Jacob’s Dream

Good morning. Have you ever thought to yourself something like this where you

said, well, I think Christianity is true, but how can I know for sure?

I haven't looked into every other religion, right? Like in order for me to be

certain about Christianity,

I guess I would need to look into all of the alternatives to know if Christianity

actually makes the most sense or matches reality the best. Have any of you ever thought that before?

Yeah. So some of you would go like, yeah, I've thought that exact thing before.

Then others of you are here and you're going, well, no, but I am now.

Why did you bring that up, Mario? Is that what we're supposed to do?

I got to go look into all of them before I settle into this one?

I think the answer for most people is no. And here's why.

There are some things about Christianity that are unique.

There are some unique things about Christianity that if you become convinced

that they are true, that would limit you to Christianity as your only option,

because the other religions don't have that, or they don't believe that,

or they don't acknowledge that.

One of those things is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like,

the resurrection of Jesus Christ is unique to Christianity.

Like, we believe that Jesus came here, and he lived, and he died on the cross,

and he rose again, okay? like historically, he was dead and then came back to life.

And if you are someone who believes that, if you are someone who,

you look at what happened in the past 2000 years and you go,

yeah, I think the reason things happened the way they did is because that actually

happened 2000 years ago.

Like if you believe that, well then Christianity is your only option.

Like that's what you'd have to believe.

If that's what happened, then the rest of Christianity would be true.

And if you do not believe that happened, there'd be no reason really to believe in Christianity.

But that's not our topic this morning. That's going to be next week's topic, okay? Easter.

Another thing that is unique to Christianity is grace.

Most, if not all other religions, have humans reaching up for God.

Only Christianity has God reaching down to us.

So for fun, I asked CoPilot this week about the uniqueness of grace within Christianity,

and it gave me this response. If you don't know, Copilot is Microsoft's AI,

and it's just available on the internet.

And I am aware that AI is sometimes wrong, okay? You don't have to come and

tell me. I have caught AI being wrong multiple times, so I am aware of that.

But I thought it was helpful in this case because it could go out there and

do a whole bunch of research that I can't do real fast, looking into all of

these other religions and comparing and contrasting them specifically about grace.

And so when I asked the question, Copilot gave me an explanation of a whole

bunch of other religious beliefs, a whole bunch of other religions.

It talked about Judaism and Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam.

It said a whole bunch of things about six other religions. And then after that,

it said this. It said, what's actually unique about Christianity?

Here's the distinctive combination.

Total and moral spiritual inability. In other words, humans cannot save themselves,

cannot earn favor, cannot climb to God.

Salvation as a sheer gift, not a reward, not a response to effort,

not a cooperative project.

God descends to rescue.

Incarnation, atonement, resurrection. God does the work that humans cannot.

Justification by grace through faith, not by works, rituals, or moral achievement.

Grace precedes, enables, and completes salvation, and even faith is described as a gift.

This constellation of ideas is genuinely unique in world religions.

Other religions have mercy. Some have divine compassion.

A few have hints of grace. but none combine human inability and divine initiative

and salvation as an unearned gift and God doing the saving himself.

That's the Christian distinctiveness. So if you define grace the way the New

Testament does, God saving the helpless, not the worthy, then yes,

Christianity is uniquely grace-centered among the world's major religions.

Not just more gracious, not just more forgiving, but structurally,

theologically, and anthropologically unique.

So I'm saying this, if you think that you are a good enough person,

that by your effort, you could reach God's standards, there are several options out there for you.

However, if you come to the point that you believe that you are doomed,

that you are unable to fix yourself, that you are unable to climb up to God.

Then I've got good news for you. The gospel of Jesus Christ is your only option.

Okay, Mario, we're in a series on Genesis. Why did you start the sermon out that way?

Well, I'm about to read this morning's passage from Genesis,

but by the end of this sermon, we're going to circle back around to this idea

that salvation comes not by us climbing up to God, but by him reaching down to us.

So I wanted to establish that now early in the sermon, then we go through Genesis,

and then we will circle back around to that idea at the end.

