Genesis 28:10-22
1 Peter 2:4-12
God meets us where we are at
What would you do?
Here is the scenario, your dad who is stinking rich, has just passed away, and he has left all his inheritance to you, since you are the oldest sibling, and so it is up to you, to decide what you do with the inheritance he left.
However, your younger sibling, tricked your dad before he passed away into leaving all the inheritance with them instead. It is now your younger sibling who has been blessed with all the inheritance and you have no say whatsoever in what happens to it.
What would you do as the older sibling?
Well, this scenario is what played out with Isaac, Jacob and Esau.
Esau was the oldest son……..just………..he was the older twin, and so Isaac, the father, as was tradition was going to pass his blessing on to his oldest son- Esau.
However, Jacob and Esau’s mum, Rebekah didn’t want Esau to receive the blessing, but she wanted Jacob to receive the blessing instead.
Jacob- the youngest was her favourite.
And so, after a bit of trickery and dressing up as a hairy man by Jacob, Isaac, blessed his son Jacob instead of Esau.
What would you do as the older sibling?
Your younger brother had stolen your blessing from you.
Well, as we know, when Esau found out that Isaac had blessed his younger brother Jacob instead of him, he was rightly angry, so angry that he wanted to kill his brother, he literally wanted to kill his brother.
And so, Jacob did what any wise younger brother would have done, when their older brother wants to kill them……. he ran away.
Jacob was a sneaky character, we read earlier in Genesis that Jacob took advantage of Esau’s impulsive character by getting Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of soup. Jacob preyed on the impulsive nature of Esau.
Sure, Esau was impulsive, but Jacob still cunningly played on his impulsive behaviour.
And so, when Jacob tricks his father into blessing him instead of Esau, humanly speaking, we can understand why Esau was angry- Jacob had taken advantage of him.
What would you do as the older sibling?
Now let us look at how God responded to Jacob.
As Jacob ran away from the threat of his brother Esau, to his uncle Laban’s place, God met him on that journey and just reiterated the promises he had made to his forefathers.
After Jacob had been a sneaky and conniving younger brother, God just let him know again of the promises that he had already made to his father, and grand-father.
Look at Genesis 28:13-15 with me:
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. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
This man- Jacob, who by the way, later God changed his name to Israel- had stolen his brothers’ birth right and now was running away to his uncles’ place, and as he stopped on his journey, God met him where he was at and just lavished his promises upon him- the same promises he made to Abraham and Isaac.
Just as God promised Abraham that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, God promised Jacob that his offspring, would be as numerous as the dust of the earth.
Just as God promised Abraham that he would be a blessing to all nations, he promised Jacob that all the families on the earth would be blessed through him.
Just as God promised Abraham a new land, God promised Jacob a new land.
Humanly speaking, we must ask- why did God used this man?
This man……. to bring about his promises- this man was sneaky and conniving and yet God used this man to keep his promises to. Jacob was not only sneaky, but he was a bit of a coward, he was constantly on the run from his brother.
Later on in Genesis 32, we read that this man Jacob, wrestled with God, God broke his hip and changed his name to Israel.
Friends, God’s promises to you in Christ Jesus never ever change.
No matter what you may have done, no matter what character traits you may have- God’s promises to you in Christ Jesus- never change.
Whether you have been devious with your family, whether you have coward away from a situation in which you know you should have done something, whether you have caused people harm, whether you struggle with sin, God’s promises for you in Jesus never change.
God meets you where you are at.
God promises that for whoever believes in Jesus as their Lord and saviour, that they will not perish but have everlasting life.
That promise is always true, it will always be true, no matter how far away from God, you may think you are. There is no sin greater than the reaching arm of God’s grace, there is no situation more dire than the reaching arm of God’s grace.
God meets you where you are at. His promises are always sure!
