Promises Bigger than the Problem
Genesis • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Claim: God met Jacob in the mess he had made and gave him promises far bigger than his problems.
Focus: In Christ those promises are ours, especially in hard times.
Function: To help people in hard times hold on to Christ's promises rather than wait for God to fix their circumstances.
Pray
When life goes wrong, most of us pray long and varied versions of the same prayer.
‘Lord, fix it.’
Get me the job.
Make the scan come back clear.
Bring my son home.
Make the money stretch to the end of the month.
And then, quietly, we keep score.
If it gets fixed, God was with me.
If it doesn't, we start to wonder.
[pause]
This afternoon, Jacob is in exactly that place.
Last Sunday we left him on the road.
He had cheated his brother out of the blessing.
His brother had sworn to kill him.
He’s deceived his father,
His mother had sent him away "for a few days".
He walks out of his family camp with a staff in his hand, and nothing else.
And he is not a runaway teenager.
Jacob is in his seventies.
An old man, sleeping rough, because of what he did.
So the question for this afternoon is simple.
What does God do for a person like that?
1. A HARD NIGHT GOD DIDN'T FIX — 28:10–11
1. A HARD NIGHT GOD DIDN'T FIX — 28:10–11
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.
Beersheba is the family home, down in the south.
Harran is his uncle's place, hundreds of miles north, in what is now Turkey.
And this spot is about sixty miles in. Two or three days' walk.
In that world, a traveller at dusk would look for a village, and someone would take him in.
Maybe there is no village, maybe nobody takes Jacob in.
He sleeps on the ground, with a stone by his head, or under his head, the origional text could mean either.
[the place]
Moses, who wrote Genesis, calls it "a certain place".
In Hebrew he says "the place" three times in verse 11.
Almost emphasising that this is a no-where place.
it's simply the spot where the sun went down.
It's a pretty bleak low point for Jacob.
Fix it Lord would be our prayer - maybe it was his,
But None of Jacob's problems are going to be fixed that night.
Esau will still be angry in the morning.
Rebekah's "few days" will turn into twenty years.
And Jacob, as far as we know, will never see his mother again.
Now, God is about to turn up in this story.
But he is not going to fix any of it.
We’re familiar with this feeling aren’t we?
'Well, If God were with me, this wouldn't be happening.'
How can he let this happen to me?
Or
" Well, I made this mess, so I'm on my own with it."
"I can just about believe God helps with the hard things that fall on us.
The diagnosis. The redundancy.
But the hard things we caused? Family fall out?
The friend we lied to?
Surely those are ours to carry."
But this is exactly where God comes to Jacob.
God will not fix his immediate problems.
And God often does not fix our hard nights,
Rather, God does something betterment, he…
2. PROMISES BIGGER THAN THE PROBLEM — 28:12–15
2. PROMISES BIGGER THAN THE PROBLEM — 28:12–15
Jacob falls asleep. And he dreams.
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. 13 There above it stood the Lord
The language of the ‘top reaching the heaven’ echoes for Jacob something in his history - another staircase.
Back in Genesis 11, people tried to build a tower at Babel - with the top to the heaven.
4 Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves;
That is religion the way we naturally do it.
We build up. We climb. We try to reach God.
And then hear what happens next.
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.
They build a tower to reach heaven.
And God has to come down just to see it.
And then he comes down again, in judgement.
7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’
So back in Jacobs dream, here is a picture of the true reality of the connection between heaven and Earth.
And it is the other way round. Nobody builds this stairway up, God sets it down.
And it lands next to the one man in the land who least deserves it.
in a nowhere place.
And then God speaks.
13b ‘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. 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.
These are the immense old promises, made to Abraham and to Isaac, now passed to Jacob.
And there is not one word about his life choices.
“Erm, Jacob, first you need to sort out what you did to your brother".
No conditions at all. Just "I am" and "I will".
And then four promises for Jacob himself.
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.’
I am with you.
