Genesis #39 - Unlikely Grace #11 - "Spiritual Renewal or Spiritual Standstill?" (Genesis 35:1-37:1)

Spiritual Standstill After Genesis 34 and the Call to Bethel

35, I'm going to be reading verses 1 through 7. So Genesis chapter 35 verses 1 through 7. If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me out of a reference for God's Word? We do this when we come to this text in our service because we want to show respect for the Word of God, even with the posture of our bodies.

And so Genesis and chapter 35, and I'm going to read 1 through 7 to get us started this morning. Genesis chapter 35 from verse 1 through to verse 7. Page 30 in the Bible as we give away. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words.

God's Word says, God said to Jacob, get up, go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. So Jacob said to his family and all who were with him, get rid of the foreign gods that are among you.

Purify yourselves and change your clothes. We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.

Then they gave Jacob all the foreign gods and their earrings, and Jacob hid them under the oak near Shechem. When they set out, a terror from God came over the cities around them, and they did not pursue Jacob's sons.

So Jacob and all who were with him came to lose, that is Bethel, in the land of Canaan. Jacob built an altar there and called the place Elbethel, because it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

Pray that God will bless that reading of his Word and give us understanding of it. Allow me to pray, ask for the Spirit of God's help, and we will get into God's Word together. Let's pray. Well Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your Word, and we thank you for the fact that you have spoken to us, that you have spoken to us in ways that we can understand, and we simply ask that as we come to the Word of God today, that you would speak to every heart.

Lord, I don't know the state of everybody's hearts who's gathered here today, but you do. And so I ask that you would speak a better word than that which is spoken here through the ministry of your Spirit.

Bring encouragement where encouragement is needed, bring conviction where conviction is needed. Father, we even pray that you would bring salvation where salvation is needed. And Father, as we pray for ourselves, we take a moment to pray for our brothers and sisters over at Trill Christian Fellowship.

Thank you for Pastor Travis, who gives leadership there, and pray for him as he is at this moment preaching through the first letter to the Corinthians. Pray that that series would be used by your Spirit to encourage and to challenge and to bring life to your people there.

Pray that that happens for them. We pray that that would happen for us even now as we open up your Word. For we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. So I've been a Christian since 2005.

That would be March 14th when I made a profession of faith. I mean, I grew up in a Christian family, but I believe it wasn't till March of 2005 that I was truly converted. For those of you who are quick at maths, 2005, that would make it 18 years this March.

And one of the things about being a Christian that long—and some of you have been Christians longer than that, but you can testify to this—one of the things about being a Christian that long is just how much of a blessing it is, and at the same time, just how much of a challenge that presents.

I mean, it's a blessing because, I mean, for those of us who are Christians, we know this. Life in Christ is a blessing. Knowing that your sins are forgiven, that your conscience is clean before God, knowing the presence and the power of his Holy Spirit, knowing answered prayer, seeing people grow, witnessing the Lord at work—these are all things that are blessings.

And so, the longer that you've been walking with Jesus, it's very clear that it's a blessing. Okay, Kofi, if it's a blessing, but you said it's a blessing and a challenge. So, where's the challenge? Well, I mean, of course, the Christian life is a blessed life, but it's not always an easy life.

The Christian battles against the world and the flesh and the devil, our threefold enemy. So, of course, I mean, that part of it is challenging. I think we all recognize that. But can I put it to you that there's a more subtle challenge than the world, the flesh, and the devil?

That there's a challenge that maybe we don't think about as often as we should, but it is a very real challenge nonetheless. What's the challenge that I'm referring to this morning? Well, I think it's the challenge of time.

The challenge of time. What do I mean when I say that? Simple. The longer you have been a Christian, think about this with me. The longer you've been a Christian, the greater the temptation to think, I struggled this week to kind of summarize this, and I finally just came up on one three-letter word, meh.

The longer you've walked with Jesus, let's be honest, if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you probably know this, the temptation can come off to watch this thing, meh. The wonder of being a Christian can wear off, you know, what's the phrase that we use?