For Jacob, that day, God met him on his journey to his uncle’s house. God met him in the middle of nowhere when he laid his head on a rock for a pillow. God met him as he fled from his angry brother. From what we gather from this story, it wasn’t though Jacob was specifically looking for God, he wasn’t on a deep spiritual seeking journey- NO, he was running away and God reached down and met him.
In verse 16, we read that Jacob was amazed that God had met him in that place. May be Jacob thought that God was only in the place where he had just come from- Canaan. The land where his forefathers had gone to.
God met Jacob where he was at.
As Jacob laid his head on the pillow, God showed him a ladder which went from earth to heaven, and angels were going up and down this ladder. And God stood above Jacob. God came to Jacob in a dream and he showed him this this ladder or steps of a tower, which went from earth to heaven and angels were ascending and descending.
This picture of a stairway to heaven reminds us of the stairway of the tower of babel, which is recorded in Genesis 11.
Remember the people of Shinar, who built a tower of babel with the purpose of reaching heaven. But as we know that tower did not reach heaven, because they were trying to reach God in their own strength, they were trying to get to heaven by building their own steps, steps of “pride”,
steps of “wanting to be gods themselves”
steps of “self-sufficiency”.
The people at the steps of babel were trying to do the impossible- reach to God.
What we see in Jacob’s dream, is that Jacob doesn’t reach to God, but God reaches down to him and met him where he was at.
He wasn’t try to reach God in his own puffed up ego, but God reached to him.
Friends, in the year 1, God reached down to this earth, and met people where they were at.
In year 1, God sent his son, his one and only son- Jesus to this earth from heaven to tabernacle/ to dwell amongst us. In year 1, in the person of Jesus: heaven came to earth.
And not only did heaven come down to earth in the person of Jesus, but in Jesus and only through Jesus, God made a way in which we can reach heaven.
As Jesus came down to us, he became one of us, he lived the perfect life for us, so that he could die as the perfect sacrifice for us. He died for the punishment for all our sins, and has taken away the only blockage from us reaching heaven- our sin.
Friends, Jesus came down to this earth to rescue us, and bring us into his family.
He came to where we are at. He got involved in our mess. He who knew no sin, became sin for us.
In John 1:51, Jesus compared himself with the ladder that Jacob dreamed of that night.
Look at John 1:51 with me:
And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Jesus clearly tells us that he is that ladder between heaven and earth.
He is the one in whom we believe for us to be joined with God’s heavenly kingdom.
Calvin also made this point about Jesus being our ladder to heaven, He said this, “Christ is the medium through which the fullness of all celestial blessings flows down to us, and through which we in turn, ascend to God”
When Jacob woke from his dream and realised that it was God who was with him, he took the stone on which he had laid his head, consecrated the stone with oil and set it up as a pillar for God’s house.
This stone was a symbol of God’s presence with Jacob.
A symbol of where God met with Jacob that night.
There was no power in the stone itself, but it reminded Jacob of the greater reality that God was with him.
Friends, as a local church, this is not my church, it is not your church, it is not the Presbyterian church, but first and foremost this is God’s church built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
What makes us a church, is not the building, it is not even the people in the building, what makes us a church is that God is with us. We could have the biggest building in the world, we could have thousands of people, and yet if God is not with us, we are not a church, we are not the people of God, if God is not with us.
We know that Jacob’s descendant- Solomon, did build a temple, the most magnificent temple in the world, and yet when God’s presence left that temple because of the unrepentant sin of the people, they were no longer God’s people.
And so, friends, we as God’s people now, are being built up spiritually on the living stone Jesus, which means as God’s people we live as witnesses to our communities in the hope that when Jesus returns to this earth a second time, and brings heaven down to earth in its fullness, those who haven’t put their foot on the Jesus ladder, would have done so.
People should look at the church and claim, we know that God must be with them.
We too want a slice of heaven!
Look at 1 Peter 2:11-12 with me:
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Friends, just as God visited Jacob that day as he lay his head on the stone.
God will visit us all one day, when he comes to judge the earth.
Will you be ready?