All right, this morning's passage is Genesis chapter 28. I'm going to read to

Genesis 28 · chapter mention

you verses 10 through 22. We are picking up where we left off last week.

If you're new around here,

We are preaching verse by verse through Genesis, and so this is just the next

passage after last week's passage.

So I'm going to start with verse 10, and I'll read a little bit,

explain a little bit, and go through this passage. Genesis 28, starting in verse 10.

Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. Got to stop there.

So why? Why did Jacob leave Beersheba and went to Haran?

We're about to read this story of what happens as he is traveling from one place

to another, but why is he going from one place to another? If you are new to

the story, you may not know.

However, if you were here last week, you might remember. You remember last week's story?

Okay, so here I'll remind you. Jacob is a bad person, okay?

And he had just deceived his father in order to steal a blessing that his father

intended for his older brother Esau.

This deception made Esau so mad that he wanted to kill his brother Jacob. Do you remember this?

So Jacob's mother thought, now would be a good time to leave the country. Okay.

At the point that Esau is ready to kill his brother, Rebecca says,

okay, I think this is what was going on in her head.

I don't want you to marry the women of this area around us. These godless women, they're no good.

I want you to go back to our homeland and find a good girl from there.

We already kind of had that in the plan. But now that your brother's trying

to kill you, I suddenly think now's the good time for that.

Like, why don't you go get the girl right now while Esau wants to kill you?

So when we get to this passage and it says, Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran.

That's why. He's going to find a wife, and he is running away from someone who wants to kill him.

That's the reason why this is happening. Next verse.

He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set, right?

So he traveled, then it got nighttime. It's very difficult to travel at night

because there's no roads and streetlights and all that.

So he sets up camp. He took one of the stones from the place and put it there

at his head and lay down in that place, and he dreamed.

And here's the dream. A stairway was set on the ground with its top reaching

heaven, and God's angels were going up and down on it.

So he has this dream, and he sees these angels going up and down on this staircase.

Now, the word that is translated stairway in my Bible is an ancient Hebrew word

that can, it can mean ramp or stairway or ladder.

Apparently, it was a contraption that they made back then so that if you were

going to like attack another city, like a fortress with walls.

So you would put this thing up against the wall in order to get up over the

wall and into the city. So it's something that could mean something like ramp or stairway or ladder.

So if you ever hear a reference to like a stairway to heaven,

like that's from this passage.

I can't think of anywhere else in the Bible that there was a stairway to heaven,

just this one. Okay. So that's a reference to this story.

However, if you ever hear a reference to Jacob's ladder, it is also a reference to this story.

Well, it's always a ladder or a staircase. It depends on how it's translated.

Sometimes it's called Jacob's ladder. Sometimes it's called a stairway,

okay? But it's either a stairway or a ramp or a ladder.

And you might go, okay, well, which one is it? Well, I don't know.

It's a word that can mean those things. Well, but Mario, as I imagine the scene

in my mind, what am I supposed to imagine?

I don't know. Pick one. I don't think it matters.

Like, theologically, I think the thing that matters here is you just have to

understand, as he has this dream, he sees that there is some sort of method

of transportation that goes up and down.

And there are angels in heaven that are coming down here on it.

And there are angels that are down here that are going up there on it.

And Jacob sees it. He has a glimpse of it. And when he sees it,

and you'll see this later when he wakes up, he doesn't just think like,

whoa, what a crazy thing I saw.

He goes like, whoa, this is God allowing me to see how things work.

So, here's the rest of the dream. Verse 13. Yahweh was standing there beside

him saying, I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac.

This is a dream that was given to him from the Lord. It's not just,

you know, just some dream that he had that night.

That he sees this ladder or this stairway, and then the Lord speaks to him.

I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.

I will give you and your offspring the land you are now sleeping on.

Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward

the west, the east, the north, and the south.

All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

Look, I am with you, and will watch over you wherever you go.

I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done

what I have promised you.

And when Jacob awoke from his

sleep, he said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.