Been there, done that, bought that t-shirt. With that comes the related danger of just thinking, you know, you see somebody often when they're a new Christian, they're really excited, you know, you kind of look at everything, yeah, that's cool, but I've already done that, you know, that'll wear off.

Zeal wanes, and if we're honest, we start to multiply reasons for why it's okay that zeal for the things of God has waned with time, you know, life is hard, you know. I got this a lot as a younger Christian from older Christians, I'll be honest, it wasn't always the most encouraging thing to hear, you know, you're young, just wait till you're older, you'll understand.

I remember being told that, first I was told that before I got married, wait till you get married, you'll understand. Then I got married, then it was wait till you have kids, then you'll understand. Now I have a son, and as of next Friday, we'll have a daughter, Lord willing, and I'm still being told, you'll understand.

It's like, when do I actually get to understand? But you hear that, or you hear some people say, you know what, when I first became a Christian, yeah, I did all of that, but now I realize, you know, we find churchy ways to say this.

You know, I've come to discover that it doesn't really take all that because, you know, as long as I just understand the grace of God, it's fine. At this point, the phrase, the word that so many Christians love comes out, you know, I just realized that doing too much can just be legalism.

And like I said, we multiply reasons, I won't go through all of them, but whatever the reasons, if you've been a Christian for any length of time, let's just lay cards on the table this morning. The walk of faith can sometimes feel like more of a rut than an actual walk.

It can feel like you're just on a perpetual hamster wheel going nowhere. Reading and studying and hearing the Bible doesn't seem as important. Prayer is hard. Fellowship feels like a chore, you know, just get it done so I can go about my week.

Even things that God has given, we practice communion here at Redeemer. It can get to a point where one of the dangers of having communion weekly like we do, I'm convinced from the Bible that it's a good thing to do, which is why we do it.

But can I be honest? Can it just turn into a ritual for some people? Because after all, Redeemer is kind of weird and so they do it every Sunday. That's a danger. And it's easy to kind of think that the modern world makes this all the more worse.

You know, we've got it worse than anybody else in Christian history. I don't know if I necessarily believe that actually. I think the modern world presents some new challenges for the Christian, but I don't think it's a new problem.

Put this up on screen so you can read it with me. 19th century evangelical writer Octavius Winslow wrote an excellent book called Personal Declension, Decline, and Revival of Religion, and he meant religion in the sense of personal relationship and knowledge of God.

Personal Declension and Revival of Religion. In that book, Pastor Winslow, who was a Baptist pastor at the time, wrote this. He said, if there is one consideration more humbling than another to a spiritually-minded believer, it is that after all that God has done for him, after all the rich displays of his grace, the patience and tenderness of his instructions, the repeated discipline of his covenant, the tokens of love received, and the lessons of experience learned, there should still exist in the heart a principle, the tendency of which is to secret, perpetual, and alarming departure from God.

Truly, there is in this solemn fact that which might well lead to the deepest self-abasement before God. All that Pastor Winslow was saying there is that if you've walked with Jesus for any length of time, you know the danger that sometimes spiritual life can wane.

Not that you're not a Christian. Let me be clear. If you have truly experienced the grace of God, you are saved and saved forever. But our experience of that saving grace can wane over time if we are not careful.

But beloved, here's the good news. The good news is that yes, those seasons happen, but they don't have to be the end of the story. The good news is that if you are flagging in your faith, there is indeed grace for you.

Fresh, unlimited, and very personal grace. And as we come to this final message in our series, Unlikely Ways, we're going to see how grace worked itself out in the life of Jacob to bring about spiritual renewal in the life of a man who, I think we can agree, by the time we get to this section of Genesis, he's flagging a little.

Let me give you a bit of a warning about the way this message is going to work. As you can see from the title I've given this, we're going to look at chapter 35, 36, and the first verse of 37. I'm going to spend the majority of our time in 35.

In fact, you'll kind of feel like I've short changed with 36. That's not my intention, but we're going to spend most of our time in chapter 35 looking at Jacob. Because I'm convinced that this passage this morning, this morning, excuse me, is going to teach us one central truth.

If you don't remember anything else I'm going to say in this message, remember this. This passage is going to teach us that we all face the decision to either seek spiritual renewal or remain at a spiritual standstill.

