The Life of Jacob part 1: Deception and a Dream | Rev. Chad Clements

Well, today church, we're going to start

uh a three-part series as we look at the

life of Jacob.

And if you don't know anything about

Jacob, well, we'll start to kind of

break down a little bit of who he is.

But just so you know, right from the

get-go, he wasn't a very nice guy.

And his story is like most of our

stories. He's going to move from a

sinner who will always sin to a seeker

who is trying to figure out who God is

to a saint who still struggles and yet

is trusting God with it all as we just

sang.

And so I just want to show you a few of

the key events in the life of Jacob's

story. We're not going to look at all

these really in depth and we're going to

kind of be going through the scriptures

fairly quickly. So, I would encourage

you today or tomorrow, we're going to be

in Genesis 25-28. And I'm going to read

little portions of those stories. But if

you go and read the rest of it yourself,

Genesis is the first book of the Bible,

you'll see kind of all of that story

play out. Uh the deception especially,

and the brokenness.

So, at his birth, just want to go back

for a second, Chen, he grasps his twin

brother, Esau's heel, and at that his

name is given. We'll read that in a

moment.

his birthright. He gains what is his

brothers through deception.

There's this flight in Jacob's ladder

and that's kind of where we'll close

today where he has a vision of a

stairway reaching from heaven down to

earth. And then there's life with his

uncle Laban and there's going to be

trickery and family discord. He's going

to have four marriages. And we're not

saying we're for that in the church,

but this is what I love about the

scriptures.

They don't get rid of those embarrassing

details. They let us see the brokenness

in the story. He's going to have 13

children, one daughter, 12 sons, and

that will come up in a couple weeks.

He's going to wrestle with God, and

that's going to give him a new name. And

that encounter with God is going to

change Jacob forever. And he's going to

become, I'm not going to tell you his

name, but you probably already know it.

which is going to equal a transformation

in his life when God breaks down that

wall between him and God. Then there's

going to be reconciliation with Esau and

that transformation is going to lead to

reunion, forgiveness, and

reconciliation. And finally, in the

story, we're not really going to go into

it, but in Egypt, his children are going

to be there, and there's going to be

family discord. One of the sons is going

to kind of play a trick on his father

and his other brothers.

But in it, we're going to see that the

inherited family traits and curses will

lead to conflict, slavery. There's going

to be a drought in the middle, but God

is going to keep his blessings given

first to Jacob's grandfather, Abraham.

So, that's the overarching story of his

life. Let's kind of start to get into

some of the nittygritty deta details.

So, we pick up in her story, and we'll

go to that scripture in a second. A and

and Jacob isn't born yet, and his

parents are struggling to have a child,

and they don't know what to do with

that. So, in prayer, they turn to God

and God, we don't know what to do with

this. Please help us have a child. And

they're heartbroken, and they're

struggling and they're just like, God,

please meet us in the midst of this. And

so Jacob just so from the beginning

we're going to find out was born at a

prayer and he will be destined to

greatness. And so in Genesis 25, here's

how the story starts to play out. So

Isaac prayed to the Lord. So Isaac is

his dad. Rebecca his is his mother.

Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of

his wife because she was childless. And

the Lord was receptive to his prayer and

his wife Rebecca conceived. But the

children inside her struggle with each

other. So, right from the beginning,

there's going to be this wall between

the two brothers. I wish that was flat

and you couldn't see through it, but you

can.

And she said, "Why is this happening to

me?

Why, my God, why? Why have you forsaken

me?" And so, she went to inquire of the

Lord. And the Lord said to her, "Well,

here's what's going to happen to you,

Rebecca, and to your family. Two nations

are in your womb and two peoples will

come from you and they're going to be

separated. One people will be stronger

than the other just like I'm stronger

than my brothers. I wish my brothers

were watching but I don't think they

watch me online. And the older will

serve the younger.

