Genesis 28 The Geography of God

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsack and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the

Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com

Here's Pastor Don. I want to tell you, I change, as some people are, and so it's a little bit more work for me to be to understand kind of like where people come from in that regard, and yet I recognize that there might be some connections to this place that you might need to deal with in your heart.

And this has been a place where God has met us. Has that been cool? Is that worthy of celebration? Is that worthy of our attention and worth saying something cool about?

Absolutely. And I think that that is amazing. But the reality is the way that God's put me together. I like adventure.

I kind of like new. I like the idea of going to a new place and seeing how God is gonna bless us in that new location and all of that.

And some of you are built built that way too. You're like, yeah, bring it on. I love a challenge. I love, I love some new things and and venturing out for for God.

But God once again has filled in my gaps, my inability to necessarily understand all of the ins and outs of the way that we all work in that in that regard.

And he has given us a specific text this morning that speaks to us immediately where we're at in this regard to geography and his presence with us wherever we go.

And isn't it just like our God to give us a text that I'm going through the book of Genesis.

You know that I couldn't have, I couldn't have planned this out for this text to be this week out in advance with, you know,

I've taken a break and we went through 1st John. We've done all this. And I didn't know when we were gonna be moving, if we were gonna be moving.

Long before I even knew that we were gonna be moving this week to a new facility. God, I had already written this down, by the way.

I already knew that I was gonna preach this text about six months ago, right now, before I even knew we were moving.

So it's really cool how he works that in our text this morning. God is gonna appear to Jacob. Jacob, the one of the really whose name is gonna be changed to Israel.

And he's gonna appear to Jacob in the middle of transition and Jacob will come to realize that there is a geography to God.

He is a God of time and space. And he will at times meet us in physical locations that we can find on a map.

He will take what we perceive as routine and mundane places and convert them into sacred space by his

Holy Presence. And not only does God meet with Jacob in geography, but then further in this text,

God promises to Jacob that he will be with him wherever he goes. That wherever Jacob goes, he will be with him.

And before we just dismiss this promise as something that God offered to Jacob, like that's really good for him. How many of you would agree with that?

That's kind of cool. Like it would be cool to have God appear to you as an individual and say I'm gonna be with you wherever you go.

Great for Jacob. But before we just dismiss it as something that he said to this man in ancient times, we need to remember that the same

God promises, the same promises that he's given to Jacob are echoed to all followers of Jesus Christ through his words that he will never leave us or forsake us.

It's as if God wanted to remind us here in our last week at 244 -66 Red Arrow Highway here in Matawan that it is great to remember the ways that God has met us here in this geography.

But God is not stuck here in this place.

We are not leaving him behind, but he goes with us and he will never leave us or forsake us.

So I want you to open your Bibles, please to Genesis 28, page 19 in the

Bible in the seat back in front of you. So if you pull that out, you can turn to page 19 and follow along as I read

Genesis chapter 28, the words of God to us here in our last Sunday at this location recast.

Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him. You must not take a wife from the

Canaanite women. Arise, go to Pat and Aram to the house of Bethul, your mother's father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.

God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples.

May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham.

Thus Isaac sent Jacob away and he went to Pat and Aram to Laban, the son of Bethul, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Pat and Aram to take a wife from there that and that he had blessed him and blessed him.

He directed him you must not take a wife from the Canaanite women and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Pat and Aram.

So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac, his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife besides the wives he had,

Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth. Jacob left

Beersheba and went toward 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 laid down in that place to sleep and he dreamed and behold there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached the heaven, 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 the 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 and 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.

He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the 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 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 of all that you give me

I will give a full tent to you. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the way that you have met us in this place.

And I know that many of us could testify of of the way that you have impacted our lives through this location.

And yet here we are on the brink of a final service here and moving on to another location.

And Father, it's amazing and glorious to see the way that in your timing and in your mercy you have opened us up to a text that is particularly about transition, particularly about your presence and your comfort and your hope of going with us wherever we go.

And Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the reality of your great love, the connection that you have to us in our world that you can break into us just like you broke into Jacob and broke into his life.

Father, I thank you for the ways that you have broken into mine and the way that you have revealed yourself and created sacred space in my heart and in places that I can identify and find on a map where you have met with me.

And Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the glory of your presence with us even here this morning and as we go on to a new location, your presence there with us as well.

