So, not only is Jacob and Esau kind of acting more correctly, but Isaac is actually passing on this blessing and there’s an articulation of it.

So, we sort of know what’s going to happen to Jacob as he moves forward. It’s going to be the blessing that God gave to Abraham will come upon him. And so Jacob goes away to Paddan Aram. So the text sort of sets us up with very positive language here and specifically starts to inform us about what he’s doing. He’s going to take actions that will result in a growth of numbers and it will result in dominion over land.

These are the promises of seed and land based on the Abrahamic promises. Now in the next section the event happens where there’s this dream this event happens. And so we read that Jacob left Beersheba. He went toward Haran and he came to a certain place, stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head. Now it doesn’t necessarily mean he had his head on the stone.

It could be the stone is at the head. So I don’t know what a lot of that means, but the particular word here doesn’t mean under. It could mean under. It could mean at. He put the stones plural, one of the stones by his head. And then later he sets one up as a pillar. But anyway, there’s an association of the stone and head here. And so Jacob then dreams this dream. And there’s a ladder set up on the earth.

Now, when it says ladder here, it’s important for you to know that this word ladder isn’t really necessarily ladder. It’s steps. And quotes. The idea is there are a series of steps that angels are ascending and descending on. And of course, we know ultimately that Jesus says in John 1 that Nathaniel will see angels ascending and descending on Christ himself. And so this step, this connection between earth and heaven is the savior as he comes to seek his bride in the gospels.

So there’s this ladder set up and it stretches to heaven. And at the top of this ladder, so you got these angels doing the work of God and at the top of the ladder is God. So what’s the imagery? Well, the imagery is that God is actively involved in the affairs on the earth. Okay? Angels are ministering spirits from God from heaven. God is actively involved in everything that’s going on the earth and angels are ascending and descending that his will might be done on the earth as it is in heaven.

And so the this is a point of great assurance to us because it means that as we’re leaving home individually or as we’re leaving home as a nation, God assures us, he speaks to us here in this text, as he assured Jacob, it’s not because he’s out of control. He’s in control. Everything’s happening at the direction of God in heaven. And his angels are ministering back and forth between earth and heaven so that his will might be on earth as it is in heaven.

So that’s a point of tremendous encouragement to us that God is not some kind of absentee landlord. God is actively involved in the affairs of the earth. And so that’s what Jacob sees. And that’s the meaning of what he sees. And then God actually speaks to Jacob in this vision or dream identifying who he is. He’s the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. Remember Hosea 12 last week said, God spoke to Jacob from Bethel and it says that God speaks to us from Bethel.

So as God speaks to Jacob here, we want to hear this as words to us as well. Right? Okay. So he tells us that he the one who is in control of all the events on the earth who’s not an absentee landlord but intimately involved in the details of life. He is the Lord, the God of Abraham, our father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring. Okay, so we got promise of land, the land on which he lies.

Now, does he mean just where he slept that night? No. This is like the promise to Joshua. Wherever you put your feet, that’s yours. Wherever we go, ultimately going on from the message of Bethel, wherever God’s people end up at, he’s giving it to them. the meek inherit the earth. And so he’s assuring Jacob of the vision being one of total exercise of God’s stewardship over the earth. 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.

Okay? So can have lots of kids and they’ll spread about. This is a repeat of the original mandate of mankind to be fruitful. multiply and exercise dominion over the earth. And specifically, he says that all the nations will be blessed by your seed. Your seed singular, the Lord Jesus Christ, but also, you know, referring to the church. So, the great blessings kind of the place we’re going to is this idea just like with the original creation and very much ringing true with the great commission that wherever we go is God’s land.

He’s giving it to us, his people, and specifically we’re to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Okay? So, so the text tells us what the nature of the blessings that Jacob is struggling to achieve are. And then he gives them this assurance. So that’s kind of the charge. That’s where he’s going. That’s what our task is as well. And then he gives them this assurance. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land.