When those seasons come where we feel like we may be flagging in our faith, I believe there's a song we sing here that the opening line says, when I fear my faith will fail. Those moments come where it feels like our faith might fail.

When those moments come, we face a decision, we hit a crossroads if you will. We will either seek spiritual renewal or remain at a spiritual standstill. We all face the decision to either seek spiritual renewal or remain at a spiritual standstill.

As we come to this final message in this series, I want to consider with you this morning one final pair of contrasts. One final pair of contrasts that will either, that will excuse me, will help us in the pursuit of spiritual renewal.

You can remove the word either there. One final pair of contrasts that will help us in the pursuit of spiritual renewal. The pair of contrasts, you already have them because they're in the title for this message.

Why We Need Spiritual Renewal

Consider with me first of all the reality of spiritual renewal. The reality of spiritual renewal. Like I said, this is going to be where we spend most of our time in chapter 35. For those of you who are visiting with us and maybe didn't hear the sermon from last week, we were in Genesis chapter 34 for most of the sermon.

This very bleak chapter that involved a rape and the massacre of an entire city by the sons of Jacob. It's a very dark chapter as chapters of the Bible go. And one of the things that I didn't point out last week, but you probably just picked up from reading it, did you notice that God, for those of you who were here, that God was painfully absent in that chapter?

He doesn't say a word. He doesn't appear. He doesn't even act. Probably there's nothing. God is painfully absent in that narrative in chapter 34. But as we come to this chapter, he re-emerges. So look at verse 1.

35 verse 1, God said to Jacob, get up, go to Bethel and settle there. Now Bethel has been the destination, but I noticed this this week as I was studying. It's been more implied that he should go to Bethel.

He's told to go back to his father's house. He's not explicitly been told to go to Bethel up to this point. But now what has been implied is now made explicit. He is told to return to the land that God has promised and particularly he's told to return to Bethel.

By the way, if you've been following in this series, remember that Jacob himself said he would come back to Bethel at some point? Chapter 28, we'll read that passage in just a moment. He said that if God kept him and provided for him, he would come back to this place.

Well, God essentially says, time for you to make good on what you said. And I put it to you that the journey to Bethel is not just a journey to a destination. It's where the journey of spiritual renewal for Jacob begins.

To get the most out of this section, I want to ask three questions. Three questions I think will help us get the most out of this section as we think about spiritual renewal. I want to ask three questions and I'll give them to you up front and then we'll come back and move through them more slowly.

The three questions I want to ask are, why might you need spiritual renewal, number one. Why might you need spiritual renewal? Number two, how can you experience spiritual renewal and what does spiritual renewal prepare us for?

So why might you need it? How can you experience it and what does it prepare you for? So let's start with that first question. Why might you need spiritual renewal? He said in verses one through eight, Jacob begins this process of returning back to Bethel and I think there are some lessons we can learn about why we might need spiritual renewal.

And I say might because maybe you're here and things are going great. Which, praise the Lord, I'm incredibly happy for you and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that. I genuinely am happy that things are going well for you spiritually.

Keep on going. But just in case, again as I said in my opening prayer, I don't claim to know the hearts of everybody who's here. So only you know where you're at with the Lord. But just in case, I think there are some lessons we can learn about why we might need spiritual renewal.

We might need spiritual renewal because first of all, if we're honest, human memory fails. Human memory fails. Did you notice in verse one that God's call to go back to Bethel includes a call back to the past?

So look with me at verse one again. God said to Jacob, get up, go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. I alluded to it just a moment ago, but remember what Jacob said all the way back in chapter 28 when he was on the run from his brother?

In case you don't remember, I'll read it to you. Genesis chapter 28 from verse 18 to 22. 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 Luz. Then Jacob made a vow. If God will be with me and watch over me during this journey I'm making, if he provides me with food to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safely to my father's family, then Yahweh will be my God.

This stone that I have set up as a marker will be God's house and I will give to you a tenth of all that you give me. Well, let's ask. Had God been with him over his whole journey? He had. Had God provided him with food to eat and clothing to wear?

