Faithful Then, Faithful Now | Life in God's Presence - Genesis 28:10-22(Apr 23) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, that's why we're here.

God, because your Son Jesus Christ is worthy of all praise and of all adoration.

And yet, Lord, I'm also so aware of my own heart's tendency to give adoration and worship and praise to the things that are not nearly as worthy as your son.

And so, God, we thank you for your grace, Lord.

Thank you for your redeeming grace that in this moment, in this time, as we open up your word and you have a word for us, God, each of us, Lord, here in your presence, each of us can hear from you.

God, you are so willing to speak to us.

You are so willing to call us back to you, to call us from our distraction, to call us from our discouragement, to call us from our despair, and call us into your presence, Lord.

And so, God, I pray that you would do that just now, Lord, in this moment, by the power of your Holy Spirit, would you draw our hearts to you?

Lord, prepare our hearts for you to plant the seed of your word in it, that we might bear fruit to your glory.

God, we lift this time up to you.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Amen.

You can grab a seat.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, you can open it up to Genesis chapter 28.

Genesis 28 · chapter mention

We spent the last few weeks as a church marching through Genesis and journeying with Jacob.

And if you could describe Jacob's life up until this point, I'm sure that each of us could think of different words, but I might describe it like this: it's a train wreck.

It's train wreck after train wreck.

Through Jacob's deceit, he'd stolen the birthright and the blessing of his brother.

And now in Genesis 28, what we're going to see is that the actions of Jacob are really beginning to catch up to him.

So that in Genesis 28, verse 10, you can look down there with me, it says that Jacob left Beersheba and went towards Haran.

Genesis 28:10

And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun had set, taken one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.

And Moses in these verses is really painting this picture that life is not good for Jacob.

Here he is, away from his home, away from the protection and provision of his parents, sleeping in the desert with a pillow that's a rock.

As we've journeyed through the story of Genesis, we should really expect this, shouldn't we?

In fact, Moses has given us clues up to this point to show us that what Jacob is doing by his actions is really amounting to destroy his life.

You'll remember in Genesis 27 last week as we were in it that Jacob's mother Rebekah clothed Jacob in skins so that they could deceive his father Isaac.

And you'll remember through the book of Genesis that there's only one other time that someone is clothed in the skins of an animal.

You remember the time that Adam and Eve, in the presence of God, God took the skins of an animal and clothed Adam and Eve.

And then what happened in Adam and Eve's life?

Well, destruction, the chaos, the choice of their sin came after them.

And in the same way that what followed the clothing of Adam and Eve in sins, Moses is giving us this picture that just as Jacob was clothed in these skins, so he's invited destruction into his life.

This morning our question is this what's God gonna do?

What is God gonna do with Jacob, who up until this point has done nothing but invite destruction into his life through his sin and deceitfulness?

The answer we find is astounding.

The answer we find is gospel.

It is good news because the thing that God is going to do with this deceitful, sinful man is appear to him.

The thing that God is going to do with Jacob is have a living encounter with him.

And God is going to invite us this morning through the story of Jacob, God is going to invite us into his presence.

The invitation into God's presence would happen in the place of Jacob's life where he would least expect it.

Can you imagine Jacob right now?

Likely he thinks he's ruined his life, sent away from his mother and father, his mother who loved him so dearly, sent away from the provision and protection of his family.

That this family, not only was it just a family, it was the family that God had blessed.

And I wonder out here in the desert if Jacob thought, well, life's over for me.

Life's over for me as I consider all the things that I have done in sin, as I consider the place I am in life, there's nothing left for me.

See, surely God would meet with a man.

But I wonder if Jacob wondered in this moment if God would meet with him after all he had done.

And yet, this is what Jacob needs to learn about God.

It's the exact same thing that we need to learn, is that it's in our lowest moments, in our lowest moments, in our deepest valleys, that the presence of God changes everything in our life.

I wonder if you've walked in this morning in a place like Jacob's in.

In a place where, figuratively speaking, your head is on a rock and you just feel like this is not the way that God had planned my life to go.

This is not the place I'm supposed to be.

Maybe you're thinking that in terms of your life, and maybe you're thinking that spiritually too.

You just think I am not in a good place with God.

And on your mind, maybe right now, even is this sin that you've been struggling with that you can't deal with, or maybe it's this discouragement and despair that you're walking in life with right now.

Maybe you feel like you're coming in this morning and you're just your shoulders are heavy with despair.