In Jesus' name. I'm very grateful for Rob leading us, especially in Josh's absence, just that he was able to step in for us here in this last service here.

I'm so grateful for the band. Make sure you have your Bibles open in front of you to Genesis chapter 28.

As we walk through this text, we're going to walk right through it like we always do. And so having that open helps you to kind of reflect on the word of God as I'm talking and going through it and really looking at this text that shows

God's perfect timing for us as a church in what he has to say to us. Now, I want to point out that verses 1 through 9 of chapter 28 are really transitional material.

And somebody actually said to me at one point this week, you know, do you have to preach on every part of the Bible? Or is it kind of like, can you just take a transition portion and just kind of brush over?

And I think there's there's room for some of that. At the same time, I want to make sure that you know that I'm not skipping anything just because it makes me uncomfortable or anything like that.

And so we kind of go through this and recognize that all of Scripture is God breathed, right? It's all valuable for us, even in those transitions.

We can see some lessons or some things for us to that impact us or show us how we ought to live or something about God.

And I want you to remember that as these loose ends are tied up, that we're looking at loose ends from last week. Last week, we saw

Jacob and his mother, Rebecca, formally steal the blessing, the formal blessing from Jacob's brother

Esau and deceive his father, Isaac. And so we saw that whole scenario come down. Everybody was behaving poorly in the text last week.

And by the end of last week's text, Esau was plotting to murder his twin brother,

Jacob, a great way for the chosen people of God to be behaving, right? Like a pretty rough text last week.

And so Rebecca has convinced Isaac, her husband, to send their son, Jacob, away to find a wife from among her own clan way up in Mesopotamia.

We know that she had secondary motives and that was to save Jacob's life because she actually knew Esau was going to try to kill him.

And so she basically convinces Isaac, well, you know, don't let him take one of the wives from the people around here, send him way up north to my people and let him find a wife from among there.

And so that plan is enacted in verse one with Isaac calling Jacob in and sending him off.

Now, notice that any rebuke of Jacob is completely absent. What has Jacob just done to his father in the last in the last week's text?

He's just deceived him and ultimately stolen his blessing that he was planning on giving to his brother

Esau, and he's taken that for himself. But there is no rebuke. Now, remember, part of the blessing, this is kind of ironic, but part of the blessing from Isaac was blessed is anyone who blesses you and cursed is anyone who curses you.

Do you think that factors into Isaac's interaction with his son, Jacob, moving forward? I think it does to some degree.

And so Isaac isn't going to chew out Jacob for deceiving him. Instead, he just commands

Jacob to leave and head for Pad and Aram up north to his mother's household to find a wife among his cousins.

Now, you know, some of you, any of you that get squeamish when you think about, you know, the idea of going to a family reunion to find a wife is not necessarily a great idea, right?

And yet at the same time, you have to recognize that this is a social custom of that time. It's not that crazy far out there, and that's what was pretty common in that time.

They wouldn't have batted an eyelash at that in that common in that culture during that time. And yet at the same time, we'd be breaking

Michigan law to do that here. So but verses three through four are valuable in our understanding of Jacob moving forward.

He stole the blessing from his brother. He deceived his father. He tricked him into blessing him.

But now something amazing happens. Isaac offers a blessing to his son

Jacob of his own free will. It's as if Isaac has now seen the hand of God and the blessing of Jacob and has come in line with it and has recognized that God's hand is indeed on his son

Jacob. And here in verse four, he specifically passes along the very blessing that was offered to his grandfather

Abraham, passed on to him Isaac, and now he says, may you, Jacob, be the recipient of that same blessing that was given to my father

Abraham. Now before Jacob left his father, his father offered him a voluntary blessing here in this text.

And I can imagine if you put yourself in Jacob's shoes, do you think that might have had some impact on him moving forward? That it wasn't just that he had to steal his father's blessing, but that in the end, finally, his father actually, verbally, of his own will, offers him a blessing.

Do you think that that would have an impact on a child's life? Even if there's been strained relationship between father and son over the years, how many of you know there's power in our words?

There's power in, particularly, did you know there's power in a father's words? Have you experienced that?

Some of us haven't. Some of us have experienced the power of the absence of our father's words. And both are powerful in a person's life.

Would you agree with me on that? And here Jacob actually gets sent off with a blessing from his father, even regardless of what we might understand.