He had. Up to this point, had God given him safe return into the land? He's technically within the boundaries of the land, so yes, God has. You could say God has upheld his end of the deal, if you will, but nearly a quarter century later, Jacob has either forgotten or played down his past experiences.

And so what does God graciously do? God graciously gives him a reminder. Let's pause here for a moment. This is important for us to think about. How often do you forget God's goodness to you? How often do you forget God's goodness to you?

If I can be transparent with you, that's a temptation that I can be prone to. You know, I'm somebody by nature. You know, they talk about some people, the glass is half empty, the glass is half full in terms of their personality.

I'll be honest, I'm the guy who sits and says, there is no glass. And having that kind of personality, I need to be reminded regularly of how good God has been. I need to be reminded that, Kofi, get over yourself, there actually is a glass and the glass isn't even half full.

In Christ, it's overflowing. I need to remind myself of that regularly. It was the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, who famously said that every week I preach justification by faith to my people, because every week they forget.

But thank God for the reminders that he gives, whether it's through his word or through providence or the testimony of others, we are given regular reminders of the goodness of God. And we need them because human memory fails.

But not only does human memory fail, human commitment is fickle. Human commitment is fickle. In verses two through four, it appears that in the plundering of Shechem after everyone was murdered in the previous chapter, a lot of the household gods, these smaller statues that people would have for worship in their homes, a lot of them seem to have made their way into the property of Jacob's household.

And Jacob is aware of this because he calls it out. Do you notice that in verse two, Jacob said to his family and all who are with him, get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. He knows that they're there.

And so he says, listen, as we're heading back to Bethel, you need to make a clean break with all of those things. Jacob responds to the word of the Lord by calling for full commitment to Yahweh and not just fickle commitment.

And we have to credit Jacob here. I think Jacob knows something of the fickle nature of human beings. As one writer puts it, Ian Duguid, left to ourselves, our hearts are as cold as ice towards God. We rapidly slide into compromise and embrace the attractions of false goals and idols.

The second law of thermodynamics, which declares that matter always proceeds from order into disorder, applies to our souls as well as to the rest of our world. I think it's interesting that being around the gods of Shechem had apparently made members of Jacob's own household think nothing of having those gods around.

And again, I have to pause and allow me to meddle a little bit, if I may. Do we have idols that we've picked up from the world around us? It's an interesting question, ain't it? Are there idols, unconscious maybe?

Idols nonetheless that we've picked up from the world around us? That might be a weird question to ask, because after all, we live in the West where, yes, you don't generally see people walking around with little weird statues.

Maybe in Ashland they do. But in general, we don't see people with little statues everywhere. And so we might be tempted to think that idolatry is not a Western problem. Can I put it to you that idolatry is just as prevalent here as anywhere else in the world?

It just looks a little more subtle. Could it be that our pursuit of comfort and convenience ends up being an idol? And again, I'm speaking primarily to Christians in this moment. Now, for some believers, they've kind of adopted the attitude that says, well, life is for living.

I want to enjoy my life. I don't want my life to be inconvenienced. I remember brothering when I was in college. I remember him saying this in a men's fellowship we were having, and it broke so many of our hearts.

This is somebody who had grown up in a Christian family, had been around the faith for quite some time, and we were talking about evangelism, which as college students, we're always thinking about. I remember him saying, I just don't understand why we keep pressing this issue.

Don't you know that that just makes our lives difficult here on campus? I am here to get my degree and to just make things easier for myself. I remember a bunch of us pleading with him, brother, we're not saying you shouldn't be diligent.

We're not saying you shouldn't work hard, but don't make that your God. Maybe it's comfort and convenience. Maybe it's affluence and consumption. We live in the West. We are, regardless of our financial station, technically richer than, what's the statistic?

Like the top 1 in the world. Oh, by the way, the Bible explicitly says, Colossians 3 verse 5, you're taking notes that greed is idolatry. What was the movie in the 80s? The character Gordon Gekko, Greed is Good.

No, Mr. Gekko, greed is not good. Greed is idolatry, according to the Bible. Of course, I've got to ask it because we're in an election year. Is power and control an idol for some Christians? Lord, I know your kingdom says that, I know your word says that your kingdom is not of this world and that it doesn't advance by force, but I'm not saying Christians should not be involved in the political process.