Maybe you've lost someone or something close to you.

Maybe you've experienced sort of this personal failure or health issues or loneliness or whatever it is that we often as human beings feel the hopelessness and helplessness of living in this world.

God wants to show you that it is his presence in the moment of your despair, it is his presence that you need.

That when you are in his presence, that when you acknowledge his presence with you, you have everything you need.

Maybe in life you're at a low point because you're facing extreme discouragement.

Maybe you faced rejection or unfair criticism.

You just feel discouraged by the lack of progress that you feel, and God wants to show you again in this place what can happen immediately in your life when you acknowledge that God is present with you and you walk in and live in the midst of God's presence to discover that there's nothing to be discouraged about.

See, wherever we are this morning, wherever we are walking into this building this morning, as we dig into Jacob's story, we are being offered exactly what we need: the very presence of God, a knowledge of God being with us that when we truly know, it changes everything.

Let's read the story together in Genesis 28.

You can follow along with me from verses 10 to verse 22.

It says Jacob left Beersheba and went towards 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 the 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 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.

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.

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, and he called the name of that place Bethel.

But the name of the city was Luz at first.

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 tenth to you.

Jacob, in his lowest moment, we read here, comes to understand and to know what it means to be in the presence of God.

And I want us to understand that this morning as we read this story.

And so the first thing about God's presence, I want you to know, as Jacob came to know, is this that God's presence is totally transformative.

It's totally transformative.

God's presence changes everything.

And we come to understand this in the picture that Moses is painting for us in verses 10 and 11.

The picture, like I previously said, is bleak.

But as we think about the story of Genesis up until now, it's especially bleak.

Think about verse 10, where Jacob leaves Beersheba and goes toward Haran.

You'll remember that Abraham was on a journey himself.

Abraham was called from Ur of the Chaldees, and then he went to Haran and then down to Beersheba.

And now what Jacob finds himself doing is doing the exact opposite of what Abraham did.

Abraham came down from Haran to Beersheba.

Now Jacob is going back up.

And in some respects, this feels to Jacob like it's a backwards journey.

Like we're not making progress to the land.

Jacob in this moment has no land.

He has no family from which to find a wife.

That's why he's going to Haran.

And he certainly has not been a blessing to anyone.

Jacob finds himself in this place where none of God's promises seem like they're coming to fulfillment in him.

In fact, it seems like he's making backwards progress.

Notice also that in verse 11, Jacob's despair intensifies.

He's using a rock as a pillow.

Now I personally can understand this.

I can fall asleep on anything.

Give me a rock, I'll fall asleep on it.

That's what it's like to have a parent of three daughters.

And yet, if you give me the choice, I'll always choose a pillow.

See, Jacob's really at the bottom of his life.

He found no blessing, none of God's promises.

Finds himself in the desert, alone, in the worst of conditions.

Not only is this a horrible condition, from Jacob's perspective, this must be one of the most mundane nights of his life.

When Jacob has children and he tells his children about his journey from Beersheba to Haran, I don't think he's going to bring up that embarrassing night that he slept on a rock for a pillow.

This has got to be one of the most mundane nights of Jacob's life.

And so we read in verse 11 that he comes to this place, and because it's getting dark, he finds himself in this place, and this is a suitable place for him because, well, it's dark and he needs to sleep, and so he lays himself down on whatever he can find, and what he finds is a rock.

But this is what we discover that this place is about to become very significant.

Because when the presence of God bursts into the mundane, everything changes.

That's why Moses tells us in verse 11, it's kind of interesting language, isn't it?

It says, he came to a certain place.

Three times in verse 11, Moses brings up this place.

Moses is obsessed with the place.

And the reason why Moses is obsessed with this place, bringing it up three times, is because something in this ordinary place is about to happen that's extraordinary, and we see it in verse 12.

Look what happens as Jacob goes to sleep.

It says he dreamed.

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.

Now I want to talk about the vision in a few moments, but I want you first to notice that as Jacob is dreaming, he finds himself in the presence of the Lord.

So that in verse 13 it says, And behold, the Lord stood upon it.

Jacob's in the presence of Yahweh.

What Jacob thought was just an ordinary place to sleep, becomes the very place that he meets God, that he finds himself in the presence of God.

So that in verse 16, when Jacob wakes up from his sleep, he says these words, surely the Lord is in this place.

And I did not know it.

Now, what is it then that transforms this ordinary place to an extraordinary place?

