December 8, 2019
Genesis 28:10-22
Frank Bowden

Sermon Notes

There is a power in presence. Not presents under the Christmas tree, but presence. -knowing that someone is near you, close by, there. And we feel angst when we feel like we are alone or unsure of things. 

I have a funny story from my childhood about being alone. I was maybe elementary age, and it was one of those lazy afternoons when the whole family was lying around, taking naps. I was watching an episode of my favorite kids TV show, McGee and Me. 

Well, I fell asleep. And you know how, when you nap in the daytime, you wake up completely unaware of time, space, and your surroundings? You’re just in a complete fog. That was me. I woke up and started looking for my mom and dad, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I looked all over downstairs and checked outside. Nothing. I started to get worried that they had left me, thinking they’d be back before I woke up. And now, they weren’t. I didn’t know what to do, and I really started to panic. I thought, I need to tell somebody.  

Our nearest neighbor was about ten acres away through the woods. So, I hiked a path to his house and started banging on the back door. Jimmy was his name. He answered the door and was like, “Frank! Bud, what’s the matter?” I told him, “Mr. Jimmy, I can’t find my mom and dad anywhere.” 

He knew my parents well, so he knew there was zero chance they would have left me. So, he said, “Did you check upstairs?” By that point I was much more awake and thought, Ohhhhhhhh. Nope. I hiked back home, went upstairs, and sure enough, the whole family was up there just hanging out. They had been there the whole time, but I was convinced I was away from the presence of my family, even in my own home. 

I’d be willing to bet that all of us at one time or another has experienced the feeling of being alone. Maybe it was because you moved to a new community or started a new job. It could have been during a hospital stay, or maybe someone really close to you passed away. Whatever the circumstances, you were really unsure about things, in a fog trying to get your bearings.  

In our text today, we’re going to read a story about Jacob during a time when he felt most alone and unsure. We’ll talk about how the Lord reassured him of His presence and some promises for Jacob to hold on to. And there are some truths for you and me to learn from Jacob’s experience. 

We’re going to be in Genesis 28 today. To set the scene for us, we need to know what has happened already to make sense of what we’re reading today. We meet up with Jacob on the run. Why is that? -you might ask. Genesis 27:41 gives us that answer. Esau (his brother) held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” 

This is when we would say, “What had happened was…” Jacob and his mother pulled this scheme and deceived his father, Isaac, who wanted to give the older brother, Esau, a special blessing before he died. This blessing is significant because it essentially transferred the ruling power over the family from father to son. It was supposed to go to the older brother, Esau, but Jacob stole it. 

That obviously made Esau very angry, and in an attempt to save her son’s life, Mom said, “Jacob, you need to go to my brother’s house in Haran for a few days. When your brother calms down, I’ll send for you to come back.” Now, Haran is about 500 miles away, and we meet Jacob here about two days into this journey. Let’s read together:   

Genesis 28:10-15
10 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 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. 14 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. 15 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.”

A. You can’t outrun God’s presence

This is a wild dream for Jacob, and something we learn here is that you can’t outrun God’s presence. You may be on the run. You may feel all alone. But Jacob learns, no matter where you are running to or who you are running from, you can’t outrun God’s presence. Let’s unpack that statement a little bit.

Jacob arrives at the outskirts of the city of Luz, and instead of going inside the city and finding a room, he was out in what would be called “the wilderness”, lying on the ground with a rock as a pillow.  This is interesting to me, because it was a societal norm that visitors in a city would be extended hospitality for a night. So, either Jacob arrived well after the city gates had closed, or he was feeling so depressed that he didn’t even bother to go in and ask for a room.  

We don’t exactly know what was going through his head as he tried to sleep. Did he have regrets over his actions toward his brother? Was he mad at his mother or worried about his aging dad? Maybe he was feeling sorry for himself… I’m sure he was feeling a little bit of all of those things, but for the first time in his life, Jacob realized he was truly alone. Homeless. Broke. Helpless. Alone. Now he had only himself to blame. He was the one who cheated his brother. He was the one who lied to dad. He was the deceitful one (this will be important for us a little later). There wasn’t much good in Jacob’s character.