I will watch over you.
I will bring you back.
I will not leave you.
[the point]
So here is what Jacob gets that night.
He does not get a fix.
He gets a future that includes ‘the whole world’.
With God with him until every word has come true.
All this, despite being a deceiving sinner!
Neither his actions or his circumstances seem to have any impact on God's ultimate promises for him.
It is God who blesses with Big promises despite him and despite us.
So what are the promises for us?
Jacob was promised a piece of land. Are we?
Jesus answers the question for us.
In John 1, a man called Nathanael comes to meet him,
and Jesus says something very pointed.
turn there with me
47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’
An Israelite with no deceit.
The opposite of Jacob, the deceiver, whose name became Israel.
51 He then added, ‘Very truly I tell you, you will see “heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on” the Son of Man.’
In the presence of the anti Jacob, Jesus reveals the reality of the stairway to heaven dream
Jesus is the true connection between heaven and earth.
Jesus is the stairway.
He is the descendant of Jacob who would bless all nations.
He is how heaven comes down to earth.
And He is the only way back up.
So every promise God made at Bethel reaches us through Jesus.
It’s as if Jacob is given a glimpse of how things are,
and unbelievably a glimpse, and picture, of Jesus: in whom the fulness of the great promises are possible.
So the promises:
Jacob was promised a land.
But Hebrews tells us, in Christ, it was a better promise than just an earthly land.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Jacob never saw the earthly fulfilment of these promises, but he knew they pointed to something better - to Christ Jesus, a kingly descendant - and His heavenly eternal city.
Jacob and his ancestors died in faith - waiting for the stairway from heaven to fulfil it all.
God doesn’t promise us a happy home now,
He promises Bigger!
A home that no redundancy, or relational breakdown, and no illness can take.
Jacob was also promised a family like the dust of the earth.
29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
We here and now and forever more, in Christ, are that blessed family.
Jacob was told, "I am with you."
Jesus says
18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
20 …And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’
Jacob was told, "I will watch over you wherever you go."
Jesus promises,
28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.
That is a promise about our souls, not our cars or our pensions.
No quick fix - something much better and bigger!
Jacob was told, "I will not leave you until I have done what I promised."
We are reminded in
6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Jacob was told, "I will bring you back."
Jesus promises,
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
We never need begrudge the earthly hand we are given by God, or demand or expect him to fix it now.
Because we are recipients of far bigger promises!
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
‘Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.’
God does not always come down in our hard times to fix them.
But he has come down in Jesus, to give us far better promises.
So how do we respond..
3. GOD WAS HERE, SO WE CAN PRAY SMALL — 28:16–22
3. GOD WAS HERE, SO WE CAN PRAY SMALL — 28:16–22
Jacob wakes up.
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.’
You’d think Jacob would realise by now that God is with him - yet he wakes up and thinks God is in ‘this place’
He’s still confused about how he receives God’s promises in a few ways I think.
God had been 'in this no-where place' the whole time. Jacob had felt nothing.
‘I was not aware of it.’
So our responce to God's promises should not be driven by our feelings but by God's facts.
‘We went to Revive or Summit Youth camp, and the worship was loud and powerful, and we felt close to God.
Then we come to normal Sunday church,
or get to school or work on Monday, and the feeling goes.
And we decide God must have gone with it.’
Based on our feelings and experience, We conclude there must be more than what we have of God here or now.
Other places have God more than us.
Jacob felt nothing at first - but God was there with him.
God's presence does not rise and fall with our feelings or sit in church until we come back next week.
.
It rests on his promise. I am with you.
So we don't respond based on our feelings.
But surely, this place is special? Jacob thinks so:
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.
The stone by his head becomes a marker. The oil sets it apart for God.
And the place gets a name. Bethel. Meaning "House of God".
Again, Perhaps we’re tempted again to think that God is more present in certain places and certain experiences.