So you’re going into exile. We’re going into exile. God tells us like he said to Jacob,, “I’m with you. I’ll be with you.” Just like Jesus said to the disciples, “Lo, I am with you always.” As we go into the wilderness, which is a fearful thing to go, it’s bad enough just leaving the comforts of home. But to go, in our case, into, you know, a land that’s going to be increasingly opposed to the proclamation of Christian truth, it’s kind of a frightening experience, or it can be. So whatever departure from home you’ve gone through or as we’re going through as a nation, you know, one of the most significant things that God tells us is he’s with us.

His presence is with us and he’ll keep us. Not only is he with us, he’s guarding us. He’s going to take care of us wherever we go. Okay? Wherever we go, he’s with us and he keeps us. And he’ll bring us back to this land. He’ll bring us back to a position of home. You know, ultimately with some that will be at the resurrection of the body, at the return of Christ. Sometimes you get to go back home in this body and you get to go back to places that are good.

So God can I don’t know what he’s going to do, but he can bring about revival and this nation could be returned to a better home than it’s ever had within our lifetimes. We don’t know. We don’t know when it’s going to happen, but we have the assurance of knowing that great desire we have for home as we exist in exile, as we exist some difficulties, that great thing is going to be accomplished. God says he’ll bring us back to our homes.

You know, one of the great things about weddings like Grace and Josiah’s this weekend, right? Why are they I mean, if you think about it, they’re way more enjoyable than they should be. I think they’re way more significant than just you. I mean, everybody almost everybody gets married, right? It’s a common event. And yet whenever it happens, we rejoice as we should and we celebrate. And it’s a great thing because it’s picturing of course the marriage of Christ and his bride.

And but it’s picturing all kinds of other, you know, large narratives that the scriptures are talking about. It’s these two it’s two single people having kind of gone out from their homes, even if they’re in their home still, but they’re moving toward a new home. And God establishes that house with that new marriage. And so this truth here that God will bring us to our home back to our homes. This I think is one of the reasons why marriages are such a great delightful thing to observe and to participate in.

All right. So that’s kind of God’s message to Jacob and to us. The blessings are universal involving all land, all multiplication of Christians throughout the earth and all nations being blessed through the church through Jesus, through his church, and then the assurance that he’ll be with us and guard us and that home will be accomplished again. Now, Jacob then wakes up and he and so the third section of this is his response to all of this stuff, right?

So, the next section is his response. And I just love this response. I mean, it’s not quite what you think it would be. Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. Okay. When God at special times in our lives makes manifest to us his presence, I think we have these aha moments like this. Surely God is in this place, not was in this place. And I didn’t know it.

You know, I’ve mentioned last week in the Q&A time that going through what I’ve gone through for the last nine months has been quite odd and surreal and I know it’s changing me somehow and I don’t know if that’s related but about a month ago we were driving into Oregon City. I don’t remember why and we were out in the countryside and I kind of had this aha moment of just peace and blessing and an awareness of God’s presence and the absolute beauty of the created order and of life.

And you know these are the kind of things that you have in childhood Sometimes Pink Floyd spends a lot of time drinking you know sort of concerned about the loss of these sorts of moments but they are still here with us at times and when those aha moments come really we our response should be like Jacob’s oh God is in this place and I didn’t know it I wasn’t aware of it now I know it and and I’m sure that what he attends to do then is commit to remember that God is in this place wherever he goes, that God is with him.

Okay? So, I think that’s one of the most important things we can do in our response to God sending us into difficult situations away from home, breaking our lives apart for a while., you know, in addition to all the purpose of it and the promises involved with it that he’s just given us,, it’s it’s the one of the most important things that will get us through these times correctly. is an understanding of God’s presence in it.

Because what happens is you think you’re abandoned. And if you come from a church like ours, you might think because we actually talk about the law and we read Psalm 119 and all this stuff, you might somehow be tempted to think that you didn’t do things right. And so as a result, God’s not with you anymore. Don’t let those thoughts come. I mean, yes, you want to be convicted for sin, but you’re not in relationship with God because of your works or because of your initiative.