Well, we know it's the presence of God.

Jacob goes to sleep thinking this is the most ordinary place, and he wakes up and says, Surely this is the house of God.

Surely this is the place where God dwells.

I love what one commentator says.

He says, Such is the deity that Jacob worships, the Lord takes the mundane and transforms it into the sacred by his presence.

And you see, by the end of this chapter, a place is going to become a shrine, a stone is going to become an altar, and a fugitive will become a pilgrim.

This is what the presence of God does.

The presence of God changes everything.

When you live in the presence of God, everything about you changes.

This is the business that God is in.

By his presence, he takes undeserving people like Jacob and he wildly and totally transforms them until nothing is the same about them.

In the place of humans' deepest despair, in the place of their deepest discouragement, in the place of their deepest distraction, God finds his children and appears to them.

The place where Jacob feels furthest from God, God appears nearest, so that his transforming grace can change everything, and he will get the credit for Jacob's transformation.

And so the question that we need to ask, as we're wrestling through this text as believers, the question that we need to ask is this Have we had this encounter with the transformative presence of God?

This is just what God's presence does.

Every time you read through scripture, whenever someone comes to an awareness that they are in the presence of God, it completely changes their life.

So often they fall flat on their face just to declare that they are unworthy being in the presence of such a holy God.

And here Jacob finds himself in the presence of God, and everything changes about this place.

The question is: have you had an encounter with the transformative presence of God?

See, the Bible says that the way we know that we've had this encounter with the presence of God is that when we are in Christ, we're a new creation.

It says the old has passed away, the new has come.

So if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you are totally, every square inch of you is totally transformed.

You're a new creation.

You're a new creature in Christ, you're a totally different person.

There's an old you who has now been crucified with Christ, and there is a new you who is now filled with the Holy Spirit.

The question is: does your life mark the evidence of this totally transformative power of God?

See, if we're a new creation in Christ, if we've encountered this presence of God, if we have for one second of our life lived in the presence of God, we should be completely changed.

Everything should be different.

Encountering the presence of God, it would be like going outside and finding a hydro line, getting a ladder and grabbing the hydro line and jumping down on it and pulling on it until it started to electrocute you.

Now, if you told me that you went outside this building and came back and you just did that, I would say, you are a liar.

There's no way.

Well, why would I say that?

Because if you grabbed onto something so powerful, well, you'd be dead.

At the very least, I've been to the science center before.

I know your hair would be sticking up on your head, you would look pretty burnt.

I might like hear a big bang outside, something blowing up.

You'd be totally different.

And there are many Christians who say they've had this encounter with the powerful presence and transformative presence of God, and yet you look at their life and there's nothing different.

Nothing is transformed.

In fact, if you were to take Christ out of their life, nothing would really change.

Maybe they would get their Sunday morning back, but other than that, nothing really changes.

See, the presence of God, when we truly know it, like Jacob came to know it, it changes everything about us.

It saves us.

I want you to notice, though, that scripture teaches us that the presence of God not only saves us, it also sanctifies us, it also transforms us.

This is why Paul says that when we gaze at the glory of Christ, when we really come to know who God is and how great he is, Paul says that we are transformed from one degree of glory to another.

And so what Paul is saying there is that you can't be in the presence of God.

You can't be becoming to know God more and more without being transformed and growing in likeness to him.

Every second of your life that you spend in the presence of God is a transforming second.

It is growing you to look more and more like his son, Jesus Christ.

This is a promise we're given in Scripture.

You know what our problem is?

Our problem is exactly like Jacob's.

Let me ask you this question, okay?

As a theologian, I want to ask you this question.

How long, however old Jacob is right now, how long had Jacob been in God's presence?

For how much of Jacob's life had he been in the presence of God?

You know the answer.

The answer is he had always been in the presence of God.

Jacob had never ceased to be in the presence of God.

It's not like God had departed from Jacob for his whole life and then finally met him here.

Instead, God had always been with Jacob.

Why?

Because God is omnipresent.

He's everywhere.

There was nowhere that Jacob could go, that he could run away from the presence of God.

God had always been present with them.

The problem for Jacob was that he had never come to acknowledge it.

It isn't until verse 16 when he wakes up that he comes to understand what it means to be in the presence of God.

He says, Surely the Lord is in this place, and what's the problem?

I did not know it.

And the problem for so many of us is we go throughout our day, we go throughout our weeks, and for some of us, we will go throughout our life and never come to acknowledge what it means to be in the presence of God.