Actually, we're going to have a whole Sunday school class in the month of October, Lord willing, thinking about Christians in politics. But could it be that power and control, whether it's on a corporate level or individually, becomes an idol for some of us?

When you think of it like that, idolatry wasn't just a problem in the world of the Bible or in some cultures today. No, idolatry can be a very real problem in our lives today. Our commitments can end up being divided.

Because I mean, when we talk about idolatry, that's what's at the heart of that question. Idolatry really is dealing with our hearts. If we were to put it in a question, it'd be like this, am I fully devoted to the Lord or am I giving him less than...

Take your notes, 1 Corinthians 7 .35, Paul talks about his desire for the church at Corinth, that they would be devoted to the Lord without distraction, the CSB says. I think the ESV has, I think, a slightly better translation.

He wants to promote what is proper and so that you will have wholehearted devotion to the Lord. Now, let me pause here. Yes, I believe that God wants us as his people to have total devotion to him. But I put it to you that even that's not enough, because the motivation for which we pursue that is important.

If you hear me saying what I'm saying right now, and your first thought is, oh, that makes me feel guilty. I should probably be like, try harder and do better, tighten the bootstraps a little bit and get on it.

Can I put it to you that that's not the way to approach this? That our pursuit of wholehearted, distraction-free devotion can't be motivated by guilt? In fact, I think you see that even in this passage, because look at verse three.

He says, Jacob's not speaking, we must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress. He, this God, has been with me everywhere I have gone.

It's not guilt that motivates devotion from Jacob in this passage, it's grace. Let's be honest, human commitment can and will be fickle, but can't we be glad that God's commitment to us in Christ is never fickle?

Unfortunately, ours is. Our commitment can be fickle and that is why we might need spiritual renewal. Human memory fails, human commitment is fickle, but human fortunes change as well. Human fortunes change.

Oftentimes we skip hitting the spiritual refresh button, as it were, because life seems fine and why would I switch it up? What's the saying we use? Why would I want to upset the apple cart? But as we come to this chapter, you know, 35 follows 34.

Didn't Jacob have that whole Shechem massacre to worry about in the back of his mind? In fact, he says it towards the end of that chapter. Remember, he says, the people of the land are going to be afraid of us and they're going to want to attack us.

I mean, that would shake the tree a little bit, but even in this, you see the mercy of God, because look at verse 5. It says that when they set out, a terror from God came over the cities around them and they did not pursue Jacob's sons.

So, the danger was a real danger that, yeah, they will probably come after you, but guess what? God goes before them. He sends his terror before them and none of the nations wants to attack them. Now, that's important because think back to who the original audience of this is.

The children of Israel in the wilderness about to enter the promised land. What had been their experience? In case you're not sure, Exodus 23, 27. God says, I will cause the people ahead of you to feel terror, same word, and will throw into confusion all the nations you come to.

I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you in retreat. No doubt they would have read these words in Genesis or heard them and immediately thought, wait a minute, that's what God's done for us.

Human fortunes change. They go from being afraid to knowing that they have the presence of God with them. So, human fortunes don't always change from bad to good, do they? Sometimes they go from good to bad.

And look at verse 8. Verse 8, you have the sudden death of Rebecca's nurse, Deborah, who had no doubt been a member of the family. She was more than likely sent with Rebecca when she got married. This would be a close loss to Jacob because turns out Jacob saw this woman growing up.

Two very different events, two very different things, but both of them, you know what connects them? They're reminders of the frailty of life. And the reality is that we will experience moments where our fortunes can change on a dime.

And if our fortunes can change on a dime, if ever there was a need for spiritual renewal, moments like that should do it, shouldn't it? Well, if we might need spiritual renewal because human memory fails and human commitment is fickle and human fortunes change, if that is true, well, how do we actually experience spiritual renewal?

How Spiritual Renewal Happens

That's my second question. How can you experience spiritual renewal? Now, I've intentionally used the word renewal and a word that maybe will be more familiar to most of you, revival. Not because I think revival is a bad word, far from it, but I intentionally use it because let's be honest, if you've been at Redeemer, you know what I'm about to say next.