You’re in relationship with God because of his initiative. And so you want to rest assured from this text that God is speaking to you in your exile state that he is in that place. And when you get anxious and worried and upset, it’s because you don’t know it. You’re not remembering it. You’re not thinking about it. So Jacob’s response is God is in this place. He said, “I didn’t know it.” 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. Now, is that place? You know, it’s I know these are old movie references, but in Time Bandits, they have this map and they show little holes in the universe they can get to at certain places at certain times and jump through these holes and go rob people and stuff and jump out of the holes. Is that what this text is saying? That there’s this place where these stones were and that’s the gate of heaven.

We just got to remember to be at that place and get back there again and we can see. No, of course that’s not what’s going on. What Jacob’s saying is when God is with us, when we’re aware of his presence with us, his presence with his people, not ultimately a place apart from his people, a place occupied by his people. That’s where God is. That’s where God is. That’s the gate of heaven. We walk through life always in the context of the gate of heaven.

Okay? I think that’s what Jacob is saying here. His response in other words is not one of okay I got to do this and this. The application for Jacob is to be reverential to be awestruck to sit down meditate upon the grandness of the God who is going to use even his struggles and his movement from home as ways to bless the entire earth. You know I mean his response is worship. I would say his response is a recognition of the God that he serves.

And I think ultimately, you know, this is our response. Yeah, there’s things we should do which we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes. But first and foremost, if God is speaking to us at Bethel and we’re supposed to respond like Jacob, and I think we are, our response should be likewise. A recognition that God is in this place, and he’s in the meal downstairs, and he’s in your car as you’re driving home, and he’s in your work, and he’s in your field, and he’s in your house.

The spirit of God, you know, means that the presence of God is with us. And that’s a God who has promised us all these blessings. And we need to hear those promises when we’re being driven as a nation into the wilderness, which we are. And we need to hear those promises when our lives fall apart because, you know, some sinful fellow is doing this or that to his family. We need to hear the promises when we’re struggling.

because our home is deteriorating or breaking down around us or we don’t have a home right now. We need these promises and we need to respond with an assurance of God’s presence with us. Okay. So then Jacob does some stuff. So the response is awe and worship and then he takes the stone that he had put under his head or around his head set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel which means house of God.

Beth house l God. But the name of the city was Luz at the first. So new creation, new names, which we’ve seen throughout the Jacob account. Jacob makes a vow saying, and this is important here, you know, he’s not saying, well, if God will be with me and if he’ll keep me and if he’ll give me bread to eat, then I’ll do this. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying since if God will be with me, which He has promised.

God has promised him and he believes. He’s awestruck at it. He believes it. So it’s more like since God will be with me, if God will be with me and he’ll keep me in the way that I go and he’ll give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father’s house if I’ll return home 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 full tenth tithing I will tithe to you.

So he this is not some kind of bargain. This is Jacob saying well since these things are happening you’re my God and whatever I make from now on I’m giving you the tithe the tenth second time this has happened this tenth this is pre-Mosaic law so it doesn’t get done away with Mosaic laws fulfilled the tithe it predates it it applies to us okay so that’s the story that’s the narrative with some of the points I think that are important.

And let me draw three quick comments based on this. And again, and I’ve sort of already answered this somewhat, but what are we limping towards? If we’re struggling, what are we struggling to achieve? And what we saw in the text is we’re struggling to achieve the blessings of God growth and that the nations of the earth would be blessed in us.

Now, we don’t have time to look at this in detail, but This text, it matches up with a text earlier in Genesis, the text of the Tower of Babel. And now, if you remember what I said, it’s not a ladder, it’s steps to heaven. And at Babel, they had built a stepped tower, a ziggurat with steps to heaven, right? So, you got steps going up to heaven over here at Babel. And now you’ve got steps here between earth and heaven. Okay? And over here, God then gives Babel a name gives the people that place a name Babel. And Babel in its root form means God’s gate.