Is motivating Isaac in here? Is it partly that he himself wants to be blessed? We don't know and we don't see all the ins and outs of what's going on in Isaac's mind, but he does offer a blessing.

Remember Jacob. Jacob, you got to remember his character all throughout this text. Jacob was the homebody. He was the mama's boy, always close to mama's skirt.

Working in the kitchen, you know, he was a good cook, that kind of stuff. And he's now going to be the one that's going to be sent out into the big bad world to wander for a period of time.

There's a little bit of irony in that. But before scripture focuses completely on Jacob for several chapters, it's now going to tie up a portion of Esau's storyline.

From this point on, by the way, just like it is declared to be the truth in the blessing to Jacob that his brother will serve him, now anytime that Esau is mentioned in the text moving forward, it's only in conjunction with Jacob.

It's only as much as he furthers the storyline when Jacob comes back in to enter the land, the fear that he has of his brother

Esau, it's still serving the plot line of Jacob moving forward. But verse 6 implies that Esau, look at verse 6, it implies that Esau was completely oblivious to the fact that his two

Canaanite wives had a bitter relationship with his parents. He is shown to be a little bit thick in scripture.

How many of you, if your in -law, if your parents and your wife were at odds with each other, you might get a clue about that, right?

There might be some indication about that. And he's like, oh, I guess I guess my dad doesn't like Canaanite wives, the text says, because he sent my brother away to get a wife from among my mom's family.

So it's like he's oh, he's putting the pieces together. Now, I don't think I'm, I'm not trying to overstretch this or try to overemphasize

Esau. The actual text in the Hebrew language, whenever Esau speaks, I've mentioned this before, it actually becomes almost kind of a dumber way of speaking when

Esau talks. Like he says, hey, give me some of that red stuff from my mouth. Like when he's talking about the stew with Jacob and stuff and everything is just kind of like a little bit like he's not quite connecting everything.

He's never shown to be super intelligent in the decisions that he makes. I'm not just trying to be hard on him.

It's just the way that scripture paints him. What he does next verifies that he was a little bit impulsive, didn't necessarily think through all of his decisions.

When he hears that his parents don't want Canaanite wives, which he already has two, remember the text told us that last week, he already has two, he decides to go find a wife that would be pleasing to his dad.

So he goes to Ishmael's family, his dad's brother. Well, if mom's brother is okay, then maybe dad's brother is okay, too.

The problem being, anybody have any indication what Esau, I mean what Isaac and Ishmael's relationship was like?

Is it kind of strange that Esau would go to Ishmael to find a wife? This is not going to be pleasing to daddy.

Okay, he is taking and marrying together two families that are not intended to be married together.

Esau is a tragic figure in the text. It's like he's always a day late and a dollar short, and he's always just kind of making decisions.

It seems, I don't think it's unfair to say he seems to be an impulsive character in the text. But in verse 10,

Jacob leaves and heads out for the city of Haran. In the first nine verses, all of the loose ends are tied up from that previous story, or most of them.

And so he leaves and he heads for Haran, a city in the district of Paddan Aram, up north. This is a trip of about 550 to 600 miles.

Anybody, you know, that's a pretty significant road trip. It's kind of like between here and Nashville -ish.

So would that be an undertaking for you guys in a car? Would you make some plans and some preparations for that? Here he is going, you know, at best by donkey, maybe by camel.

It's going to take, this is a significant road trip. And he is on his way.

Any vision that you have, by the way, any image that you have in your mind of him traveling alone, anybody kind of primarily think of him like kind of, you know, you know going through the desert on his own.

He's out, he's exiled or something like that. And he's trying to get, that's probably a byproduct of us having modern transportation where it isn't that hard to go to Nashville on your own if you wanted to.

Or really our independent culture where we can just travel on our own whenever we want. Remember the wealth, the wealth of Isaac that had been left to him by his father

Abraham. It's likely that Jacob is traveling with an entourage here, that he is not alone.

He's got camels. He's got, he's got to take water with him. He's got to take packs with food and things like that.

And so don't have in your mind, rarely should you have in your mind, unless the text tells you that somebody was traveling alone, should you have the image in your mind that they're traveling alone?

Like, like Joseph and Mary on their way to Bethlehem alone on the donkey. And there's hundreds of thousands of people on their way to Jerusalem and moving around the country at that time.