And so just so we know here. Oh yeah,

you can go go to that. And so when the

time came to give birth, there were

indeed twins in her womb. Yay. Anyone

have twins hair? Oh, I know Michael

does. What a great blessing when they

first come out. And the first one came

out red looking, covered with hair, like

a fur coat. And they named him Esau. If

you've ever seen me without a shirt,

which you won't, maybe I'm Esau.

Okay. After this, his brother came out

grasping

Esau's heel with his hand. So he was

named

>> can't hear you.

>> Jacob.

>> Jacob. And Isaac was 60 years old. Oh my

goodness. I thought I was old at

whatever I am 40. When I was 46 and I

had a baby when they were born.

And so as the story starts to kind of

come AC come along, here's what Jacob's

name means according to um my research

this week. And just so you know, I

preached this series a number of years

ago as well, but it's been changed. So

it can mean suppler or one who holds on,

one who follows with the interpretation

is he's going to try to circumvent,

cheat, deceive and grab was what isn't

his right from the very beginning and

right from the moment of conception.

He is a restless and aggressive spirit.

And yet God knows the gritty details of

who Jacob is. the saint the sinner and

saint to be there's going to be great

blessings that will come but in first

there's going to be intrigue so here's

how the story plays out one day his

older brother Esau comes along and Esau

has been starving and he's hungry

and and he doesn't know what to do with

it and so Jacob who's already this kind

of deceiver says how can I get ahead of

my brother and grab a hold of what is

his or how can I grab my brother's

blessing? He says, "Hey, brother, I

realize you're a little hungry.

I have some food for you." And it's that

age-old what happens next? Cross your

heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in

your eye. Pinky swear.

And this is what's starting to go on.

He's playing his brother. If you want to

put up the next uh screen, verse 31. So

all right, Jacob replied, betrayed me

your rights as a firstborn son. Look,

I'm dying of starvation.

Maybe he looks like me. He probably

does. He's not dying of starvation.

Well, what good is my birthright to me

now? Esau says. But Jacob said, first

you must swear,

stick a needle in my eye, that your

birthright is mine. And so Esau swore an

oath thereby selling all his rights as

the force first firstborn to his brother

Jacob. And then Jacob gave Esau some

bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal

then got up and left. And he showed

contempt for his rights as the firstborn

son. And essentially Esau is like, "Who

cares?

Just take it. I just want some bread. I

just want some stew." And if you've ever

had warm stew and hearty stew, man,

that's hard to pass up.

And Esau, who's very resourceful, who's

very independent,

sells his birthight

for a stew. Can you imagine?

Which starts to sew the seeds of

contempt

and a wall starts to be built between

the brothers.

Thank you, Mark Cipher, for this analogy

that you gave a while ago.

And yet, Jacob wants more. He's a little

greedy. And so, we read this in Genesis

Genesis 27 · chapter mention

chapter 27. Just so you know, chapter 26

kind of goes back in time. It's back to

the future and kind of takes a look at

Isaac's story. But Isaac said, "Your

brother was here." I encourage you to go

and read the rest of the story. Uh,

Jacob dresses up like his brother,

pretends to sound like his brother, and

he tricks his father. And this is kind

of the fallout of it. And so then when

Esau comes in from the field, Isaac

said, "Your brother was here, and he

tricked me. He has taken away not just

your birthright, but your blessing." And

Esau exclaimed, "No wonder his name is

Jacob. He's probably angry and seething

for now he has cheated me twice. I don't

know if you have a brother or sister

like that or you're that brother or

sister, but man, that does not feel

good. First, he took my rights as a

firstborn and now he has stolen my

blessings. Oh, haven't you saved even

one blessing for me, Dad? Come on, Dad.

You got more for me. And his dad says,

"What have I have left to give to you?

And just so we know, Issa is resilient.

He's resourceful. And it reminds me of

John Rambo.

Anyone know who John Rambo is?

I love 80s action movies.