He was afraid and said what an awesome place this is this is none other than

the house of god this is the gate of heaven early in the morning jacob took

the stone that was near his head and set it up as a marker he poured oil on

top of it and named the place bethel though previously the city was named to lose.

This is such a significant moment for him. Like when he wakes up from this dream

where God reveals himself to him, it's such a significant moment that he memorializes the event.

That's what's going on with this stone and setting it up as a marker and pouring

the oil on it and renaming the place.

He's memorializing this incredible event that happened in his life.

The renaming of the place to Bethel, the word Bethel means house of God.

And so he is saying like, this must be where God's house is.

This was the entrance to heaven. Like I saw it last night.

What a special place this is. So it's significant, and he sets up a memorial stone.

Verse 20, then Jacob made a vow.

If God will be with me and watch over me on this journey, if he provides me

with food to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safely to my father's

house, then the Lord will be my God.

This stone that I have set up as a marker will be God's house,

and I will give you a tenth of all that you give me.

And he's making a vow at first, talking about God in the third person,

And at the end, it seems to me, he switches to first, I will give to you a tenth

of all that you give to me.

And so it seems like it turns at the end of the vow into a prayer where he is

speaking to God directly.

And so he says, I will give you a tenth of all that you give me.

I want you to notice that Jacob vows to give a tithe to God in this passage.

I also want you to notice that Jacob does this voluntarily.

Okay, that Jacob says, God has revealed himself to me.

And in response, in gratitude to what has happened, I want to give a tenth to

you, God, of whatever it is that you give to me.

I guess what I'm pointing out

is that God does not ask for it here in this story. God did speak to him.

God did reveal to him. God could have said whatever he wanted.

God didn't say, give me 10% here.

God said, I'm your God, and I'm going to be with you, and this is what I'm going

to give you, and I'm the God of your ancestors, and I'm your God as well,

and I'm going to be with you.

And then Jacob responds with, I will give you a tenth.

Now, later on in Israelite history, there is a mandatory tithe.

In fact, there's multiple mandatory tithes later on in Israelite history.

As a part of the Israelite tax code and inheritance law and welfare system, they had tithes.

There were tithes that were to go to the widows and orphans.

There were tithes that were to set up the fact that all of the tribes except

for one got a land inheritance and one didn't.

So the tribes that got land, the food that grew on their land,

10% of it was to be given over to the Levites who didn't give any land as they

did the work for the temple.

There was a 10th of money that was to be used for their religious celebrations.

So there were within the Israelite, like religious codes and tax codes and welfare

codes, there were tithes, but that's not what's going on here.

Here, Jacob is just reacting to God revealing himself to him with gratitude.

And then that's where the passage ends.

So, what does this story teach us?

I have a chart for you. Okay? So, there's going to be two columns,

and I want to start off with the first column, four things to notice in this story.

I basically want to make four points this morning. I want to point out four

things that we learn from this story, and then we'll talk about how they apply to us.

The first thing that I want you to notice in this story is God shows Jacob that

heaven and earth are connected. Okay? That's the first point.

God shows Jacob that heaven and earth are connected.

You can tell, if you look at Genesis 28 verse 12.

Genesis 28:12

It says, and he dreamed a stairway was set on the ground. Its top was reaching

heaven. God's angels were going up and down on it.

And the way that Jacob, like God speaks to Jacob and then Jacob reacts to it,

you can tell he's not saying, oh, this is just a crazy thing that happened.

He says, oh, this is God revealing something to me. And the thing that was revealed

to him is angels on earth going up to heaven and angels in heaven coming down to earth.

That heaven and earth are not

two completely separate realms that have nothing to do with each other.

There's a connection between heaven and earth, and Jacob sees that in this dream.

Second thing to notice in this story, God declared the covenant that he made

with Abraham and Isaac was being passed on to Jacob.

So God made a covenant with Abraham.

We know that from earlier in the book of Genesis. And then there's a point where

God reveals himself to Isaac and makes the same covenant with Isaac that he

made with Abraham, says all the same stuff.

And then now it's happening to Jacob. So if you look at, what is it?