So we get these images in our mind. He's traveling with a group. And on a trip that likely included dozens of nights of sleep along the way, one particular night is going to be recorded for us.

Now, how many of you know that there's a lot of trip here that's missing? How many of you ever been on a road trip and just kind of kept a journal or something and some funny things happen?

You have funny things happen on road trips? I think probably all of us have had, everybody's looking at me really blank. Either you're really sleepy or you've never been on a road trip.

But I mean in college we would have some epic road trips where just crazy stuff happened and you know, I don't know. Anyways, we're not going to get into that.

No. One -on -one. That's a one -on -one conversation. So this is a lengthy trip.

But there's a night here that is worthy of recording. And I want to just suggest to you that the same could be said of your life and mine.

In the midst of routine time, there is a type of time that occurs that is saturated with significance in our lives.

We all can relate to that. We all understand it. There are wedding dates. There are spiritual encounters. There are graduations.

There are births. There are funerals. In other words, what I'm trying to say is there is a certain type of day where when your head leaves the pillow in the morning and somewhere between the time that your head leaves the pillow in the morning and goes back to the pillow at night, you are changed.

Do you know the kind of day I'm talking about? Sometimes those are days that are changed for good where it's like life will never be the same.

And then there's other days where everything changes and it's like life will never be the same.

And we have those days of significance where something occurs in our lives that transforms us, that changes us, and we are not the same people after those events.

Well, time slows in the telling. The narrator wants to slow things down for us. And we're going to zoom in on this huge trip.

We're going to get an hour or so. Jacob stops for some rest one night.

Notice that it's already after dark. They're probably looking. Have you ever had that road trip where you're looking for a hotel and everything is booked up and you're just like, well, maybe we'll go to the next exit.

Maybe we'll go to the next exit. And eventually it's kind of like, man, I'm just, we're staying at the next dive we find. Anybody ever been there?

Okay, a couple of you. And so I kind of picture that like night has already fallen. You don't want to be traveling in ancient times after dark.

Not just wild animals, but roving bands of robbers and murderers and thieves and that kind of stuff come out at night.

And so you want to just kind of find a place to to set a guard and be there for the night.

But there they are. He finds this nondescript place. Nondescript, which is really interesting because this is an extremely significant place, but it's just a certain place.

He just happens upon it on the way out of the promised land. The significance is unknown to Jacob as they set up camp.

He uses a stone for a pillow and lays down to rest. Now, I want to just point out to you that back then men were men and pillows were rocks, okay?

I mean, apparently that's the case. Now, I've been known to be so picky that if the pillow wasn't just the right thickness, not too thick, not too thick.

Any of you with me on that? Any of you old enough to get to that pickiness yet? And it's kind of like you just got to have the right thickness of pillow.

And I want you to remember that Jacob was the softer of the twins. And he's using a rock as a pillow, okay?

It makes me wonder if Esau would have been looking for some nettles and some poison ivy to use as a pillow or something. I mean, what?

I could do better than that. But this dude is using a rock as a pillow. But apparently the rock was the right consistency and it put him to sleep.

So Jacob is suddenly in dreamland and verses 12 through 15 all occur within his dreams.

We're actually getting an insight into what's going on in the mind of Jacob while he sleeps. Jacob's dream is recorded and in his dream the most prominent feature is a stairway.

Now, I want to point out that I use the word stairway. Some of you got really uncomfortable because you want it to be

Jacob's ladder because that fits well with what everybody talks about Jacob's ladder. The translation is it's ladder in this one, right?

In ESV. Yeah, and I looked at a bunch of different translations. A lot of them have ladder. I actually believe that what he has in his mind, what he actually sees with his eyes is more of a stairway.

In these times, it was common for cultures to build these big pyramids. There's pyramids all around the world, by the way.

There's some in Central America, South America. There's some in the Middle East and then all throughout even Babylon where they built these things called ziggurats.

They were pyramid shaped temples with a massive stairway on one side with the image being that they extended between the heavens and the earth and that the priest would ascend to meet with God, get his message and then come back down and it's likely those predate this era that we're talking about.

So it's quite possible that Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, that some of them had encountered or seen this form of worship before and it's likely that that God appears in some form that he can understand in some way that he's able to understand culturally.

But I don't know how important what the escalator looked like that he sees but in his mind he has this image of some conveyance back and forth between the realm of heaven and earth and the um and what he sees is that the base is set on earth the top was in heaven and angels were traveling back and forth fulfilling the will of God between God, so it's the images these angels are coming forth from God to go do his bidding coming back to report getting other assignments and going out into the world.