God’s gate. And over here, Jacob says explicitly, this is the gate of heaven. Okay? So, we got gates to heaven, God’s gate, and we’ve got, you know, flights. We’ve got that kind of thing going on. And over here, what does God do in judgment? He disperses them all over the globe, right? He disperses them all over the globe. And what happens over here? Jacob is told that his seed will be dispersed east, west, north, south, all over the globe.

Now, there’s a difference of course because over here that dispersal is curse, right? It’s the judgment of God upon them. They can’t understand anybody. They get spread abroad. They become powerless. Over here, the spreading abroad of Jacob’s seed is so that all the nations of the earth might be blessed in that seed. So what we have at Bethel is the reversal, the answer you could say to Babel. Now the fact that we’re talking about the God of Abraham in our text is also significant because right after Babel, what happens?

He disperses that plan. He breaks apart that plan. He judges that plan. But he has a new plan. He brings Abram out of the Chaldees and he tells him to go into leave his home, go to a new home and in that home he’ll give him all these blessings. And so Jacob is in that line from Abraham that his response to Babel. So one thing we’ll be talking about in the next few months is the relationship of Babel and Bethel and what we have going on. The reason why we’re leaving home in this country is because we have moved into a Babel situation. There’s no mention of God at Babel. We’re going to make ourselves a name. Whereas at Bethel, God reveals, you know, the memorial, his memorial name there. That’s the emphasis is on God’s name. Over here, it’s the we’re going to make ourselves a name. We’re going to get to heaven. We’re going to do all this stuff.

We’re going to have one confession, make everybody subscribe to one ecumenical confession, and we’re going to enforce that orthodoxy That’s where we’re at now in America. We’re growing increasingly into a Babel-like, secularized, quasi Christian, quasi Muslim, quasi religious confession that everyone must share. You could have your own little gigs going on, but when it gets around to the public, you better line up with public policy as described by that confession.

We’re in Babel area here. And we’re going to contrast that with Bethel. Bethel is the answer to that. So, where are we headed? We’re headed to a place that is not first and foremost our own initiative, but it’s God’s initiative. What was Babel all about? It was building a link between heaven and earth based on man’s ideas, man’s intention, his plans. And what we have at Bethel is that God is at the top of the structure and he’s got ministering spirits going up and down.

And he’s going to be with Jacob as he establishes his order over all the earth. So it has to do with, you know, where we’re going is indeed a worldwide blessing to the nations, but it’s a worldwide blessing that doesn’t come from our initiative. Ultimately, it’s God’s initiative. What is Jacob during the revelation of God to him about all this? He’s totally passive. He’s laying there in sleep, right? So, you know, he’ll be a struggler.

He’ll be a wrestler. But the point is the initiative is God’s. We’ll talk more about this in weeks to come. What does it mean to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth? Does it mean achieving some sort of common good, some sort of secularized okay thing where we just sort of help people to have better lives or not? And I think it’s pretty difficult to read various texts in the scriptures and maintain that idea that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.

But we’ll talk about that in the weeks to come. but the Bible clearly as it develops the Old Testament image of what’ll happen when Messiah comes is that all the nations of the earth will come before Messiah will come into his presence and his places of worship and learn from him. And so there’s a submission of all the nations of the earth willfully, you know, willfully submitting themselves to the God of the scriptures.

All right? So that’s where we’re headed. We’re headed toward universal mission and all the nations of the earth being blessed as we propagate the faith and as we talk to people about Jesus and as they’re converted out of Luz into Bethel. So that’s where we’re headed.

Secondly, there are these reassuring gospel messages and I’ve I’ve mentioned this already, but throughout the text, right? God is with us in spite of our homelessness. God is not just with us, he’s protecting us. God is assuring us of blessing. God says we’ll be returning home. He says that, you know, good things are coming to those. I thought that one title for this section could be hope. Don’t leave home without it., you know, used to be an ad about Visa or some credit card. Don’t leave home without it. Well, you know, if you’re leaving home as a nation or you personally, the most important thing I think for you to begin with is hope.