While he slept, he has this incredibly vivid dream. Most of my dreams leave me scratching my head wondering how that got in there, but this was not a typical dream for Jacob. He knew right away it was a message from God. This is what Jacob heard from the Lord. Look back at verses 12-13: 

Genesis 28:12-13

12And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.”

God had never spoken to Jacob before. This is a major moment for him.  All the years of his life, God had never spoken directly to him. His grandfather, Abraham, experienced it. His dad, Isaac, experienced it. But Jacob, for his whole life, had lived on borrowed faith; it was a second-hand reality. 

The amazing thing here is, the moment God chooses to speak to Jacob is in his most desperate, rock-bottom state. In his dream, Jacob saw a ladder reaching from Heaven all the way down to Earth. “Jacob’s ladder” is kind of a reverse Tower of Babel. Instead of sinful man building a tower to Heaven and trying to reach God, this ladder (or staircase) is coming down from Heaven to sinful man with the angels of God going up and down it. 

Jacob may have thought that God was just too big and busy to notice him. It’s a big world, and everybody has problems. We think, God doesn’t have time to worry about me. You may even feel that way. The reality is, God is closer to you than you think. The heavenly realm is consistently interacting with this world in ways that lie beyond what the human mind can comprehend and what our eyes can see. 

God is saying to Jacob, “When you travel, my stairway travels with you. I was with you in Beersheba. I was with you when you tricked Esau. I was with you when you deceived your father. I am with you tonight. And I will be with you in Haran. Everywhere you go, I will go with you.” It’s a message about the nearness, or presence, of God. And to help Jacob understand it, He gives him a few promises to hold on to. Here are three things you can remind yourself of about the presence of God the next time you feel alone, abandoned, anxious, etc., and we see these three promises in this text:

1. He is here

In Jacob’s day, it was common to think of God as being very territorial. In other words, there was a god who oversaw your city, but only your city. Other gods governed other cities. So, for Jacob, it might have seemed that he had literally left the presence and protection of God. God reminds Jacob that He is present. In theological terms, we could say that God affirms His omnipresence. He is present everywhere. We are never outside of His domain. 

David understood this when he wrote in Psalm 139, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast.”

Jesus told his disciples, “…I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.” The message is simple: You may feel alone, but you are NOT alone. We must rely on truth and not feelings in the lonely times.

2. He is working

The Lord tells Jacob, “I am the LORD the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying…I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised.” Jacob may have felt that God had forgotten Him. But, God reaffirmed the promise He had made to Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 28:

a. I will give you this land; You will have a home (v 13).

b. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth (v 14). “Hey, good news! You’re going to find a wife.”

c. All peoples on the earth will be blessed through you; you won’t be insignificant (v 14). 

d. I will watch over you wherever you go; be confident in your future (v 15).

e. I will bring you back to this land (v 15)

f. I will not leave you; don’t fear failure (v 15)

I think it’s beautiful when you read of God reaffirming these promises to Jacob. -how they are meeting that current need or feeling he is having, while at the same time projecting what is going to happen in the future through him.

John Piper said, “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” God is not absent. He is involved and at work in your life. If you are a child of God, you can be certain that He has not forgotten you. Just because we don’t see what He is doing, it doesn’t mean He isn’t doing anything.

3. He is committed

God tells Jacob that He will be with him until He fulfills His promise to him. Do you understand how incredible this is? Jacob has acted like a fool. He has deceived his father and brother. He has lied and stolen, and now he is being chased from his home. And in this setting, under these circumstances, God still says, “Hey, I’m going to see this through with you.” Paul wrote “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6).”