In this dream it's like God has peeled back the reality of what is truly going on and he gives

Jacob a glimpse into the behind the scenes spiritual truth of what is going on around him that he had no clue about.

Jacob's eyes were open to a spiritual reality that God is not disconnected from real time and space of this world.

He's connected to what is going on on this planet. He's engaged and he even sends out his emissaries throughout the world to accomplish his bidding.

And the Lord Yahweh the self -existent one the one who needs nothing to sustain himself is seen standing above the stairway overseeing the whole operation of what is going on in the world and he speaks he opens his mouth and he speaks

Now since most of us in this room would say we have a relationship with God I wonder what you might expect

God to now say to Jacob If you take into account what you know of God or at least what you think you know of God or what he is like How do you expect him to respond to this deceiver and swindler?

Knowing how you feel about God knowing how you expect him to respond knowing how you were raised to understand

God What do you think his first words are going to be to Jacob? What are you what are you expecting at this point?

How about liar and thief? Would that come to mind like maybe God maybe that's what God's going to do is he's he's appearing to him in a dream and he's

Going to convict him. He's going to lay him low. He's going to judge him now Like like could you could you in your mind imagine that the first words that the holy and righteous

God says to the swindler and deceiver? and cheater of his brother and father Is your judgment is now dude you're smoked

Can you imagine God being like that with Jacob? Some some of us were raised in a in a household or in a family or in a church where that might be

A pretty logical conclusion. That's our expectation is that God would be like that to a sinner

That he would at least say how dare you lie to your father and steal your blood brother's blessing that he he couldn't

Let that go, right? Instead Yahweh starts with a formal introduction. Hi.

Hi Jacob. I'm Yahweh Basically what the text says? Hi Jacob. I'm The self -existent one.

I'm the holy one. I'm the the the one who exists in and of myself And by the way, just to just to clarify in case you're confused about who

I am. I'm the god of your grandfather And the god of your father I'm i'm the one who has sustained them.

I'm the one who's been their object of worship God doesn't identify himself.

He doesn't introduce himself himself to Jacob and say hey Jacob. I'm your god He says i'm the god of your grandfather and the god of your father

What he's working to do here is to introduce himself and to become Jacob's god Everything in this text looks like a first time meeting

Jacob has done his done what he's done in his life absent from god and some of us can relate to Having a time or a period in our lives where we did what we did absent from god and then we met him right

And that's what we're encountering here is a first time meeting with god between Jacob With Jacob and without further ado

God launches into a unilateral promise. What's he going to do first? I'm going to be with you

He makes a promise to this swindler to this cheater And god uses the same phrase he used to give the same promise to abraham decades before this.

Are you ready for this? at this same location He's been wandering throughout the night trying to find a place to lay his head and he has stumbled upon the very location bethel

Where god made the promise to abraham where he first met his grandfather, isn't that like god?

To orchestrate this event at this location to bring the grandson back and continue to pledge the same promise to him at this place

God uses the same terminology in the same language and promises to give him the land where he sleeps

He promises to give this unmarried man numerous offspring that will spread out in all directions north south east east and west

He promises to bless all the peoples of the earth through him. He says one of your offspring is going to be a blessing to all

Again, just re -emphasizing that same promise that was made to abraham passed on through isaac now being given directly to jacob

I'm going to point out that jacob is blessed by the choice of god He just keeps receiving blessings first.

He swindles one then he's given one freely by his father Now he is blessed straight from the mouth of god

Is he worthy of this? Is jacob worthy of this blessing? Not at all and to cap all of this off god pledges to be with jacob wherever he goes

He promises to bring him safely back to the land and promises his faithfulness to never leave him until he has accomplished

All the good things that he desires to accomplish and promises to accomplish in jacob Anybody willing to use a stone as a pillow if you could get these results

Is one night out one night out and under the stars? Rock as a pillow, you know i'd i'd be out there

But now jacob's response is awesome He awakens as a changed man

Something has shifted in his understanding I mentioned that sometimes we have experiences that occur that transform the trajectory of our lives and we are never the same afterwards

And this is one of those events for jacob His first statement is one of transformed reality one in which he now sees life

Differently than he did before he says this statement surely the lord is in this place

I didn't know it. I didn't know it Ignorant me god was here and I and I was blind to it

That sound familiar Is that is that a possible statement that could be uttered on our lips about any place that we go

Surely God was at mpi and I knew it not surely god was at pfizer and I knew it not surely god was in my neighborhood

And I was not a tenant to it What's the difference?