And for this reason, it does nothing for us.

So that some of us feel like we have tried and tested Christianity, but we haven't gotten anything from it.

And the reality that Jacob is teaching us is that you can live in the presence of an omnipresent God and yet not know it.

Yet not truly experience it.

And so my question for you this morning is have you experienced the presence of God?

Have you experienced the total transformative power of God's presence?

See, the reality, isn't it true?

We can come into this place.

This is what I love about small groups sometimes.

Sometimes you come into a small group, you both listen to the same sermon.

And let's be honest, sometimes, you know, I'll be honest with myself.

I'm a preacher and I'm a human, so that means as a preacher and a human, sometimes you just preach a dud, okay?

So there's nothing to take from it.

And so you, at times, if you're honest with me, you know, you'll shake your head, you'll be really nice.

But you'll walk away from a sermon and say, Well, there wasn't really anything in there for me.

And then you go to a small group and someone's like, you know, they've been weeping over that sermon.

There is so much.

Or it happens like you read a scripture and you're like, oh, I mean, I got I don't really have anything here.

God doesn't really have anything for me.

And then someone else opens up that same scripture and starts pointing things out, and there's so much there.

And what's the problem?

Well, the problem is that you never really acknowledge the presence of God.

You never really experience the transformative power of the things that God had been doing in your midst.

And so here's my application for you.

Let's just take like Sunday mornings as an example.

Come prepared to meet God.

Listen, can I ask you a question right now?

Can you check your heart right now?

Do you believe in this moment, at this very second, do you believe that God is here?

Do you believe that God is in this room?

Well, of course, we can answer with our head, well, yeah, God's in this room.

But have you acted this morning as though God is in this room?

Because if you truly believe that God is in this room, wouldn't you come with like this expectation?

Okay, wait, wait, wait.

The same God is in this room.

He, you know, he split the Red Sea.

He caused the giant Goliath to fall down.

The same God is in this room.

And if you came with this expectation, this true heart belief that God is in this room, then surely you would come and say, Well, God might have something for me.

God might change me here.

If I but just listen to his word, if I just worship him, if I just enter into fellowship with the saints, God might have something for me here.

Because God is here, and when I'm in the presence of God, when I'm aware of it, it is a totally transforming presence.

But until you recognize and know his presence, nothing can change in your life.

Jacob came to know this presence.

I want you to secondly see what Jacob learned about God's presence.

The second thing that Jacob learned about God's presence is that it's graciously given.

And so notice what it says in verse 12 when he had his dream.

He says he's dreamed, and there is a ladder set up to heaven, and the top of it reached.

Sorry, a ladder set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.

Let me ask you a question if you are knowledgeable in the book of Genesis.

Is there any other time in the book of Genesis where people tried to build a tower, some sort of structure that reached to heaven?

You'll remember the time in Genesis 12 when they built a tower.

And what was the point of that tower?

There is no point to that tower but to declare war against God and say, listen, God, we can build a tower that goes from the earth to the heavens.

And when we do this, we're going to make a name for ourselves.

We're going to glorify ourselves.

So humanity in Genesis chapter 12 began to build this tower, but they were unable to do it because God came and he spread the people across the whole world and confused their languages so they could not communicate with each other.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Ultimately, the plan was thwarted by God because God came and declared that he is the only person that can bridge the gap from heaven to earth.

So now it's very interesting then that in this dream, God takes up the work that the people had taken up in Genesis 12.

Because God is teaching us that He's the only person who can do this work.

This is so important.

Because this comparison between Genesis 12 and what Jacob dreams in Genesis 28, it teaches us something about ourselves.

It teaches us that the thing that we are looking for as humans, the thing we are looking for, we cannot find ourselves.

See, the reality is that as humans, each of us do the work of Genesis 12.

Each of us do tower-building work.

We set ourselves up in our life, we're driven to accomplish something, and we think accomplishing that thing will bring us fulfillment.

We think it will bring us satisfaction.

What God is teaching us here is that the effort is futile.

You cannot, by your own efforts, you cannot by your own efforts bridge the gap between heaven and earth.

You cannot, by your own efforts, find the very thing that you have been seeking your whole life.

God needs to do it.

So the question then for us is this what are we after?

What are you after in life?

Many of us, and in our culture and also in the church, we're after comfort.

Doesn't that kind of describe so many of us post-COVID?

I think like if you were to graph a statistic on people who are like idolizing comfort, post-COVID, the stats went way up.