It’s possible that you feel all alone because you have failed. You have done foolish things and believe that you don’t deserve any friends. The truth is, that may be true. You certainly don’t deserve to be loved by God, and neither do I. But, the message is simple: God is committed to you even though you may be weak in your commitment to Him. If you really wanted to sum up this entire sermon in one sentence, it would be this:

God delivers on His promises because He is faithful, not because we are good.

Think about it for a moment. At this point Jacob feels: guilty about his past, fearful of the future, and uncertain about his present. To all of that, God simply says, “I will be with you.” It’s a total solution to guilt, fear and anxiety. Through all of this, Jacob is learning the lesson that there is no place he can go where God is not already there. Once you get that, everything else starts to change. Here’s the second lesson for us today from Jacob’s experience:

B. Awareness of God’s presence changes everything

Genesis 28:16-22
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 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.” 18 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 the top of it. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 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, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, 22 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 tenth to you.”

Something for us to be reminded of is, our awareness of God’s presence radically changes our perspective. There is example after example of this throughout Scripture. Think about a tired Israelite halfway through the journey in the wilderness and looking up at night seeing the pillar of fire and being able to say to his family, “It’s okay; God is with us.”

Or think about Moses coming to the burning bush during his self-imposed exile in Exodus 3:2-6. Think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace in Daniel 3:24-25 or the disciples sitting in the boat during a storm, scared to death and hearing Jesus say, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid (Matt. 14:22-27).”

Example after example reminds us that God’s presence changes everything. We used this word a little while ago to describe God being everywhere: omnipresence.  But, can I ask a really honest question? If God is present everywhere, why do I sometimes feel He is so far away? It is okay if that’s you. 

I think it’s helpful and good for us during those seasons to know the difference between God’s omnipresence and his manifest presence. God’s omnipresence means He is there at all times, even when awareness is not. His manifest presence is those moments when He chooses to reveal Himself to you. It is something that is sometimes experienced and sometimes not.  

The promise of Scripture is that God is always present with us. Hebrews 13:5 says, “…I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So, we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” Nothing changes that fact; the only thing that actually changes is our awareness. 

God’s promise to Jacob was, “Look, I am with you … (Genesis 28:15).” When Jacob woke up, it was as if everything clicked for the first time. He said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Then Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it.

He called the place Bethel, or House of God. Then he made a vow to serve God faithfully and to worship God on that same spot when he returned. He vowed to give God a tithe (one-tenth) of all his wealth (verses 18-22). Jacob’s response comes with some criticism from some Bible commentators. They say this is a conditional response. “If you do this, then I’ll do ___.” But I think that is somewhat unfair and applying his past reputation to this situation. 

I believe that his vow better reads “since” in verse 20, which significantly changes how you take his statement. “Lord, I am taking you at your word. I believe you will do what you said, and therefore, I am committing myself to you wholeheartedly.” I think this is a great statement of faith.

This spot for him will be a great reminder of His encounter with God. I would call it a distinguishing marker for him to serve as a reminder of God’s faithfulness and goodness, even when he has acted a fool. I don’t know all of your stories, what you’ve done, been through, or where you currently are. But, here is some really good news for all of us: Romans 8 says that there isn’t anything that can separate us from our Lord. 

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).” 

I think the greatest promise in today’s story is actually in the New Testament telling of it in John 1. 

John 1:47-51

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you,[a] you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus promises here that He is the ladder. He is the one who bridges the gap between God and humanity. Jesus has come to rescue us and restore us to a right relationship with God.  

Next Steps

• Today I stop running from God, and give my life to Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
• Pray that I have an opportunity this week to share Jesus with a neighbor or co-worker.
• I’m in a season of suffering and difficulty. Pray that I can find peace in God’s promises and presence.

Discussion Questions

1. As you heard about Jacob’s life and current situation, what about his story surprised you? Where do you find similarities in your own story to his?
2. Read Romans 8:38-39. What promise is being made to you in those verses? How does that make you feel?
3. How did Jacob respond in verses 17-19 after his dream? Why is that significant?
4. What are some practical ways this week you can be reminded of God’s promises to you?