God has broken in and revealed himself and his presence In that location to jacob and now his eyes are opening and said surely the lord was here all along And I didn't have eyes to see

You hear that It's a powerful powerful statement God broke into the time and space of jacob

He invaded his sleep and came to him in a dream that could be recorded on a calendar This is an event that happened on a night on a week on a day

During a time period during an hour or so It's a real day in a real time, but not only was it a real time, but god came to jacob in a real place

And jacob suddenly is aware that god was there all along and he was ignorant of it god has sanctified a physical place in the heart of jacob

He has turned a nondescript section of the desert He just happened to happen upon it found a good place to sleep and there he settles in his crew for the day for the night

And god did so For jacob by peeling back the blinders of jacob's eyes and revealing his presence

And what jacob experienced as a certain space just some space in verse 11 has been made into sacred space by the revealed presence of god

I'll list a couple places that have no meaning to you whatsoever. But um They've impacted you to some degree

There's a little room in the first baptist church of middleville, michigan There's a little chapel in the town of la vega in the dominican republic

There's a bridge on the north side of sheer lake At camp barricade, there are two birthing rooms in battle creek and one in bronson

There is a cabin on the side of a mountain in the smokies There's a little exercise room in green lake, wisconsin

One little treadmill and some broken down weights There's a storefront at 244 66 red arrow highway

A little bit of the geography of god in my life a map if you will

Places I could put push pins in the map and find them and you could go there too

They're real places And you could go there and see nothing particularly special about those places I can't tell you how many kids have been born in those birthing rooms

And many more will still be I can't uh, you know that that room in that little church in middleville, michigan

Where I got on my knees I remember getting on my knees in that chair in that that sparks leader Praying with me to receive christ

It could be a storage room for all I know right now. I haven't been back there in years years and years and years in 30 years

I don't even know if it's still there. It could be could be where they keep the mop buckets Sacred space to me a place where god met with me

Can you think through your geography? Do you have a geography of your relationship with god places that you have encountered?

the almighty And you've said surely the lord was in this place and I knew it not eyes were open

Sure enough he was there And he was there all along These are places that I have been spiritually molded and shaped by encounters with god

Now there's nothing magical about those places I want you to be very very careful because the human mind goes very quickly to the worship of bizarre and strange things it turns mystical in a heartbeat so that the notion could be that uh

I go back to those places to conjure up the presence of god right some of us who are designed some of you who are designed more nostalgically than I am would have a tendency to go back to that location and revere it and hold it up as holy space and Everybody ought to treat this how dare you store the

The mop buckets here. Don't you realize that this is holy ground? Can you imagine having a mindset like that where it's like this?

No, no No, you can't put in a you cannot put in a papa john's here Because this was a church right, i'm actually kind of hoping for a jimmy john's myself, but um

That'd be pretty awesome. But uh Or someplace with tacos. We don't have tacos in medellin, but um, that's

Sorry, that's how that's the way I think but uh, are you getting what i'm saying? I mean, is there anything is there anything about this place this space that we've met that sanctifies it that makes it holy?

Well has god met us here. I hope he has I hope he's met you here. He's met me here many many times

I've encountered the presence of god in this place, but that doesn't mean that this is Mystically holy ground in that sense.

Does that make sense? The idea that we could go back to the same place in some kind of occultic sense to Conjure up the presence of god is misguided

As a matter of fact, we're going to see why they're misguided here in god's promise to jacob But these places are reminders that god has met with us

I encourage you again to map out the geography of god in your life and think about those places where you can say surely the lord

Was in this place and he showed it to you Jacob responds in fear and recognizes how awesome the location is not again because the place is particularly cool but because God had opened his eyes to him in that location

God had met him in that place and he calls it the house of god and the gate of heaven

Jacob sets up a stone he had slept on as a reminder of this encounter And I wouldn't I would say there's something that's thoroughly appropriate for us to remember

It's a good and a healthy thing He's going to later return to this place and actually build an altar there in a completion of this promise

I wonder if he didn't incorporate this stone that he stood up into the altar that he eventually Utilizes for the ongoing worship of god in this location.

