1 Rose Hill Presbyterian Genesis 28:10-20 Rev. Brian North January 19 th, 2014 Dare to Dream Kirkland, WA Dreaming of a Stairway to Heaven

Transcription

1 1 Rose Hill Presbyterian Genesis 28:10-20 Rev. Brian North January 19 th, 2014 Dare to Dream Kirkland, WA Dreaming of a Stairway to Heaven There's a well-known rock and roll song that was recorded in 1971 called, Stairway to Heaven. And the opening lines of the song are, There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold, And she's buying a stairway to heaven. The fallacy in the song is that you have to, or even can, buy your stairway to heaven. That's not the case. In fact, you can't buy it. You just have to come to rest on the rock of ages, Jesus Christ. And this morning's passage gives us a clear message of God, in his grace and mercy, offering that free gift. Jacob is fleeing from Esau, his brother, to his uncle's home. Jacob is in at least his 40's here, and some commentators say he's as old as his 70's at this point. And he's just now leaving the house. You know, in the last few years there s been a lot in magazines, websites, newspapers, and so forth especially ones devoted to parenting, marriage and societal trends about how kids are slow to move out of their parents homes these days especially young men. They re ill-equipped for the world, stuck on playing video games, have very little sense of responsibility, no ambition, and so forth. We parents can do a better job of raising our sons. Well, it s nothing new, because Jacob is at least 40 here, the X-Box One is still a few thousand years away from being released and he s just now stepping out on his own! But at last, he is. He leaves his familiar surroundings and heads off for a new place, a new land though his motives aren t what we might think, and we ll get to that a bit later. So he leaves home, and at some point, he comes to a certain place where he has to stay the night. This place is so remote, it's not even named. At one time it had been named Luz, as we're told near the end of the passage. At the end of his encouter, he calls it Bethel, which means House of God. But when he arrives there, the best we can be told is that it's a certain place (v.11). My friends, Jacob is in the middle of nowhere. He's not exactly near a Hyatt Regency, let alone a Motel 6 or even a camp ground with outhouse toilets. So he does exactly anyone would logically do in this kind of situation when camping out in the middle of the wilderness: he grabs a rock for a pillow.

2 I don t know about you but if I m out in the woods and need a place to sleep, a rock is about the last thing I d grab for a pillow. I don t even like the pillows that most hotels have because they re too firm. A rock would be ridiculous. But that's what he did. He laid his head on the rock. He slept on the rock. And God spoke to him through a dream while his head rested on that rock. That must have been some rock! And while sleeping with his head on that rock he encountered God, and there are some stunning visual things in this picture. First, he dreamed that there was a ladder, or a stairway, to heaven, and on it were angels traveling up and down between heaven and earth. The good news in the visual aspect of the dream is that there is traffic, there is communication, there is interaction, between heaven and earth. Earth is not left to its own devices, or forces beyond our control. Earth is not a cosmological toy top set spinning in the universe never again to be considered by God as He rests in his heavenly realm. Rather: The physical and the spiritual are in relation to one another. Heaven has to do with earth, and earth can depend on the resources of heaven. Now, Jacob presumed that he traveled alone. But the fact is, the Lord was with him. The angels are with him. He is not alone. He is not cut off from heaven, but rather there is an ongoing connection between heaven and earth, and that is good news to Jacob and it is good news to you and it is good news to me. Because: It means we have all of heaven on our side. God is for us, not against us. God is on your side, and He is for you, not against you. The text then tells us that in his dream, the LORD stood above it. (Above the ladder.) This can also be translated as, The LORD stood beside him. This is beyond anything that Jacob could ever have conceived, because at this point, the Israelites had no physical representation of God by which Jacob could know that God was standing next to him or at the top of the stairway. For you or me, we might be able to say we had a dream where Jesus appeared to us, and maybe you'd know that in part by the physical appearance in the dream of Jesus. But they had no physical representation to use. Something or someone in the dream, however, which represented God was in this dream with Jacob. 2