And basically Esau is about to break

because even John Rambo type people have

their breaking points and his inner

Rambo is about to emerge

as Rambo says in his movies. Can I do a

Rambo impression?

>> Don't push it. I'll give you a war you

won't believe.

Not very good. But

verse 41, but here's the fallout. And

Esau wept bitterly

and held a grudge against Jacob. This

darn wall is already up. And Esau

determined in his heart, the days of

mourning for my father approaching, and

then I'm just going to love my brother

Jacob.

You know what the scriptures actually

say?

Then I will kill my brother Jacob.

I know my brothers wanted to kill me or

hurt me when I was younger. Thankfully,

they didn't. Or to quote John Rambo, he

drew first blood, not me.

And then Rebecca, his mom, hears of this

and she says, "Baby boy, it's time for

you to get out of dodge. What's come

down the pipe isn't going to be good for

you. You need to go to Haran." And just

so you know, Haran, at least from what

my research uh said, it's 550 miles

away.

There's no airplanes, there's no trains,

there's no cars. And so he goes on this

epic journey and and during that epic

journey, God is going to transform his

heart even if all the walls aren't fixed

right away. And yet in that story, this

guy Jacob is going to be angry at God.

He's going to try and run away from God,

but God is going to get his attention in

the middle of the mess of his life, in

the middle of the strain and conflict.

And yet, if I can be so bold, I want to

go off on a little tangent here. sidet

track for a moment. Who Jacob is has its

roots in a very dysfunctional family.

For instance, Isaac, his papa, was

emotionally distant and far away. His

mother, Rebecca, is a helicopter parent.

You've heard of that term. You know what

that means. She's overbearing and

conniving. If you're a helicopter

parent, I'm not saying that about you.

Just so you know. Abraham, his

grandfather, was motivated by fear and

deceit and impatience in all the

maneuverings he does. Sarah, his

grandmother, was motivated by doubt,

jealousy, and skepticism.

See, there's this popular saying that

I've heard from a guy named Pete

Scazero, and it goes like this. Jesus

may be in your heart, but grandpa is in

your bones.

In essence, Jesus may be here, but the

way we grew up influences a lot of the

decisions that we make.

And family is deeply in Jacob's bones.

There's going to be lots of flaws that

we will see and we already have. It's in

fact, it's going to take decades for God

to penetrate through joint and marrow of

Jacob's life. First, he's going to need

to know God so that he can then find his

true self. And guess what? It begins

with a fiesta. A fiesta. That'd be

great. A siesta and a dream. Genesis 28.

We'll jump ahead. And so Jacob left Bers

Beersa and went towards Haran, 550 miles

away. So just so we know, there's going

to need to be lots of pit stops and

breaks and stuff like that. and he

reached a certain place and he spent the

night there because the sun had set. And

so he took one of the stones from the

place, put it there at at his head and

lay down in that place. And he dreamed

and I love dreams. And this is what he

saw. A stairway was set in the ground

with his top reaching the sky and God's

angels were going up and down on it. I

remember a dream I had a few years ago

and and I was struggling kind of in my

personal walk with different things and

in my dream a demon had entered into my

dream and into my house and this wasn't

the first time I had this kind of dream

in fact that has been a type of dream

I've had over the years beginning when I

was 14 years old.

When I was 14, I was immensely afraid

and fearful of that.

And that started to produce a deep fear

in me for the rest of my life. And it

trapped me for about a decade and a

half.

And this dream I had a couple years ago,

just so you know, two uh days later, I I

was going I went to Tim Hortons and I

was going to work there for a while just

to get out of the house to kind of get

out of my own head. And I sat at Tim

Hortons and and and all of a sudden I

saw this acquaintance kind of walk in.

I'm just going to name him Bob. And Bob

was, 'Hey, how are you? What are you

doing here? Oh, I came here to work. And

Bob approached me and he said, "You know

what, Chad? God told me to come here. I

don't even like Tim Hortons and Wendy's.