But for now, he consecrates the place by setting up his pillow on end and pouring oil on it symbolize

The place is significant in his life. He names it bethel which literally means the house of god

Even though the there's a canaanite city close by called luz. Eventually it becomes known by the people of god as bethel

Now jacob makes a vow He has this encounter with god. He wakes up in the morning. He makes a vow that will follow him his entire life

He makes a pledge an oath a promise to god The conditional nature of this vow shows that jacob doesn't quite trust the promises of god

God has just appeared to him promised him good things promised him blessing And now he responds

To an encounter with the almighty making promises to him with if Okay, you've made these promises if you do it

If you do all these things you promised if you sustain me with bread if you clothe me and return me to my father's house

In peace Then you get to be my god It do you hear the the notion in which jacob is taking applications for god?

Who Who am I who am I going to worship? Well, you know you're doing okay in this interview god. You've pledged me some pretty good things now

If you can make good on that, then you'll get the job Are you hearing is there a little bit of concern about what jacob is understanding here?

Is he thoroughly changed yet? No, as a matter of fact, we're going to see jacob struggle much like we do

Throughout his life. I love it that we get a chance to see these people in the bible as real people like us

Struggling through their relationship with god and remember he's had a dream I mean god has appeared to him and said these things and he's still gonna struggle

I want have you ever noticed how those who struggle with lying and cheating? Have the hardest time trusting other people

Jacob's a liar. Jacob's a cheater and he has a hard time trusting the almighty at his word

God makes a promise to him and he's like, uh, yeah. Well, we'll see Jacob's gonna wrestle with his trust of god

Not an accidental use of that word wrestle In several chapters, we will see jacob standing on the edge of his return to the land

God 20 years will have passed and god is about to fulfill everything He has promised to jacob and I need to put a spoiler alert in here plug your ears

If you don't know how the story ends, but jacob will be wealthy by that point Bread and clothing are going to be no issue to jacob

But jacob will still be fearful still be doubtful Still be wrestling with god still be begging god

For what god has already promised to him Can you imagine a person who god has made promises to Still begging and pleading god.

Bless me. God. Bless me. God. Bless me when god's already said chill Chill, I got this one jacob

Got it taken care of Maybe some of us can relate to stressing about the things that god has just taken care of Right You can continue to stress about those things just like jacob

Jacob also vows that the location will become a place of worship Which he indeed does come back and make good on and he pledges to give back a full tenth of anything that god gives to him

Let's suppose that that actually occurred But here there's a sense in which god has given him a gift and he's still working to try to Pay for it

Do you see that in the text still an attempt to pay for that which god is just freely giving to him There's a sense in which jacob wants to do it

But I love this account because in this we have an awesome ancient account of conversion Jacob goes to bed one night thinking reality is one way and he wakes up realizing he has had it all wrong shifted

Even if he doesn't fully get it. He has still changed He goes to sleep in a desolate place and awakens to realize that he is never alone

And I would like to encourage a lot of little conversions for each one of us this morning

The first thing I think we need a conversion in the way we view our space our actual

Geography our actual actual location To say this surely the lord is in this place and we didn't know it

Has god opened your eyes to the presence to his presence in your geography in your location in your space?

The difference between sacred space and non -sacred space is that our eyes would be open to the lord's presence with us

I don't want to minimize Geography and the plan of god as if it doesn't have an impact because he does choose to meet us in real places

So I don't want to minimize it But I also don't want to elevate it to cultic status as if we have to keep going back to those same places again and again

And again these places that god met us are worth our gratitude But do not assume that because god met you in in one place that he must meet you there again

Or god inhabits one place more than another because the same god that met jacob at bethel Is the same god that promises?

to be with him wherever he goes God doesn't say now come back and visit me often come back here to bethel keep stopping in every time you're through man

It would be great and we can we can hang out again have these have this dream thing again or whatever Some of us

I think in reality we look back at past successes past victories past things and we we almost get hung up and stuck on them and it's like live in the now

Right There are future blessings that god has for us

If we would open our eyes to what he's doing And that leads into this other idea Is that he says

I will never leave you until I have done what I have promised until I make it right with you Jacob until I to fulfill these things

How amazing that in this final text that I preach at this location god would draw our attention to a text