Like in some ways, COVID was like three years ago.

And in some ways, it kind of feels like we've been on summer vacation ever since COVID happened.

And that there are many who, because the world shut down, because everything had to stop for a few weeks, there are many who got a taste of the comfort of doing nothing and staying inside, who are now unwilling to get back to normal life.

Many of us are seeking comfort.

And so we live our lives to escape the hard things of life.

And yet, don't you find that whenever you try to make yourself comfortable, whenever you try to shelter yourself from hard things, hard things always break in to your little comfortable fortress.

Whether it's inescapable suffering or just hard things that you've brought upon yourself, you can never find the comfort that you long for.

Hardship always breaks in until you hear the words of Jesus who said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

So you come to discover that the very thing you are looking for, rest and comfort, can only be found in God.

It's only in obedience to Jesus, the one who said, Take up your cross, which is not a comfortable thing to do.

Take up your cross and follow me.

It's only then that you truly find the rest that you're after.

What about righteousness?

See, many in this world are after righteousness.

Many acknowledge their own sinfulness.

There are many of us who know that we are not right with God and yet don't know how to deal with this sinfulness.

And what God's reminding us here is that if a bridge will be formed from heaven to earth, it must be done on account of his work.

It cannot be done on account of our work.

See, every other religion in this world is a tower of Babel religion.

Every other religion, apart from the Christian worldview, apart from everything that we're told in the Bible, which is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Every other religion is a tower of Babel religion.

And what these religions will tell you to do is how to build your own tower of Babel.

What they'll tell you to do is, hey, you want to be right with God?

Let me give you a way to live.

Let me give you a bunch of ceremonies that you can participate in if you want to be right with God, if you want to find cleansing.

And it's almost like getting a blueprint for building the tower of Babel.

And so you start building it, and you can get pretty high.

You can get higher than other people, so that you start to look down on other people and think, well, at least I'm better than that person.

You can build a tower of Babel pretty high, and yet what you come to discover is that you cannot build it to heaven.

It still does not reach heaven.

Only God can do that.

That's why when Jesus comes in John chapter 1, Jesus says something very interesting in verse 51.

John 1 · chapter mention

He says and preaches these words.

He says, Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and angels of God ascending and descending.

This is Jacob's dream that Jesus is talking about, but notice how Jesus changes one important detail in John chapter 1, verse 57.

He says, You will see angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

That's a really odd thing to say, isn't it?

Like it's a really weird picture.

And yet, what Jesus is saying is that he's the ladder.

He's the only one that can bridge the gap from heaven to earth.

That's a really interesting thing to say, isn't it?

There are many in this world who want to make Jesus a moral teacher.

Who want to say that Jesus is just an example of how to love people.

Jesus is an example that I try to follow.

Well, if Jesus is that, you have a lot of difficulty wrestling with a verse like this where Jesus says, I'm the ladder, and the only way you can get to heaven is by believing in me.

That is not a moral thing to say.

If that's not true, if Jesus isn't Lord, that is not a righteous thing to say at all.

It's a prideful thing to say.

See, Jesus says he's the ladder, he's the one who can bridge the gap from heaven to earth.

He's the one who, if you believe, if you climb on the rungs of the ladder that is Jesus Christ, you can find yourself in the very presence of God.

Your works can't do it.

Only Jesus can do it.

So if God's graciously provided us in Christ all we need, then the work that we have to do as his children is simply to cling on to the ladder that is Jesus Christ.

Cling on to the ladder.

We rest in the provision that is Christ.

This is what the Christian does every day of their life.

They're holding on to the ladder.

Figuratively, they're higher than they could ever go.

And they're looking down and they're thinking, there's no way I could be up here by myself.

And yet they recognize that this ladder is given to them by God.

It is a gracious provision of Jesus Christ Himself, who died and was raised and ascended into heaven in order that we may do the same with him, in order that we may one day go with him to where he has already gone.

The whole Christian life is lived in this acknowledgement that we are climbing a ladder to a place that we could not go ourselves.

I'm reminded of this constantly with my daughters.

We live very close to a forest, and so one of our regular activities is to go into the forest, and they like to play a game of finding whatever scary thing, at least to me, they can climb on.

And when they're with me, they can climb on things they could never climb on by themselves because I'm there to help them up the way.

And they always get to this point where they climb up, where I don't know, for whatever reason, God designed it this way, where it's easier to climb up things than it is to climb down things, isn't it?