3 You ll also see that it says, the LORD, with the all capital-letters version of LORD. When you see this in the text of your Bibles you know that there is extra weight placed on God's presence. LORD in all capitals represents the Hebrew word, Yahweh which the Israelites thought to be such a holy name that they wouldn't pronounce it. They wouldn't utter it wouldn t even spell it out completely. They had other names that they called God when speaking of him, such as Adonai and Jehovah. So, if you were to rate the holiness of this dream encounter on a scale of 1 to 10, this would be an 11. Of course, any kind of encounter with God is holy, but when Yahweh is used, it's like saying, this is extra-holy. Besides the stunning visual aspect of the dream of the stairway and angels and presence of God next to him, God also speaks to Jacob. The temptation is to dwell on the visual part of this dream, with the angels going up and down between heaven and earth, and God s presence in it, too. But the force of the dream is in God s words to Jacob. That's the part of the dream that Jacob responds to. That's the part of the dream that impacts us and has power in our lives today. First, He lets Jacob know who He is: He's the God of Abraham and Isaac. This is not some foreign God or alternative deity. This is not just a spiritual experience. This is an experience with God Almighty. It's important that Jacob understood this and knew who it was that was coming to him in this dream. Many people today have spiritual experiences. People are interested in the spiritual realm. They experience spirituality. But if it's not the LORD they re experiencing; if it s not the triune God of the universe, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then it's a half-baked, counterfeit experience. First John 4:1 tells us, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God (1 John 4:1). God is revealing to Jacob who it is that is coming to him in this dream. This is the God of Creation, God of his ancestors, the one who has made extraordinary promises to them. It's this same God who is appearing to him now in this dream. Then the Lord makes this promise to Jacob that he will bless him. He is going 3

4 to have a homeland in fact it's the land he's on right now. He's going to have offspring and not just one or two. But like the dust of the earth. That's the part of the dream where I'd say, Lord, that s a bit too much. I don't want offspring numbering like the dust of the earth...that s way too many. But, God's not referring to biological children. He's talking about the legacy of faith that will be passed on to the generations that will follow. And God says that they too shall be blessed by Him. These are biological and also spiritual offspring, and they will be to the north, the south, the east, and the west; beyond the land the Lord is promising to him here. Then God makes a promise to him that is more personal: I am with you...i will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you (Genesis 28:15). You see, this God who comes to Jacob, and to us, is not will-nilly, flying by the seat of his pants here one day and somewhere else the next. He promises his very self to us. He is committed. He will not leave Jacob. And he will not leave you until he's done what he's promised...which actually sounds kind of crummy, because when he s finished we don t want him to leave. I want to say to God: If you re going to leave when you re finished then don t finish, please! But the Good News here is that He s never finished, and his promise is to be with us for eternity. He's promised his very being and presence to us. So he will never leave us or forsake us. And that promise continues to come to us in Jesus Christ, who is called Emmanuel, which means, God with us. There s the promise again. And he s the one who prepares a place for us in his father s house, so that we might be with him there forever. So God s promise to Jacob not to leave him, which is also for you and me, has no end. And then, Jacob wakes up from his sleep, and the dream is over, but the implications of the dream are not. His immediate response is, Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it! (Genesis 28:16). Here we see this continuation of God's presence with him. God is in this place and he had not realized it. He thought he was alone, but he was not. He thought that he was abandoned by God. He thought that in his fleeing from his dad and his brother he had also fled from God. So often that is true for us, too. We don t realize God s presence with us. We think we ve done something to turn God away from us, or that we ve run away from him, or that He just doesn t care. 4

5 But that s not the case. He s with us, even when we re not aware. 5 So God is with him, right in the midst of his trials and in the middle of nowhere, and now Jacob realizes that. And at this moment, after all these years of growing up in a God-fearing and God-honoring family, Jacob finally gets it. He finally makes his faith His own. The God of creation who came to him in his dream is the God of Abraham and Isaac his grandfather and father he s been in a believing household but until now Yahweh has not been Jacob's Lord. But this is where he steps up and takes ownership for his faith. And we see this concretely when he wakes up in the morning, and his response is an act of worship, though we have to admit his verbal expression of his faith is a bit shaky. He says, If God will be with me, protect me, provide for me... and so forth, then the Lord shall be my God and this stone...shall be God's house. It s a little bit tentative no church is going to adopt it as a statement of faith but it s a step in the right direction, and it s a step in a new direction. He s turning his life around, he s giving it over to God, and he s getting his life on track with God s will, as he claims his own faith. Then he takes the rock his head had rested on, turns it on end and consecrates it by pouring oil over it. By doing this, he is simply establishing a marker to recall this meeting with God. It's like a spiritual memory book, and is his way of responding in worship to the Lord. And then he pledges to give one-tenth of everything to God. He s dedicating not just his body and mind and soul to God, but his stuff, too. Jacob's experience in the wilderness with the Lord of everything speaks volumes for us today, if only we'd let it. I ve highlighted a couple things already, but there are three main points for us to take away from this. First of all, we see here (again) that God works through dreams. This is our third Sunday in a row where the dream we're looking at is the kind of dream you have when you're sleeping. And in all three, we see that God speaks and works through dreams. He gives us hope for the future; he stirs our conscience with regards to our past so that we might confess to Him. God uses dreams.