About his going with us on our journey his being with us

God broke into jacob's present in a way that dispelled his his fear and confusion about the future

He promised his presence with jacob specifically, but he has done so for us as well again

Lest you actually think that um, this is just a promise strictly for jacob. You can write this reference down hebrews 13 5 hebrews 13 5 where god tells us he will never leave or forsake his people a promise given to jacob

That's now expanded out to all of his children in the book of hebrews He will never leave us or forsake us

We should honor that he has met us in this place But we should also be glad that god will be with us next week as we move on to the schools

He would be present with us And the last conversion we need is found in our the way that we understand jacob's dream

It's found in again. You don't need to turn there, but you can jot it down. John 1 51 a really bizarre text the words of jesus really bizarre without understanding this

Dream that jacob had if you don't understand the dream you're going to have no clue what jesus is saying here

It's going to be like what in the world are you saying? But now when I read it, it will snap into focus

Listen to what jesus says the words of our lord and savior truly truly verily verily honestly honestly

I say to you you will see heaven opened and the angels of god ascending and descending

On the son of man You will see the angels ascending and descending not on a stairway not on a ladder

But on the son of man, what is the stairway?

What is the pathway between heaven and earth? How do how do the angels come and go on what basis is their interaction between the realm of heaven and the realm of earth

A mediator a god -given bridge a god -given stairway

And what jacob understood in fuzzy notions of like god is connected with the earth and he is

He is still working and he hasn't given up on us and he's still connected and he's still doing his work We find that we know specifically the name of the stairway

Jesus is his name He is the one He is jacob's ladder

Jesus christ the one on whom all Steps between heaven and earth are taken

Any step between here and there must be made on the back of the son of god the only pathway

The very work of god being planned out here on planet earth is being mediated through his son and his son alone

Our hope is a god -provided bridge between god and us God showed his plans being accomplished on the earth and the hope of jacob was on a god who gets things done on earth

In time and in space and we know that he did so through providing an ultimate sacrifice for us in a real time

In a real place just outside of jerusalem where jesus christ the stairway between heaven and earth

Gave up his life for you This morning if you're trusting jesus as your bridge between heaven and earth

Then I'd encourage you to please join us in communion as we pass that out this morning Reflect on his sacrifice for you

He took upon himself our punishment for our sins so that we can receive his righteousness and during communion

As we're passing it out and as you hold it in your hands and get a chance to take it You know whenever you feel led and whenever you're ready

Um Communion would be a great time to focus on these three conversions that we all need

Ask yourself first. Am I trusting in jesus as the bridge between me and god?

The only avenue for the favor of god to come to you as an individual is through Jesus christ.

He is the only pathway by which god's forgiveness mercy grace and good blessings come

Secondly ask what is the geography of god in my life? Celebrate and contemplate where he has met with you think about those times where he has shown himself to be powerful

Where he has shown himself to love you And then ask yourself am

I trusting that he is indeed with me and will never leave me or forsake me

So he wants to communicate to you this morning. I find encouragement in seeing the hand of god in the geography of my past But rather than being stuck in the past I trust god with the future knowing that he will indeed never leave us or forsake us father,

I thank you so much for your provision for us even in this text of of hope for the future of a of a

Of a healthy and good and excellent reflection on the past of what you have done here in this space

And we we thank you for that. We are grateful for the way that you have met us here I am grateful to you personally father for the way that you have developed me as a pastor through this location and through This space and the interactions i've had within these four walls

But father as we move on i'm grateful for your promise to be present with us wherever we go And father i'm, thank you.

I am thankful first and foremost and my greatest gratitude goes for the stairway that has been provided for us

That access to you comes through jesus christ And that you have provided a pathway between heaven and earth and it is your son jesus christ

I thank you for his sacrifice and even as we reflect on On his sacrifice for us during communion father as we take the juice and remember his body that was that was spilled out for us

And we remember his body through the cracker that was broken for us Father what pain and suffering he endured not just merely the physical nerve endings being severed in the the the pain in the

But also the heartache of being forsaken And then the weight of our sins placed on him for us

But I thank you so much for your son I thank you that it didn't end there, but the resurrection the glorious return of jesus christ

From the grave and then the hope that we have of his eventual return to claim us for his own

Father if there's anyone here who does not know that hope if there's anyone here Who has not yet seen the reality that jesus is the stairway that he is the hope that all interaction between heaven and earth comes on him father,