Revival is one of those churchy words. If you're visiting, I have a war that I've been waging for a number of years that I'm not done yet, where I'm trying to get rid of not the words necessarily, but the churchy meanings we give to words.

You know what I mean when I say churchy meanings? You know, the kinds of meanings you give that don't really make much sense. They sound spiritual, but they don't really answer the question. I think revival is one of those words that suffers in the hands of its friends, unfortunately, because for most people, when you say revival, they think big spectacular happening.

As my friend, Mike Abrantroth says, liver shivers, odd happenings. It's basically paranormal activity on steroids, and when you put it like that, you can see why some people might recoil. They might think, I don't know about all that.

That just looks weird, but can I put it to you? Might I put to you that God's method of reviving, giving life again, that's what revival means, of giving revival to weary pilgrims, actually isn't spooky.

It actually isn't weird or crazy. What if, reason with me for a moment, what if it was actually simple? I think you see that in verses 9 through 15. How can you experience spiritual renewal from this passage?

Might I suggest that it starts as we, first of all, remember the Word of God. We remember the Word of God. God returns to the scene in verse 9, and what he has to say is interesting. Genesis 35 verses 9 to 13, I want to read.

God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan Aram, and he blessed him. God said to him, your name is Jacob. You will no longer be named Jacob, but your name will be Israel. So he named him Israel.

God also said to him, I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you. I will give you the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac, and I will give the land to your future descendants.

Then God withdrew from him at the place where he had spoken to him. Do you notice anything about what we just read? It's so subtle you might miss it. Let me put it this way. Has God told Jacob anything new with what he just said?

If you've been reading Genesis, this should be old news to you at this point, and I think that's precisely the point. Can I put it to you that what the Christian needs in moments when the soul needs reviving, and I wish the church in the West would understand this if I'm honest, that when your soul needs reviving, you don't need something new.

Actually, what you need is something that is tested, something that is sure, something that is true. Allow me to get controversial for just a moment. Can I put it to you that I grew up in a tradition where people were always looking for a fresh word from the Lord.

I'm gonna save my discussion about that for a future sermon, but can I put it to you that maybe, just my thought, maybe the collective you, the proverbial you, maybe you don't need to be looking for a new word when you barely understand the old word that God gave.

My mom used to say when she would cook for us and I would, before my plate was even finished, once or more, she was like, how about you finish what's in front of you first, and I wish that collectively the church with a big C in the West could be made to realize, guys, you don't need something new.

Finish what's in front of you, and guess what? You're never going to finish it in this lifetime, so just keep feasting on what's in front of you. If I could speak personally to this body for a moment, Redeemer Bible Fellowship is very Bible heavy.

I know it is. Just like I said about being a Christian for a long time, that can be a blessing and a curse. I think the blessings are self-evident, but let me hone in on why that, I don't think in and of itself it's a curse, but depending on who you're talking to, it can be.

Here's the reality. The reality is you can hear so much of God's word that you get bored with it. I'm not going to ask anybody specifically if you feel that way, but let's be honest. Is it possible to sit in church and just be bored with God's word, to secretly wish, man, can't we have something else?

I'd like to say that I've never been told that in, let's see, I was 18, almost 15 years of ministry involvement in one way or another, I've never heard somebody say, maybe they won't use the word bored with the Bible because they know that we're in church.

You can't really say that, but basically, yeah, I love the word, but what about this? Almost as though, yeah, the Bible's good, but you need more than that. It's funny though, when I read the Bible, I read verses like this, Psalm 119 verse 25, my life is down in the dust, give me life through your word.

In John chapter six, when Jesus experiences this mass defection and lots of his disciples walk away because they can't handle what he has taught in John chapter six, Jesus turns to the 12 and he says, you going with them?

Remember what Peter says, John 6, 68, to whom will we go? Where do you think we're going? I know Peter gets a bad rap for, I think it's John McArthur who says, he's the apostle with the foot shaped mouth, constantly sticking his foot in his mouth, but Peter was on the money here.