And so they get to this point where they start to realize that they've gotten higher than they can handle themselves.

And it's only because they are in the presence of their father who is very nervously and anxiously hovering around them, waiting for them to fall.

It's only because they are in the presence of their father that they can do this climbing.

And you need to know the exact same thing is true of you.

The only way that you can get to heaven is if you are in the presence of God who has provided the ladder, who is Jesus Christ Himself, for you to get there.

The presence of God is graciously given to us.

I want you to see the next thing that Jacob learns.

He learns that the presence of God is reverentially received.

Now, I want you to notice the content of the Lord's revelation to Jacob.

This is really Moses' focus here, is because his desire is for us to know that Jacob is the one that God is working through, despite Jacob's sinfulness, despite Jacob's deceit, Jacob is the one that God is working through in order to accomplish the promises that he had given to Abraham.

Notice there first in verse 13 that God says to Jacob, Behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac.

That's a really interesting thing to say, isn't it?

If you know the genealogy of God's people, because Abraham isn't Jacob's father.

Isaac is Jacob's father.

And yet Moses is placing the emphasis here on Abraham because he is the one whom God promised to accomplish the works that he would accomplish now through Jacob.

Now, God tells Jacob exactly what we're going to do, and we've come across these words time and time again in Genesis.

The work that God wants to do through his people is to fulfill the promise that he gave to Abraham of land, seed, and blessing.

God's people would be given a land of their own.

Their families, families, and nations would come from them.

And the people of God would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

This is the promise that God has first given to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob, and we understand we'll keep going down through the line of God's people until it comes to Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate fulfillment of these promises.

He is the one in whom all the nations will be blessed, and he is the one who is taking us to the new land, the new heavens and the earth.

But I want you to notice that God also promises Jacob something that he hadn't yet promised to Abraham or Isaac.

Look what he says in verse 15.

He says, Behold, I am with you and 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 promised to you.

God has promised Jacob that he will be with him and that he will keep him.

This is a personal promise made to Jacob.

Though Jacob is in the lowest point of his life, though he's in the midst of despair and discouragement, he's sleeping on a rock.

I'm sure his neck is still kinked from waking up, having slept on a hard rock.

Though he's in the lowest point of his life, God promises them, I will keep you, and I will be with you.

Now notice something really interesting here.

Jacob misses the point.

See, God is not concerned with the place at all.

God is concerned with the person.

Notice that God never brings up the place.

What God says in verse 15, he says, Behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go.

I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I've done what I have promised.

You what fills God's heart with love is not the place of Bethel.

What fills God's heart with love is his child, who is Jacob.

But when Jacob awakes, what does he say?

Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.

That's a good start, Jacob.

But then Jacob gets distracted by the place in verse 17.

He says he was afraid, and he says, How awesome is this place?

This is none other than the house of God.

And this is the gate of heaven.

See, Jacob misses the point.

But I think something's really interesting here.

God does not intervene, even though Jacob's missed the point.

Could you imagine God?

Who does God want Jacob to delight in?

God wants Jacob to delight in him.

God, I mean, you read those promises in verse 15, and how many times does God say, I?

He says, Behold, I am with you.

Behold, I will keep you.

Behold, I will bring you back to this land, and I will not leave you, and what and I will not leave you until what I have done and I have promised you.

God is shining a light on himself so that Jacob can truly praise what is worthy of praise.

And yet Jacob then, instead of looking to God, he looks at the place.

This place is awesome.

And you wonder if God's in heaven.

He's like, Jacob, you're missing the point.

It's not about the place.

It's about me.

Two things I want to point out.

First is what this means for our church.

See, there are, I'll be honest with you, as a pastor, okay?

There are things.

Someday we're gonna be in a different building, okay?

And there are things that I will not miss about this building.

You guys know one of them, because I always bring it up because I can't help it.

I'll turn around, I'll show you.

It's right here, okay?

I cannot wait till some of you guys aren't being blinded every morning by the Shekinah glory shining through that light.

You can't see me.

The other day it was shining back on me.

I was like, I don't want people to think I'm an angel up here with this light shining on me, okay?

And yet one of the things I love, one of the things I love about being in a place that is not perfect, no place will ever be perfect, is that it highlights that none of us are here because the building's amazing.

None of us are here because this is an awesome place.

All of us are here because we are convinced that this God is awesome.

And so we come to this place, the place doesn't matter.