6 In my previous church there was a gal who had a dream that led to a very difficult period in her and her husband s life. They gave me permission not long after the events to share with others as I felt led. I don t remember the content of her dream, but in the morning when she woke up she knew that she had to ask her husband if he had had an affair. Something in the dream told her that he had. And in fact, he confessed after she asked, that he had. Needless to say, that led to a very challenging time in their marriage. The amazing thing is that they had just started going to church with us after not being in any church in a few years. And because they had started coming, she had the faith and support to get through it. They worked hard on their marriage, on forgiveness, on rebuilding trust and they are a shining example of forgiveness, healing, restoration and the grace of God. And if they were here this morning, they would tell you that their marriage is much stronger than it was prior to the dream and her confrontation of her husband. But it all started with a dream that she had, completely out of the blue. Now, not every dream comes from God...some dreams that seem very odd or unusual and we might think are from God are simply a result of eating the wrong thing at dinner, like onions, or listening to country music before going to bed. So not all dreams come from the Lord, and it usually takes some discernment and prayer to figure that out. But God does use dreams to speak to us. And we see that in Jacob s dream, just like Pharaoh last week and Joseph two weeks ago. Secondly, this passage reminds us that we need not be perfect for God to come to us. My goodness, we need to hear that in our lives! We've already talked about Jacob's late blooming. But also he's a thief and a liar (see Genesis 27). He lied to his dad and stole from his brother. In fact, he s the first person recorded in history to commit identity theft give him credit, maybe, for being ahead of his time on that one. He stole his brother s identity, and then stole his blessing from their father. And that s why he finally left home: to try and escape the guilt of lying to his dad and to escape the wrath of his brother who wanted to kill him. And yet God comes to him and makes this promise in the middle of his flight from home. And: If Jacob (a thief and liar) can be found by God, then God can get a hold of anyone and transform them, including 6

7 you and me. 7 I m willing to bet that there are some of us here this morning who feel like we re on the run: we re running from God, from another person, or perhaps from our own past. Maybe you've really screwed up in your life, and have a past that you wish you could throw into a 6 foot deep hole and bury. Maybe you've felt that you just aren't good enough to come to God, let alone for God come to you. But God does exactly that. It s not that he doesn t care about your past. It s that he cares about your future even more. And so if you re a little like Jacob and you re trying to get away from someone or something, you need to know that God is here right now, speaking to you through this passage and he s beckoning you to turn your life around and follow him just as Jacob did. And that brings us to the third point we learn today: God will meet you in the most unexpected places. A spiritual encounter with God is not what Jacob was looking for. He is not in church here. He s not even at a church luncheon or committee meeting or prayer gathering. He is in no-man's land. Nothing is expected to happen there, because there is nothing there except a rock to use as a pillow. God comes to him in this dream at God's initiative, and it's totally unexpected by Jacob. Jacob is in a place in life, because of what he's done and because of where he is, that he just is not out looking for God. He's running for his life. And yet that doesn't stop God from coming to him, even in this unexpected time and place. And if God wants to love Jacob, get a hold of him, save him, and transform him...then he can do that with anyone who will let Him, and He will do it in the most unexpected places and times in our lives even when we re down to nothing, and we re using rocks for pillows. And Jacob wakes up and says, even if it's a bit tentatively, I'm ready. I want you in my life. I want to turn this ship around and follow you. I want you to be my Lord. And I'm committing my life and my stuff and my time and my energy to you. Jacob is open to God. He responds to God. It's not his grandfather Abraham's faith...it's not his dad Isaac's faith...it's Jacob's. His faith is finally his own. And it all started with a dream with his head on a rock while he was

8 on the run from his family and even his own past in a place where he never expected to meet God. 8 But you see, there was no better place to put his head for rest than on the rock, and there's no better place for us to come to rest than on the rock as well. Let that rock be the rock of ages. Let that rock be the rock of life, the foundation upon which everything seen and unseen ultimately comes to rest. Let that rock be Jesus. Is there any better place to come to rest? Is there any better place to lay your burdens down and take a break from life's troubles, struggles, challenges, and difficulties? Is there any better place or person to give us rest when we re tired and weary? There isn t. Jesus is the rock that weathers the storms and the only one worth building our lives on. God wants your weary head, your tired body, your restless soul, on Him, the Rock of Ages. Let s stop running, and start following. Let's rest on Him. Just like Jacob, God wants you to turn your back on your past and follow him. He is the God who will be with you, he will keep you, he will provide for you in this life and in the life to come. It doesn't matter where you've been or where you are; it doesn't matter what you've done or what you're doing: God loves you, he promises himself to you, he wants to save you, he wants to transform you. He wants you to leave everything behind, to turn things around, and follow him. Contrary to the song, you can't buy your stairway to heaven. You can t fabricate a spiritual experience or relationship with the Lord. It comes from him. It's a gift from God that he wants to give to you and to me right now. And our response is simply to turn away from our past, follow God, and worship Him. Let's pray...amen.