And it’s not a Pollyanna-ish hope. It’s a hope that’s found directly in the words of this particular text. So, so hope and all the gospel assurances of this text.

And then finally, there are two very practical commitments that are responses to this gospel that also buttress us in the face of this slide into apostasy that our nation is involved with and they’re like the bookends of the text. the first one is a commitment to marry in the context of the Christian faith that our marriages are controlled by God and by his representatives on earth that we’re not, you know, in the very act of marriage.

It’s not some kind of personal decision alone. It’s connected to the way purpose and will of God on earth. It’s a big deal who you marry, right? That’s why all this is going on. He’s sending Jacob into exile so that he’d get a wife, a good wife from the right people, that he wouldn’t marry a Canaanite woman. And we know that this is why the world was destroyed by the flood. The worst catastrophe that ever happened to this world.

was the destruction of the flood which is a response by God to the godly line intermarrying with the ungodly line. Marriage is important and you know there’s there’s two kinds of approaches to this in the Christian church these days. One approach is well you know it’s a different kind of world we live in now and it’s not that important. It’s good but not important. Well the Bible says it’s of major significance.

It’s a major significance. Right. This is over and over again in the Bible. This is the one repeated theme. Why? Because it controls the future. And it’s an acknowledgment that our personal lives are governed by the word of God. If the Christian church in America can commit to marriage God’s way, okay, and to fighting marriages that are in opposition to God’s way, if we can commit to doing that, we will implement one of the most important liturgical we could say and teaching devices that would be most helpful for us in proclaiming forth a non-compromised witness of Jesus in our culture.

I believe that and I believe this text says it. Remember at the end of Nehemiah, one of the main things that he did was to get rid of intermarriages between those outside of the faith. Huge deal. Huge deal to God. Should be a huge deal to us. And it’s one that the Christian church frequently these days is sliding away from. We’re being compromised in this area where more and more are saying, “Well, you know, yeah, it’d be best to marry a Christian, but you know, God will do something.” So, marriage and then the last of the bookends is the tithe, money, and sex.

God says if you do, if you follow him and try to honor him in those areas, then you know, you’re doing these actions that will help you accomplish the sort of goals that God says we’re working toward in our day and age and in our country. we’ve lost our moorings or we’ve lost our bearings and God says these are the way to get them back. And these are things you can do something about today. You can make a renewed commitment to defend to promote Christian marriage and to try hard not to sanction people marrying outside of the faith.

And you can recommit yourselves, if you haven’t ever in your life, commit yourself at first to the tithe. Young people, I know you don’t make any money. And I know you’re not going to make money for a long time the way this economy is going. But, you know, it’s almost easier to start when you’ve got very little money. When your tithe is 30, 40 bucks a year, a month or a week than when people make all kinds of money, then it’s tough writing the big checks.

Begin your disciplining of your financial life today by committing to respond the great blessings that God calls you to as he speaks to you at Bethel today in the house of God. Make your commitment a commitment to honor him with your finances, with your money, and with your sexuality, with who you marry, and what you’re to do in terms of building a family and trying to build a home. All right, let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for the blessings the assurances of knowing that as we go into exile and as we go into the wilderness. You’re actually doing this to the end of increasing the number of people in the church of Jesus Christ. And we pray that over the next few months, you would bless us, Lord God, in our study of your scriptures as it relates to evangelism and proclamation of the gospel in non-Christian cultures or post-Christian cultures.

Father, we want to be productive, intentionally productive for you, and we want to build your church here in Oregon City and in the greater Portland area. Please bless us as we seek toward those goals that you’ve promised us here at Bethel will surely be ours in the person and work of Jesus, our savior, the greater Jacob. In his name we pray. Amen.