May 7 2017 Getting Ahead 3 - God Meets Us Where We Are

We have been looking at the life of Jacob – and how to get ahead – the right ways and wrong ways – and Jacob mostly has the wrong ways. Jacob had stolen his father’s blessing and birthright – mostly by lying and deceiving his dying father – and Esau, his brother, is not a happy camper. He threatens to kill Jacob as soon as his father dies.

Gen. 28:10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran.

So Jacob heads out on a 550 mile journey to Harran. Jacob’s family was fairly wealthy - – probably with a small caravan of servants and livestock. There are two parallel long journeys in these passages – intertwined with it is Jacob’s journey of faith. As he moves toward Haran – he begins his journey of faith. Last week, he said to Isaac – “Your God” – and this tells us that family background is no guarantee of faith.

It tells us that long-term church attendance and doing all the right things is no guarantee of faith. In some of the best churches in the world are those who do not have faith. There are people who volunteer and others who LEAD ministries in churches, who have never begun their faith journey. Each person must choose to enter into that journey with God. Jacob had to choose to enter a faith journey himself. His parents could not do it for him – nor his grandparents. It is not enough to act right and have the right words. Faith is a heart issue. There are those with all the right words. Jesus Himself said – You call me Lord, Lord, but you have nothing to do with Me!

Second - Jacob’s experience has tremendous theological implications for us. First, every human soul has a tremendous capacity for evil or for good. Cindy and I watched “Birth of a Nation” – the Nat Turner rebellion in the South during slavery. At the time, the South was a very ‘Christian’, ‘church-going’ community. Without conversion – or a personal faith experience – we cannot do God’s good work. We MUST have a personal faith experience – conversion. We must at some point choose to enter a faith journey.

Third – our faith journeys – what we see with Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham – are very different. Some have this huge conversion at once. Paul – Saul – on the road to Damascus – has this huge experience. But others, like Jacob – it takes a long time – but there is always a choice – a point where we must choose faith.

There is a significant danger in trying to force a specific type of faith journey on ourselves or others. We think – this is how it happened for me – so this is how it must happen with you. Or we think – this is how it happened in the Bible – so it must happen that way for you.

What is the key? What is faith? What is the faith that God wants us to have now? It is faith in a person – the person of Jesus Christ. The Messiah. The Savior King. It is not a certain way of doing church – but believing and following Jesus’ simple gospel message: Follow Me! If He were here today – He would say this: Follow Me. And there would be choice to make – to follow Him or not.

Many have chosen to become religious or go to church, but they have never chosen to follow Him. He is the Messiah. That’s why we give Him that last name – Christ – it simply means Messiah.

As we try to reach people for Christ – there is a scale from one to ten – someone at 1 doesn’t want to have anything to do with God and a person at 10 is ready to jump out of the boat and follow Him. Our tendency is to want to force in a 1 to 10 experience. Sometimes, our witness may take someone from a 1 to a 2.5. Paul said – One person plants, another waters, but God causes the growth. Sometimes it is to take someone to a 10 – to come to faith – but more often than not, it is helping someone to get to the next spot on their journey.

Gen. 28:10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

You may have heard an old Spiritual – we are climbing Jacob’s ladder – a wonderful little song that theologically is a mess – but a wonderful little song – this ladder is more like a ziggurat – a pyramid type thing – and it was to be a stairway for the dead to climb to the heavens. And we think – this is kind of weird – we don’t think of God that way.

Jacob was an ancient citizen who lived among those who worshiped many gods. This stairway (ziggurat) would have been familiar to him. And it shows us that God approached Jacob in a culturally familiar way – and I think God does this for each of us – He accommodates Himself to our understanding in order to lead us to the truth.

Paul gave a sermon on Mars Hill in Athens. Picture our yard sale… - Think of each table being a table of little gods – tables of idols. Paul said to them – I see that you are a religious people… He takes them right where they are - we would get up and yell at them: “What are you doing! This is so wrong!” But Paul says – I see one of these is an inscription – to an unknown God – and let me explain to you what you don’t know about this unknown God… He meets them right where they are and takes them where they need to be.

That is what missionaries need to do – to speak in the heart language of the people they are reaching – not the way they are used to understanding.

In Jacob’s story – it is the angels that are climbing up and down this ziggurat – a portal to heaven – to use Star Trek terms.

We know where that portal is, don’t we? It is not in a black hole – and there is a place where heaven and earth are connected – but it is not a place – it is a man – where heaven and earth came together in Jesus.

