Genesis #26: The Blessing - Real Change
Notes
Transcript
Funny Duck
Try to fix him
Couldn’t
Funny Duck wasn’t the last time I tried to change someone or something that needed changing
Our attempts to changing people....
We can’t
What can?
Better question is WHO can? Answer: God.
More accurately, God’s love. Everything God does is out of love because that’s who God is… that’s his character. and God’s character never changes. So
God’s unchanging love changes everything.
God’s unchanging love changes everything.
The question for us is how do we encounter his love?
Relational Damage
Relational Damage
Look in our story today.
Last week...
J getting over on his brother and father
J getting the blessing - E wanting to kill J
R prepares to send J away to protect him and protect herself by having him get a wife from the family not the neighbors.
R tells I of the delima and I agrees
Now here we are in Chapter 28
1 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.
2 Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.
3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples.
4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.”
5 Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.
Relational Damage
Relational Damage
“You’ve got the blessing… now don’t be like your brother.”
J, he’s sort of like my old funny duck. Everyone knows what’s best for him and yet, he thinks he knows best.
I passes along the blessing of Abraham
J does what he’s told… runs for safety
What about E?
Human Effort
Human Effort
6 Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,”
7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram.
8 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac;
9 so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
Human Effort
Human Effort
E is now an outsider but he wants to be restored.
He hears that it’s a good thing to go to family for a wife… realizing his previous choice may have been what caused him problems before, he goes to another family member for a wife...
Problem is you can’t undo past wrong doings simply by doing good today.
Problem was he was partnering with an outsider to do that
Only way for the relationship to change is by the insiders.
He was trying to earn his restoration.
EARNING POSITIVE INFLUENCE
J shows us another way to find real change.
Jacob running from his brother
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.
Human Effort
Human Effort
J isn’t expecting anything…
He’s in no place in particular… even though it is a particular place
Jacob on his way and encountered the presence of God.
The Dream
The Dream
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, and he said: “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.
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.”
The Dream
The Dream
God comes to Jacob and makes promises him the promise he had made to Abraham
Promises him the land
Descendants
He will bless the world
God is with him
God will bring him back
Won’t leave him
Now we have all seen the way Jacob had just done to blow up his family. There is no way that Jacob deserved this… adn I think he knew it. Everyone knew it.
Even God knew it, yet God promised.
Jacob wasn’t on a journey to discover his faith… yet that’s exactly what God is doing.
Look how Jacob responds to this encouter with God
The Reality
The Reality
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.”
The Reality
The Reality
Two statements jump out at me as we look at the change that is happening in Jacob.
First
“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
This strikes me as a warning that we may like Jacob, fail to recognize the presence of God in unexpected places.
The second:
This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.
This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.
Telling me that we may think the place where we met God is the only avenue for meeting Him. In fact, the way to heaven was open wherever Jacob went although he, like us didn’t always perceive it.
We see this reality take root in Jacob - after the
The Change
The Change
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.
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.”
The Change
The Change
When Jacob laid down the night before, he was on the run, alone. He had been told of God’s promise to his father and his grandfather, but to this point it’s just a story.
He wakes up to worship God.
Bethel - house of God
This has been a transformational moment in Jacob’s life.
What began as an escape, God has now turned into a mission
WE might read this as though Jacob is testing God… saying if he does this then Jacob will do that.
That’s a prayer that many of us have prayed… but what about Jacob?
Some scholars read it as Jacob is again testing God… Dealmaking like he has in the past. But I see it differently. Remember, he made the altar, then named the place the house of God, then he goes on to make a vow.
That reminds us that in the hebrew language there is another way to read this… that is understanding the if’s as to say “since”
Just as we pray that God will forgive… even though he promises to forgive. WE pray for food, clothing, protection, all things that God has promised for us… why? Because it’s how we share our heart with God.
THat’s part of how we encounter God. Just like we tell our family we love them.
What I think changed him is what changes people still today when we encounter God, his love.
It’s the most amazing thing, that when you experience it, it changes everything.
It changes how you see your spouse, your kids, your rowk, your church, your money, your hobbies.
When you get a glimpse of teh love of God for a broken and underserving human… it moves you. You can’t help but worship the Lord.
When Jesus began to call his disciples together in Galilee. Philip went and found his friend Nathanael and told him to come see Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael responded can anything good come from Nazareth? PHilip simply said, come and see.
A few moments later, Jesus woudl tell Nathanael:
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.”
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Nathanael would go on to follow Jesus as one of his disciples, Church history tells us that he, like th eother disciples, would eventually be martyred in death while in ministry in Armenia.
Why would they give their lives, not just to serve but to die for the gospel? Because of an experience with the love of God.
Nathanael wasn’t anything special. He was just a guy who’s friend invited him to come and see Jesus, yet his life was changed just like Jacob’s.
God’s love changes people… not that their character is changed, but GOd changes the direction of their life. He used the fisherman Nathanael to fish for men.. he used the stubborn craftiness of Jacob to build up a nation.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said to Zacchaeus:
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
THis transformation is what we call salvation. When God takes our life and redeems it. He saves us from living for ourselves… that which dies, and gives us a new life. A life with eternal purpose.
This is the change that Jacob experienced.
3 The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
We understand it as grace… the undeserved love of God. The love that God uses to draw us to him and transform us.
It’s not based on what we do, but on who he is. Some body needs to be reminded of this today. His love for you isn’t based on what you have done… how well you have been. He doesnt’ withhold his love based on how bad you have been.
His love is unfading and unquenchable.
His love is constant and close.
He wants us to know that, but more imporatnatly, he wants us to experience it. To see it, to feel it. The drawing you out is a change that is real.
Jacob woke up a man on a mission… not an escape.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For you.
Pause
God’s unchanging love changes everything.
God’s unchanging love changes everything.
How can we make a difference?
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Each person who calls our church home will experience the real presence and power of God.
Each person who calls our church home will be involved in showing and sharing God’s good news where ever we gather, where ever we live, and where ever we go.
Each person in our community will experience the tangible love of God through our ministries.
God's grace, working in and through us will serve as a rising tide for our entire community. We will we be changed individually, and the change in us will overflow and ripple out into every crack and corner of our community; touching every life, even those in the darkest corners. We will see hope rise again in our community as God's presence in our faith driven, hope-filled, graceful love draws people to Him.