It's Genesis 28 verses 13 through 14.

Genesis 28:13–14

It says, Yahweh was standing there beside him saying, I am Yahweh. This is God speaking.

The God of your father, Abraham and Isaac.

Now back then, the word father a lot of times means like one who you descended

from. So in this case, Abraham is actually his grandfather.

Isaac is his biological father. But God is saying to him like,

I'm the God of your family.

I was Abraham's God, Isaac's God, and now yours.

I will give you and your offspring the land that you are now sleeping on,

which God had promised to Abraham and Isaac as well.

Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth and you will spread out toward

the west and the east and the north and the south.

That promise that Abraham's family was going to be like innumerable,

that was made to Abraham. Now it's being remade to Jacob.

All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

That's like almost identical to what God said to Abraham when he made the covenant with him.

So the covenant that God makes with Abraham and Isaac is now being passed on to Jacob.

All right, third thing to notice in this story. There is significance to the promised land, okay?

This is a special place, and as Jacob wakes up from this dream,

he realizes, oh, this is a special place.

So starting in verse 15, this is God speaking, he says, look,

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.

I will bring you back to, what's the word? This land.

So God, as he's talked to him, is saying there's something special about this land.

Earlier in the dream, he had said, I'm giving you this land.

You and your offspring will have this land.

Now he says, you're going to go somewhere else and that's fine.

I'll be with you when you go there. But we're coming back to this land.

And I will not leave you until I've done what I've promised you.

And then when Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, surely the Lord is in this, what's the word?

Place. And I did not know it. So Jacob says, wow, there is something special

about God is marking out this land as a special place for me and my people.

The fourth thing that I want you to notice in this story is God promised to

be with Jacob wherever he went.

Okay? That's Genesis 28, 15.

It says, look, I am with you and I will watch over you wherever you go.

Okay? And we go, okay, so God promised to be with Jacob wherever he went. Why is that a big deal?

I think that is a huge deal because ancient peoples believed that the gods were regional.

They believed that there were certain gods that were over certain places.

So sure, Yahweh is the god over this land, Israel.

Like at one point, that was probably very widely believed. But then there's

also these other gods. And Moab has a god or has gods.

And the Egyptians have gods. And the Philistines have gods.

And the Babylonians have gods. And the Persians have gods. and their gods are

over their sections of land.

I think a lot of time back then they go, that's the God of that area,

that's the God of that area.

I think sometimes when people moved from one nation to another nation,

the assumption would be like, I'm leaving behind my God, the God of that land,

and now going to this new land and I guess I will embrace the deities of this

new land because that's where I am now.

And here we have very early in history, God revealing to Jacob,

like I am gonna be your God whatever land you go to.

Wherever it is that you go And we find out later in the Bible It's because God's

not a regional God He's saying I'm the God over all the regions So you can just

go any place I'll be with you wherever you go When you go somewhere else It's

not like I'm back here waiting for you I'm with you.

Okay, so those are the four things I wanted you to notice in this story.

Now we go, okay, what does this have to do with us?

So now the second column is four ways that this applies to us in Jesus Christ, okay?

For those of us who believe in Jesus, we've repented of our sins,

we are, he's our savior, we are united to him, then these things apply to us.

So how do these, what are four ways that this story, particularly these things,

how they apply to us in Jesus Christ?

Well, if God shows Jacob that heaven and earth are connected,

okay, then the first point I want to make here is heaven and earth are connected for us too.

And Jesus is the connector.

Heaven and earth are connected. There is a way that God and humanity can be reunited again.

There is a way that heaven and earth are connected.

And we find out as the Bible goes along, Jesus is the connector.

Well, how do you know that Jesus is the connector of heaven and earth?

Well, I think there are lots of times that this is said or implied in the New Testament.

But one of the times Jesus says this, referring back to this particular story.

It's in John chapter 1, verse 51. Okay, before I read it, let me go ahead and

John 1:51

just give you the context.

Jesus is at the beginning of his ministry. He's going around.

He's collecting disciples.