I was going to Turo to do a painting job

and God told me to come right here

because there was someone that I had to

meet and I didn't know who it was. A and

God gave me this message from Isaiah.

And I'm not going to tell you what

passage it is cuz it's not relevant

necessarily.

And God is going to transform your fear

and your struggle. And all that came

from a simple dream. And I use that as

an example because in dreams from God,

we often get clarity about what we're

going through and what God is going to

do. Jacob's clarity is this. He's going

to journey from a deceiver,

dying to his false self, and he's going

to gain a new life symbolized with a new

name that isn't given yet.

But it all begins with an ordinary

moment when he's taking a bit of a pit

stop.

He's resting and he's sleeping. And in

that moment, God gets Jacob's attention

just like he got my attention. In verse

13 to 14, Jacob starts to see angels

kind of climbing up and then down a

ladder. And on top of that ladder,

if you want to see amazing moment, I was

reading this this week and it was just

like I just started weeping because of

what I saw

stood the Lord.

Jacob, I am the Lord of all these people

in your family. If you go and read it,

he starts to name off his family's

names. I'm the God who worked in your

family's character despite all the flaws

that was so evident. I'm the God of all

the details of all of your life, the

good, the bad, and the ugly.

And then Jacob wakes up and he realizes

that he doesn't have to manipulate life

anymore, although he will still continue

to try and manipulate life. However,

this is where God is about to work out

the kinks in his flaws and his sins.

In verse 15, it goes like this.

Here's what God says to him. I think

this is very, very important today.

What's more, I'm with you. What did we

just celebrate at Christmas? The

incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us. I'm

with you, Jacob. and I'll protect you

wherever you go. One day even, I will

bring you back to this land. I'm not

going to leave you until I have finished

giving you everything I have promised

you. Everything I have promised your

your grandfather. And then Jacob awoke

from his sleep and said, "Surely the

Lord was in this place and I wasn't even

aware of it." But he was so afraid and

said, "What an awesome place this is. It

is none other than the house of God, the

very gateway to heaven.

And so begins Jacob's training sessions

with three lessons that we're going to

look at very briefly today.

So I don't have my Bible up here. I need

it cuz I forgot to

get a passage.

How you guys doing today?

Little bit of a break in the service.

Okay,

so here's the first lesson that we're

going to get from this story today.

Sometimes we just need to get still and

wait upon the Lord. But if you're like

me, waiting and getting still is tough.

See in the scriptures when people of God

have to get still and wait it produces

all kinds of various emotions and

reactions in the people. Encourage you

to go and see Moses what happens when he

has to get still, Job when Job has to

get still. Jonah when he has to get

still, Ruth when she has to get still or

Lamentations which is Jeremiah, David,

Esther, Judas produces a particular

emotion when he has to trust God and

finally Peter. But in truth, if you're

like me, you've seen me this morning. I

hate being still. You know what? If I

got important work to do, what I will do

first?

I will do laundry.

I hate laundry. But if I have to get

still, especially with God, I will go

and do laundry first.

And yet over 45 times in the Bible, God

invites the people of God to be still

and to wait upon him.

So we know Jacob is a bit of a control

freak. But in this moment, he takes upon

intentional inactivity

where God essentially makes this promise

to him. I am going to change your

trajectory from this point forward.

As for us,

our often our default position is that

when nothing happens, we grab for some

solution instead of letting God bring

the solution forward. Which is why

waiting feels like an act of revolution

or defiance.

It feels wrong, but it's the first act

of defiance against our inner Jacob. For

spiritual transformation doesn't happen

with a snap of our fingers. It's what

Eugene Peterson, Michael referenced this

a couple weeks ago, labeled as a long

obedience in the same direction.

To break the cycles in our lives takes a

lot of spiritual work. And I will argue

that first we need to get still and wait

upon God. So that's the first lesson.

Sometimes we need to get still and wait

upon God and acknowledge that it's

tough. Here's the second lesson I can I

think we can learn from Jacob's story.