We come to this place because God matters.

We come to this place to make much of who God is.

We come to this place not because it's awesome, but because it's God is awesome.

This is who God is.

This needs to be the delight of our souls.

But the second thing I want you to take from this is that God is so gracious that even when we miss the point, he does not give up on us.

Like if God was like us, you know what he'd do right now?

Okay, Jacob, forget it.

Forget it.

Don't you feel like doing that with your kids every once in a while when they open up a gift from you and they're like, oh, this gift is so amazing.

This is the best gift.

They're bowing before the gift, they're worshipping the gift, and you're like, hey, listen, I gave it to you.

Okay, I gave it to you.

What about me?

Is there a thank you here?

Yeah, God's not petty like that because who's the gospel for?

The gospel is for people who miss the point.

The gospel is for people who continually they don't get it right, and God is patiently waiting.

Someday I'm gonna redeem them perfectly, and for all of eternity, they're gonna get it right.

Jacob, he's not gonna worship the place when he's in heaven.

He's gonna worship God, and I will wait to the day that I redeem Jacob.

And just like Jacob, you and I miss the point so often, don't we?

But I want you to understand how gracious God is.

It doesn't mean that we just become ignorant, it doesn't mean that we don't try to understand what God's word is saying, because the more we understand it, the more blessing we will receive.

But I just want you to understand how gracious God is.

Listen, in our church, I'm talking about our church locally, but also the North American church, I am very, very concerned right now.

I am concerned because we live in a world that is very divided on every single possible issue.

Doesn't it feel like when you go into that world and you go on social media and you read the news, everyone's just pointing their fingers at each other.

There's no substance to anything that anyone's saying, and we're just saying, well, that person's really dumb.

There's everyone's divided.

And you know what I see?

It's actually seeping into the church.

In some places with greater intensity than it is in the world.

So that we're coming into the church, and you know what we're starting to do?

On all these issues that are not important, we're starting to speak way too loudly.

We're starting to get too passionate about things that should not divide us.

Listen, I'm not talking about like if you come in here and tell me that Jesus is not the Son of God, I'm gonna have some loud words for you, okay?

I'm gonna get you escorted out of the building.

That's a primary issue.

But I am talking about tertiary issues, things, doctrines of lesser importance.

Or if the person beside you disagrees with you, you can have a really great conversation that drives you both deeper into God's word, and at the end of it, you can say, Hey man, I love you, and I'm so glad that we're still on mission in this church.

And the problem is that we're getting so divided about these things that just do not matter.

Is there truth?

Yes.

Should we want to know it?

Yes.

But should we let these tertiary theological doctrinal issues divide us?

No.

It's not about our tertiary doctrines, it is about God.

That is what we are all about.

That's why the mission of this church primarily is to glorify God.

We want to glorify God.

It's not about a place, it's not about a building, it's not about a people, it is about a God.

Jacob's too obsessed with this place.

Some of us are obsessed with the place, aren't we?

We kind of have this theology that, like, God's not going to be present with us until we get to the right place.

And Jacob's totally misunderstand God's presence.

God's presence is with his people.

God has covenanted himself to a people, not to a place.

The reason why God is with Jacob is because Jacob is a son of Abraham.

And God had promised to Abraham that he would fulfill these promises.

Remember when he did it with Abraham?

Remember when he walked through the ceremony, the covenantal ceremony where he cut the two animals in half?

And then he put Abraham to sleep.

And he walked through so as to say, if I don't hold up my Side of the bargain, then I will die myself.

Abraham, you can't hold up your side of the bargain.

I have to do it.

God had promised to work through Abraham.

That's why God is present with Jacob.

And you need to know the same thing about you.

There is nothing other than the fact that you are a child of God that will bring you into the presence of God.

And yet some of us, we have like this kind of like idea that there's a certain place we need to be at in order to be at the presence of God.

For many of us, it's like this works righteousness place.

We feel like, okay, I'll know God's presence once I'm like perfect.

There's a certain like level, it's like a sanctification meter that we have.

And there's a certain level we got to get to.

Then God's gonna be present with me.

Then I'll know him.

You need to hear this that God's not present with you because of any level of sanctification you have.

God is present with you because you are his child.

So then the question is, how do we become a child of God?

And all of scripture points us so clearly to this.

It is through faith.

Paul says in Galatians, we are sons of Abraham through faith.

So listen to this promise.

If in this moment in your heart you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you believe on him as the Lord and Savior of your life, in this moment you become a son of Abraham.