He finds one in particular named Nathanael, and he wants Nathanael to follow

him and be one of his disciples.

And he says some things to Nathanael that caused Nathanael to be very surprised.

He's like, whoa, how did you know that about me?

And Jesus is like, I know a lot more than that.

And so Nathanael is surprised that Jesus knows so much about him.

And then Jesus responds to Nathanael's surprise with this. I want to read it

to you. This is John chapter 1, verse 51.

John 1:51

He's speaking to Nathanael. And Nathanael goes, how did you know this about me?

And then Jesus says, and he said that he hears Jesus. I assure you,

you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

Isn't that interesting? Did you even know that was in the Bible?

Jesus said, I assure you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending

and descending on the Son of Man.

So here's Nathanael, and he's thinking, now what? Well, he's going to think

what, like, Jesus had said something to him, and so now he's imagining angels going up and down.

Like, heaven is open, and angels are going up and down. Now,

what does he think about that thought?

Okay? I could tell you, I think it's very unlikely that he thought to himself,

what an interesting word picture that I've never heard before.

What an interesting little metaphor that I have no clue what it means.

No, if Nathaniel is a nice Jewish man in the first century, he has heard the

story of heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending.

If he went to synagogue, if he listened to his mother and his father and his

grandmother and his grandfather like ever, he heard the stories from the book of Genesis.

There was one time, one time in Genesis 28 where the heavens were opened and

angels went up and other angels went down. There's the one story where that happened.

Nathaniel knows this story. And then Jesus says, yeah, I assure you,

you will see heaven opened and the angels going up and down.

And what's interesting is he tells the story from Genesis 28 and he leaves out the stairway.

He leaves out the ladder. Like that's the only noun in the story that's not there.

It's the heavens opened and the angels of God are ascending and descending.

And instead, the noun that he substitutes,

the angels are ascending and descending what? On the son of man.

He takes the ladder out of the story and he says, the angels will be ascending and descending on me.

Son of man is a phrase that Jesus

used over and over and over again in the gospels to refer to himself.

So Nathaniel's like, how do you know all this? And Jesus goes,

oh, one day you're going to see the connection between heaven and earth is me.

I'm the stairway in that story. I'm the ladder in that story that you've heard

since you were a kid. I'm the thing that connects heaven and earth.

All right, second point. So God declared that the covenant he made with Abraham

and Isaac was passed on to Jacob.

That covenant is fulfilled in Jesus and extends to us through him.

So we see the covenant is extended not just from Abraham, but on to Isaac and

on to Jacob. And really, it extends all the way to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant. He's the ultimate

recipient of the covenant.

Jesus fulfills the covenant in the sense that Jesus does everything Israel was

supposed to do on their side of the covenant. He's also the recipient.

Like every single blessing that there is from God to God's people is like earned

by Jesus Christ, is fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

He is the recipient of the covenant and it extends to us through faith in him.

In other words, the people who believe in Jesus, if Jesus is the recipient of

the inheritance of God and you are in Christ, then you get in on that too.

The covenant was fulfilled in Jesus and extends to us through faith in him.

So let me show you this to you in Galatians. I think it's probably all over

the New Testament, but Galatians really makes it clear.

And so I'm going to read to you some excerpts from the book of Galatians.

This is Galatians chapter three, starting in verse six. Paul says,

just as Abraham believed God, remember we've learned about Abraham a whole lot in this series.

Just as Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness.

This is a reference back to Genesis.

He's saying, so Abraham is declared to be righteous. He's right with God because

of his faith, okay? And we know this from Genesis.

Just as Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness,

then understand that those who have faith are Abraham's sons.

Who are Abraham's sons who get the inheritance? Who are the people that receive this covenant?

Not just the physical descendants of Abraham. He says those who have faith are Abraham's sons.

Now the scripture saw, wait a minute. A lot of us in this room that aren't Jewish

would say, well, but I'm not one of Abraham's sons.

I'm not like his great, great, great, great, great, great, great,

great, great, great grandkid, right?

But those who have faith are Abraham's sons.