We can actually meet God in the

ordinary. And yet even in the ordinary

when God shows up, it is hard sometimes

to be aware of God which can be its own

struggle.

And so Jacob comes to an ordinary place,

pitches a tent, and yet he's oblivious,

at least initially, to God's presence.

And yet he says, "The Lord was in this

place, and I was unaware of it."

Which is why he renames the unnamed

place Bethl. And yet, I'll speak for

myself, we can miss God, too. Sometimes

we miss God because we're so busy

focusing on other things. Ever been

there, church?

Sometimes we are unwilling to wait

because we don't hear from God in the

manner we desire and we simply move on.

Ever been there, church?

>> Yeah, I have. Sometimes life becomes

difficult and uncomfortable and we

wallow in the pain and we don't push

past the wall so that God can birth

something new in us.

So, how does God meet us in the ordinary

parts of our life? Well, I'd like to

highlight two this morning. Well, God

can come to us in difficult times like

in Jacob's life, in the failure of life,

where we might be standing at the gate

of heaven and be unaware of it.

It might be in a hospital, a funeral, a

counselor counseling session where God

gets our attention and starts to reveal

something profound and gives great

clarity or comfort.

But those are often painful lessons and

we're going to delve into that in the

next two weeks. God can also come in our

emotions, anger, depression, sadness.

Trust me, he can. on retreat a few years

ago. I was dealing with a lot of lament

as a pastor. We just we bury too many

people and it was really eating at my

core soul. And I was angry at God. I was

sad. I didn't know what to deal with it.

And I remember going to this little

retreat center down in Andy Ganesh. And

one night in particular, I raged at God.

And I started writing down my journal.

Here's everything I'm angry at you for,

God. Here's everything I'm sad at in my

life, God. And I wept and I wept. I

didn't destroy the retreat center,

but it was a place where God met me in

what I would label what I felt like the

unfairness of life. And so he met me in

those emotions and started to transform

that part of my life.

Lesson number three,

we should take time to see God's

splendor and be moved to worship. See,

even while Jacob is on the run, he sees

this ladder to God's house. And God's

awesomeness is almost too much for him

to behold. And just as I might plant a

tree or scatter ashes to remember a love

lost one, Jacob in verse 18:21 sets up a

pillar or an altar.

and he sets up this altar because it

denoted something truly significant

happened. Just so you know, if you ever

get a chance to go to Israel,

everywhere's an ancient church was set

up was because something significant

happened there and the church community

said, "We need to have a church here

because God did something really, really

powerful."

However, this wasn't a loss so much to

speak of, but this was that God spoke to

him. See, it's true that grandpa was in

his bones, but God was about to change

Jacob forever.

Which is why the goal of disciplehip is

to allow Jesus more and more to get into

our bones and to transform us into his

image. Of course, if you go to just at

the beginning of Jesus's own ministry,

he actually references Jacob's latter in

John 1:51.

John 1:51

And so Nathaniel's been asking him

questions as and Jesus has kind of come

into Nathaniel's life.

And he said, you know, I don't know what

to do with this, but Jesus says, you're

going to see greater things than these.

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see

heaven opened and the angels of God

ascending and descending on the son of

God.

In the Logos Bible software,

commentators believe Jesus is saying

three things here that I think applies

to our passage today. I'm the ladder

that will elevate fallen humanity. You

can go and see John 3:17.

John 3:17

So, I'm the ladder that will elevate. I

am the mediator that Jacob met at Bethl

that will be your mediator. 1 Timothy

1 Timothy 2:5

2:5 John 14:6.

John 14:6

And I am the fulfillment of all of God's

promises that Jacob saw and that a uh

Abraham saw and that others were seeing.

And Paul picks up this up this in Romans

Romans 9:10–13

9:10-13.

And so Jesus is actually giving three

claims and three beautiful truths. And

I'm going to end there because I think

this sets up a great time to come and

meet God in the act of communion.