Our emphasis is Jesus – Who He is – what He did. Our techniques and methods and presentations will and should change as we move into different cultures – but the message of Jesus never changes.

In the 70s and 80s – because of our culture – there was an enormous emphasis on having a personal relationship with God. And that was spot on for when I was an early teenager. It may not be appropriate today. But the message – that Jesus died for our sins – and rose from the dead – never changes – but the technique must adapt to where the people are. In the Far East, it takes a far different approach to tell that story.

We have the generic term for gods – but there is ONE who stands above – and it is Yahweh. From a theological perspective – this is monotheism. There is ONE God and it is Yahweh. We also discover that we don’t discover God, He discovers us. God revealed Himself to Jacob. You can’t make people discover

Gen. 28:13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD (Yahweh), the God (El) of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

First He is saying – Yahweh, I – am the Great God (El) – above them all.

God – He must reveal himself to people. God repeats the promise to Abraham – and he gives two more promises – First – I am with you.

15 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 have promised you." 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.“ 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Having God’s presence with us is the great equalizer in life.

These are important words to us too – God is with us. Jesus’ last words – I will be with you, always, even to the end of the age.

I will watch over you wherever you go – and I will bring you back.

The second promise is for protection and safety – He protects us because He is with us.

Jacob’s response reveals that his faith situation is not completely on the tracks yet…

He awakes –

This is the gate of heaven – His focus is on the place – not on whether he himself is ready to commit – and we will see that he is not.

This line in 16 – surely the Lord was in this place and I was not aware of it. So often the Lord is in a place with us and we are simply not aware of it. We are oblivious. God is with us always and most of the time we are oblivious.

There are three responses to God encountering us –

1- That was in the past…- but God doesn’t work that way anymore

Or 2 -That was a fairy tale and we need to look for the moral

And the third – discouragement – How come God doesn’t reveal Himself to me like that? God still reveals Himself and the life of faith can be a daily experience and awareness of God’s presence. It can be. God would like it to be.

Here are some reasons why it does not happen like that:

We expect it to happen the way it happened in the Bible – or in those great stories we hear – but the reality is that God meets each person uniquely – and it connects with a person’s cultural and faith understanding at the time. I know for me – God speaks differently. Maybe early in your Christianity – God did something – and now you go looking for it the rest of your life – but God wants to do something new.

We expect it to mimic the past. In my early Christian days – there was a popular biography of George Mueller. And he believed he should never tell anyone of the needs the orphanage had. And there are stories of bread trucks having flat tires and having to donate all the food.

But there are other ways that God wants to do this for you! The Bible doesn’t tell you that that is how God is going to do that for you! But He will meet your needs. I’ve tended to see – it rarely happens the same way for different believers – No one but Moses ever saw a burning bush.

Second – we think we have to be worthy for God to meet us. God met Jacob after his worst – and if we keep waiting to get better – it won’t happen.

Let me give you some ways to increase your chances of recognizing God’s presence:

FIRST – we must learn to reflect on times of seeing God’s presence. At the end of your workday – when you are driving home – you look back on your day to see where God was at work. Were there times in my day when things were going poorly and I responded rightly? Were there times of encouragement? Or maybe some things just worked out. Dave and Patty were taking Amy to Chicago – and they had the SUV and a trailer – and no place to park – and just then – two spots opened up. And Patty called Dave and CLAIMED those spots. “But it was only this morning that I recognized it as a God-thing.”

You see the Psalmist looking back on the past which allows us to look forward – a very simple practice – I do it at night right before bed – review the day – where was God – and where did I miss Him? As you see Him in the past – you will learn to see Him in the present and future.

Second – learn to creatively practice His presence. Use your imagination! We think – Christians aren’t supposed to use our imagination! God gave us this gift – and should we use it? Think of the amazing things that are out there – use your imagination to be creative to practice His presence.

I had this thing I would do – but don’t do it! Going through college – hiking around the Olentangy River – there were woods – the Lord longs to be gracious to you and He waits on high to have compassion on you – and I would look up and imagine God on high – longing to do me good.

You are driving in your car – and Jesus is with you. Find stuff that works for you. When you are going through something difficult – “we will either go through things WITH God or WITHOUT Him – it’s your choice!” You are going to go through it – and let Him go through it with you.

Gen. 28:18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

Beth – el – House of God –

Gen. 28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father's household, then the LORD will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."

Jacob is the Great Dealmaker. The Original Great Dealmaker. God told Abraham He would bless him if he followed God. Jacob tells God he will follow Him if He blesses him. We know that Abraham’s way is best – but more often than not, we are like Jacob – and the good news – God worked with him at that place.