Now, the scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. That's the thing.

The Gentiles are the people who are not physically descended from Abraham.

It's like, well, how could they possibly be in? So he's saying the scripture

saw in advance that that would happen, that God would justify.

Justify means the same thing as when it's credited to him for righteousness.

Like the fact that people would be made right with God, that would happen to

Gentiles. What? Gentiles? Yes. Even Gentiles.

Now the scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith

and told the good news. That's got to be a good name for a church.

By faith and told the good news ahead of time to Abraham by saying,

all the nations will be blessed through you. That's a quote from Genesis.

So Paul's saying this was the plan all along. Like at that point where God said

to Abraham, all the different peoples all throughout the world will be blessed

through you. Paul's saying like that was this plan already thought through at that time.

That it's not just Abraham's people, that there would one day be one, that if you're in him,

any person, any person from any people group anywhere, all of those people,

they can be in, they will be blessed through Jesus Christ who came from Abraham.

All nations will be blessed through you.

That promise was made to Abraham. And then in the story that we learned today,

Genesis 28, that, I mean, almost that exact same thing was said.

I think it was peoples instead of nations. The same thing was said to Jacob.

All the nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed

with Abraham who had faith.

So then later on, same chapter, he says this.

Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

He does not say and to seeds as though referring to many, but referring to one

and to your seed, who is Christ.

So Paul is saying here, it's not that it's just like there's all these different

people who are the recipients of the covenant. There's just the one, it's Jesus.

That's who's true Israel. That's who all of this is fulfilled on. It's Christ.

And then look at this, the way he ends the chapter is by saying,

and if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise.

Heir is someone who inherits something. The people that inherit that which God

is going to give are Abraham's seed. And who are those people?

The people who belong to Christ, because that's the seed from Abraham.

So the covenant was fulfilled in Jesus and extends to us through faith in him.

All right, a third way that this applies to us in Christ. I said in the story,

there is significance to the promised land.

So I'm adding here, the New Testament version of this is, God has also made a place for us.

So God has made this place for Jacob. He says, you're going to come back to

this land. Your people are going to take over this land. You go,

what does that have to do with us?

God has also made a place for us. You can read about the heavenly city in Hebrews

Hebrews 11:13–16

11 verses 13 through 16, that God has made a place for us, those of us who believe in Jesus.

And that place is not just Israel. We see as the story unfolds,

that that place is extended to the whole earth, that the heavenly city comes

down and there's the new heaven and new earth and God's people all over his earth with him forever.

So I'm not going to explain a

whole lot more about that because I just did that four sermons ago, okay?

So at the beginning of this series that we're in right now, part one of From

Abraham to Joseph, where we talked about Sarah's burial, remember,

and Abraham bought that land, like that whole sermon was really about this idea.

So I'm not going to repeat that now. Let's go to point four.

God promised to be with Jacob wherever he went.

If we are in Christ, God is with us wherever we go. You go, okay,

well, what's the big deal about that? I kind of assume that.

He's God, you know, so like if I'm here, he's around.

And if I'm over here, he's around. And so I don't understand what the big deal is about that.

Well, I wrote down three ideas, three things where I think this is a big deal.

The first illustration of why I think this is a big deal goes back to ancient times.

So this is like an ancient illustration. I want you to imagine that you're Daniel

or Shadrach or Meshach or Abednego or Mordecai or Esther, okay?

What I'm saying is there are times where the Israelites lived in exile.

Maybe you don't know this period of history with the Israelites,

but there was a time where they were in exile, meaning there were people who followed God, okay?

Jacob's descendants. They were people who followed God and they trusted in him,

but they weren't in the promised land, okay?

They had been removed from the promised land against their will.

In some cases, they were just born outside of the promised land after it had been conquered.

In some cases, they were kidnapped from the promised land and taken to another nation.

And sometimes that nation was Babylon, and sometimes that nation was Persia,

depending on which character you're talking about and depending on who's in power.

But the point is, there were lots of years where there were people who followed

God, and they weren't in this place. They were in some other place.