Well it’s worth knowing that Centuries later, a king of Israel called Jeroboam put a idolatrous golden calf in Bethel
1 Kings 12:28 — He said to the people… 'Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.'
Bethel became famous. Popular. Official. Crowds went there to worship.
But it was teaching the wrong thing. Pointing to a false god!
The prophet Hosea later then made a play on the word bethel and gave it a new name. Beth Aven. "House of wickedness".
A famous name and a big crowd and special ‘place’ do not prove that God is there.
The same is true today.
We see famous preachers and their ministries fail,
we see great cathedrals and ornate churches now devoid of biblical truth.
We see massive auditoriums full of worshipping people and assume God must be moving in that place.
One of the best-known ministies in the world today is ironically called "Bethel" after this very passage where Jacob renames this ‘place’ Bethel - the house of God.
But Bethel Ministries misses the point of this passage.
It teaches that it is always God's will to heal.
Or you can receive blessings and grace by lying on the graves of dead Christians.
And if healing or blessing doesn't come, the problem must be on our side
— not enough faith, not enough breakthrough.
But The real Bethel says the opposite.
There was no healing for Jacob's situation at Bethel!
And ironically God came to a man who was lacking faith and breakthrough entirely!
But Jacob received something so much bigger!
God gave him promises instead.
It’s a travesty to offer a lesser gift of healing from physical circumstances, when God is offering something so much better to us!
That is why as a church, we don't sing Bethel songs or elevation music and few others.
We don't want anyone to think the feelings, the packed crowds, the famous names or even a famous place are what it's all about.
And the Bible certainly does not want us to settle for the false promises they offer - a quick lifestyle fix.
Because God actually offers us so much more ‘Christ with us, now and forever more’.
Jacob had apparently no faith and yet received great promises,
let us not look for mini circumstantial wins with lots of faith,
while forgetting the grace of God and his wildly better promises.
Places, big names, crowds, experiences don't keep God.
Only one connection exists between heaven and earth - and it's Jesus Christ as teenaged in His own Word the Bible.
And so, we respond to his promises in faith and something Jacob now does well: small prayers:
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 asks for three things. Food. Clothes. A safe way home.
God has just promised him that the whole world will be blessed through him.
And Jacob asks for bread.
It’s as if he realises that if God is with Him,
he can face anything,
he just needs what he literally needs - for Him to see God’s promises fulfilled.
Nothing more. No great riches, no instantly restored human relationship.
He needs bread, clothes and survival.
That is a hard-pressed man praying honestly.
His 'if's', in context, are not a bargaining with God.
It is weak faith holding on to what God said.
No declaring your breakthrough. Naming it and claiming it.
Jacob does not command or claim anything. He asks for bread.
He offers no seed - God I'll give you money if you give me more.
He just commits to give back 10% of what God has already given him.
He doesn't’ give to get more, he gives because he’s been given something.
Jacob the grabber, who took his brother's birthright and stole his blessing, starts to give back.
Praying for bread is a tiny small prayer isn’t it?.
But it’s perfect.
And Jesus teaches us to do the same.
He promises us forgiveness of sins and a life everlasting,
and yet while we wait we pray,
‘Give us today our daily bread.’
Of course we can pray big - when we are praying for God's promises to be fulfilled,
but when it comes to ‘us,’
we can be humble - knowing we are richly blessed.
How freeing to Pray small
- pray for just enough to get through our earthly journey as we are perfected for eternal life.
I’ll say that again because I think that is the key to Jacobs prayer here:
- pray for just enough to get through our earthly journey as we are perfected for eternal life.
So this week.
When life goes wrong, we can still pray "fix it". But let's pray even more for enough bread to get through it, as we trust God's big promises in it.
‘To know Jesus is with us.
To know our salvation is in him, not us.’
When we feel nothing, we won't assume God has gone
Because Bethel was not God’s House
But one day through Christ when he returns, we will be safely delivered to God’s House.
That is a big promise;
3 …, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
Amen