You become a person to whom God has promised, I will be with you, and I will keep you.

There's nothing else that can get us into the presence of God.

Only this categorical change that happens in our heart through faith when we become his child.

And look at the imagery is so beautiful as the angels come up and down the ladder.

The angels in scripture are representative of God's protection.

And Jacob, what the picture that Jacob is getting from these angels coming up and down is this idea that where Jacob has come from, angels have been with him.

And where Jacob is going, angels are coming down to him.

Jacob is going to be protected.

God is going to keep him.

God is going to be with him.

And it's very interesting that when Jesus says, go and make disciples, and the mission that he gives to the church, the way that the church glorifies God is through the making of disciples.

And what does he say about these disciples that he makes?

He says, Behold, I am with you.

I am with you.

God promises his presence to everyone who places their faith in him.

It's the only way to get into his presence.

But I want you to see the fourth thing, finally, that Jacob sees about God's presence.

Jacob learns this about God's presence, that his presence is evidently embraced.

Again, we get a picture here at the end of this passage that Jacob does not fully understand what is happening.

God's promise to Jacob is firm.

There's no question about whether he will accomplish what he has promised to Jacob.

He says, I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised.

There's no condition on it.

There's no condition on the gospel that God preaches to Jacob.

Just like there's no condition on the gospel that we have been preached in Jesus.

And yet, look what happens in verse 20.

Jacob makes a vow as though there's like some sort of condition.

He makes a vow.

He says, if God will be with me and will keep me, listen, there's no if, and, or but about God's presence with his people.

If God says it, it's going to happen.

God already said he would be with them.

But Jacob, you see, he's in this place of immaturity.

See, if God says he will be with me, and he'll 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.

It's this immaturity of the faith that Jacob is testing God.

But I want you to notice what Jacob gets right.

Jacob understands that when you find yourself in the presence of God, the proper the proper thing to do is to respond to him by giving your life.

And so look what Jacob does in verse 22.

He says, And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house.

And all that you give to me, I will give a full tenth to you.

Jacob responds to God's presence as he even has he has been invited into God's presence with this.

And listen, we have a real uh misunderstanding of the thing, the very thing that motivates us to live the Christian life.

You know what motivates you to live the Christian life?

It is this pursuit of the presence of God.

That's why the psalmist says in Psalm 63, we read this last week, but it's so relevant again.

He says in Psalm 63, verse 1, O God, you are my God.

Psalms 63:1

Earnestly I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

What motivates the believer, the child of God?

What motivates him to be here, to give God worship, to live his life for God?

It is only a love for the presence of God.

And so many of us, we try to find other motivations.

So many of us, maybe the reason you're even here is because you believe that God's gonna love you more because you're here in this seat, because you found your, you got your way, made your way to church today, because you read your Bible this week.

You just believe that God's love is He holds it over you according to your righteousness.

And what we're learning is that that will never motivate us to truly live for Him.

The only thing that can motivate you to truly live for Him, the only thing that can motivate deceitful Jacob, wicked Jacob, and wicked and sinful us is a love for the presence of God.

And so the question for you this morning is this do you love God for God?

Do you love God for God?

Are you pursuing God right now?

Because your desire is to be in his presence.

Because there is nothing on this world more than you more that you love than to see the glory of who Jesus Christ is.

And we're about to respond in song.

And I ask you as the worship team comes up to reflect on this truth.

As you sing this song, are you singing it to shine light and praise on the God who is worthy of your praise?

Or are you singing it thinking that maybe God will love you more because of your praise and worship?

We sing because God is worthy of praise.

We sing because in the presence of God it is right for his children to declare their love for him.

Would you stand with me as I pray and we respond to him in song?

Father, we thank you.

God, we thank you for your grace that you have given to us.

God, thank you that you are a present God.

Right here in this moment through faith, Lord, we find ourselves in your presence.

Presence that can totally transform our life and change everything about us.

And God, we confess that though we have always lived in your presence, Lord, we have failed to acknowledge it.

And like Jacob, we have not known it.

And God, my prayer for my life, my prayer for this church that you love so dearly, Lord, is that we would know your presence.

And not only that we would know it, but that we would love to seek your presence, that we would be presence seekers.

Lord, that we would seek to know you today, this week, this year, for the rest of our lives in a way that we have not known you yet, Lord.

God help us, we pray.

Pray this all in the name of your Son.

Amen.