Probably, like I said earlier, pressured to follow the regional gods.

And you have people in those stories, like Mordecai and like Shadrach and like

Daniel who are there and they seem to me to believe that God is with them wherever they go.

That they're there and they don't go, well, I guess we just got to follow these

guys. They go, no, I have to follow.

The God that I follow is not back there attached to that land only.

He's watching over me here in Babylon. He's paying attention to what's happening here in Persia.

I'm following him here. It's not

that I didn't leave him and he's not back there. He's with me right now.

That was super helpful to know at that time, wasn't it?

You might go, yeah, well, that was a long time ago. People didn't know stuff.

But what about now? Well, okay, let me give you some contemporary examples.

I have taught the Bible to the kids at Royal Family Kids Camp and at Teen Reach

Adventure Camp multiple times.

If you don't know what those camps are, just keep coming to church here. You will find out.

Our church sponsors two camps for kids that are in the foster care system.

Royal Family Kids Camp is the younger one. Teen Reach Adventure Camp is the

older one. We do them every summer.

And so these are camps that are specialized for kids that are part of the foster care system.

And when I've taught them, I think two or three times I have taught them this.

I have said, if you know God, God is with you everywhere you go.

If you know God, God goes with you everywhere you go. And you go, why is that a big deal?

Well, imagine you're a kid in the foster care system. It is very possible that

if you are a kid in the foster care system, the house that you live in in January

and February isn't the house that you live in in March and April.

And then there's a whole other house that you live in June, July, and August,

and then a different one in the fall, and maybe you're in a group home for a

little while, and then maybe back to a house, and then you're back to the group

home, and you can sometimes be 13 years old and look back at 10,

11, and 12 and go, wow, I've lived in like 12 different places in the past three years.

Some of our kids, it's more than that.

And then you go, I mean, can you imagine being someone who you just keep taking

your little bit of stuff and moving to a new place against your will?

You know what would be good to know in that situation? That if you know God,

he goes with you everywhere you go.

And some of you are in that situation. Some of you aren't in the foster care

system, but there are lots of us in this room that have gone from job to job

or house to house or situation to situation, sometimes not even within in your control.

I'm sure there's somebody here who fits one of these kind of things where you,

got fired or your company downsized and suddenly you didn't have a job anymore

or you had this whole thing and you were a partner in the company,

invested the money, and then the whole thing fell apart. Maybe there was even

some deception and you were hoodwinked.

And all of a sudden, you got to go find a whole other job and you got to start all over again.

Some of you had to move to a whole other place. I don't even know how to make

money. I'm going to have to go wherever the money is. And so I'm going to have

to move to Ocala. What's that?

Some of you had a spouse that abandoned you.

And then there was the divorce proceedings. And then the house has to be split

down the middle, but you can't literally split the house down the middle.

And each of you take half. So you sell the thing. And then half the cash that

goes to one and half the cash goes there. And now you've got to go buy a house

with half a house worth of cash.

And you have to go somewhere else and start over.

Some of you have lived with someone and then they died. And then when they died, you had to move.

And I was living with Aunt So-and-so, but now I have to move in with Uncle So-and-so.

And so you moved. Like, I'm just saying, I know in a room this size,

there are some of you who live here in Ocala, but if I asked you,

like, do you live here in Ocala?

I'm sure some of you would say, I live in Ocala for now, right?

Like, this is where God has me stuck right now.

And so I would say, for those of you that are in that situation,

you go, well, I mean, yeah, I live in Ocala.

This is where God stuck me at this time, I would say to you,

it's good for you to know that if you're in Christ, God's with you.

God's with you wherever you go. The God that you worshiped wherever it was when

things were good, okay? And then now you're here and things are not good.

I just want you to know, God came with you.

He didn't abandon you. He came here of all places. He came here with you.

He was here before you got here.

One last thing that I wanted to point out as I close. And this thought I think is just, I love it.

And I don't think I made it up. It's just, I think it's too good.

I'm pretty sure I must've read this somewhere, but I don't know where I read it.

But I think somewhere at some point, somebody pointed out like,

this is an interesting story to compare to the Tower of Babel story that comes

earlier on in the book of Genesis.

If you don't know that story, so in the book of Genesis, Jacob's dream is there.

And then also in the book of Genesis this is the story of the Tower of Babel.

They're separated by several chapters.

The earlier story, which we covered at this church back when we went through

it the first time, the story of Babel is the story about humanity and the people

that are on the earth are building this giant tower, okay? The Tower of Babel.

And as they're building the Tower of Babel, the story says that they,

obviously a tower, they start from the ground and go up and they wanted to build

a really, really tall thing.

They said, let's build a tower that reaches to the heavens or let's build a

tower that reaches to the sky, however it is that you translate that word.

Okay, but we're going to build this tower that goes way up into the sky.

And they said their motive for it is they said, let's make a name for ourselves

and build this tower that goes up to the sky.

And if you remember the story, God condemned it. He did not like that they were doing that.

In fact, he stopped it from happening. He confused their languages and the people

scattered along the earth and they did not get to finish the tower because they

were not able to communicate with each other because God didn't let them communicate

with each other. And so the tower gets unfinished.

And that tower is a picture of like human achievement apart from God, isn't it?

So you have this, like, I'm going to, like, we're going to come together and

we're going to build this thing. And this is the thing that's going to show

that we are like justified. We are worthy.

Okay. We are, we are, we are like good people. Look at what we've done.

And so this is a picture of human achievement apart from God.

Not, we're not considering what his will is. We're just doing what we want to do.

And so I think there's a little, you can take this a little bit metaphorically.

I don't think the story is a metaphor. I think the Tower of Babel story actually happened.

But I'm saying you can also look at the story as like this emblem or this symbol

of like humans working their way up on their own.

And then you get to this story.

And you see in Jacob's dream, there is a tower that connects heaven and earth.

Right? There is a staircase. There is a ladder that connects heaven and earth.

And we see in the New Testament, it's fulfilled in Jesus.

Jesus is the stairway. Jesus is the tower. Jesus is the ladder that connects heaven and earth, okay?

Metaphorically speaking, not saying he's an actual staircase,

right? He is the connector. He is the way there.

And everything that comes there comes down here in him, okay?

So Jesus is the connector.

So there really is, like, they were, let's build this tower into the sky.

There really is a tower that connects heaven and earth.

And I guess what I wanted you to notice is the tower has to come from heaven's side down.

It cannot come from our side up.

That's why I started this sermon off by saying one thing unique about Christianity

is salvation coming to us not by us climbing up to God, but by God reaching down to us.

And praise the Lord for that.

And that's the tenor of this passage. Like if you go, what happened in this

passage? Here's what happened.

Sinful, deceptive Jacob is

on the run and God comes down and reveals himself to him and blesses him.

Praise the Lord. Let's pray. Let's pray.

God, thank you for revealing yourself to us. I thank you for revealing yourself

to us through the power of your spirit.

I thank you for revealing yourself to us as in like humanity,

through people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, through dreams like this.

I thank you, Jesus, for being the way, the connector to heaven and earth.

I pray that we would trust in you as the only way.

That there is no other, there's no other set of rules. There's no other worldview.

There's no other thing that's like, well, maybe if we do this, We can get up.

Thank you that you came down.

Thank you that you would make the promise to be with us wherever we go.

And he said that in Matthew 18. Surely I'm with you to the end of the age.

And so some of us are doing great right now, but some of us, it's not going good.

And the idea that we did not leave you behind back when things were good and now we're out on our own.

But the fact that you watch over us wherever we go, what a comfort.

And not because we earned it, just because you chose to come down.

You sent your stairs down, you sent your blessings down a staircase you built.

And so we thank you for that, and we thank you for the gospel,

and we thank you for your grace, and we recognize you as praiseworthy and worthy of our everything.

We love you, and we pray this in Jesus' name, the one on whom the angels ascend and descend. Amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word.

I assure you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and

descending on the Son of Man. That is good news.