Awesome God

Lent 3

March 19, 2000

Genesis 28:10-22

Goal: That the hearer be motivated to greater consecration and service by the sheer awesomeness of God.

Our POBLO missionary, Amir Kahn, was telling me this past week about how they go about reaching out to Muslims and others religions. It fascinated me to find out that if we were to approach them with the bible right away, they would not listen because to them the bible is not truth. He further went on to say that they witness to the Muslim through the Koran. The most amazing thing though is how the Koran bears witness to Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his death and many other things. Then the thought hit me: Our God is awesome, indeed! Everything in the Bible is so true. The prophet Isaiah speaking as the mouth of God says:

22 “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. 24 They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.’” All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. 25 But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.

What an awesome vision of mission and ministry the Lord gives us through Isaiah. What an awesome task lays prepared for this congregation as POBLO begins its work at our doorstep. What an awesome vision to have.

Awesome Vision: Discussing Jacob’s vision of the ladder Luther said, “A dream may be useful if it both is analogous to the present and moves and disturbs the dreamer.

Consider how disturbing Jacob’s dream was: “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.” So what might we have as our own from this vision? From it we know that we are not alone in our troubles. The stairway is a symbol of God’s presence and fellowship with his people.

The angels ascending and descending are there to take our anxieties and petitions to God, and bring back to us his forgiveness and strength. Let me illustrate this.

Illustration: Apart from certain exceptions, such as we find in Mt 28:2-3, angels have normally appeared as ordinary people. The three men who appeared to Abraham, the two angels who went to Sodom and were invited into Lot’s house, the man who wrestled with Jacob all night, are but a few examples. There are other extra-biblical angelic appearances reported.

One such report is of a missionary in a third-world country who had to travel through an area that was controlled by guerrillas. As he traveled, he prayed for safety, left himself in the Lord’s hands, and arrived at his destination without incident—so he thought. Later, the missionary met a recent convert who had been a guerrilla. This man told him that he was once with a patrol that found a missionary sleeping in a clearing one night. They would have killed him had he not been guarded by 28 armed men. The missionary could not understand this, until later, when he spoke to a congregation in America that had been supporting him. One of the men present checked out with him the date of that event and then said: “Yes, on that day, I was compelled to organize an all-night prayer session for you. I called together all the men I could; there were 28 of us!”

In a very similarly way, Luther has said that “a preacher must ascend through prayer to receive God’s Word and doctrine, then descend to teach his people.” Now, I am not claiming to be an angel. But I do claim to preach God’s Word, which brings the awesome promise and blessing of God to bear directly on your lives.

Awesome Promise! Remember how Jacob, at his mother’s prodding, tried so hard to obtain his father Isaac’s blessing. He did get it, even though he was the younger son. What is interesting in this event is that God had already made it clear that he was to be blessed to be a blessing. The command to Abram according to the Hebrew is, “be a blessing.” The Lord says to Abram in Genesis 12:2-3, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” The blessing and the promise was to be passed on to others. That is how you and I have come to know the truth of God in Jesus Christ.

God does not go halfway but promises and gives us protection and guidance wherever we are both materially and spiritually through the personal presence of his own Son (“Immanuel, God with us”).

Luther calls God’s blessing a test, saying “God tests us by promising us blessings, for if he would fulfill them immediately, we would not respond in saving faith, for faith is believing in his promises.” You have heard me speak of the open door for mission and ministry God has placed before this congregation. Some of you have said, “I believe that is true.”

Just consider this: After receiving justifying grace, good works are a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Thus, God calls and empowers us as his own messengers (angels) to convey his blessings and love to all peoples! How awesome that he brings the people of the world right to our very doorstep, in our child care center, the POBLO outreach, and all those things that we do here at Trinity that we might be a blessing to them! My fellow missionaries, that makes this an awesome place.

Awesome place! Isn’t wonderful for us to have a special place where we are assured that God is present with us? Isn’t it wonderful to have a holy place consecrated to him for worship? Isn’t it wonderful to hear about and receive his promises and blessings to us in Word and Sacraments in this place? Isn’t it simply awesome to be here, where the gate of heaven is open to all who believe?!

Awesome God!

The vision, the promise, and the place are all awesome only because our God is so awesome. More important than a holy experience or place is God himself, for he offered Jacob, the sinner, unsought and unlimited grace, implied forgiveness, and acceptance. The key for us in understanding Jacob’s vision is the stairway. It is the connection between man and God. It is Jesus, the Christ of the Living God. He is our Mediator and Intercessor! He is our Friend and Spokesman. He is our Defender and Redeemer. He is our Substitute and Savior! What an awesome vision! What an awesome promise! What an awesome place! What an awesome God!

Because it is so awesome, let us remember our God and never idolize a special vision experience, the value of a personal promise, a holy place, or a person who has mediated God’s love to us. They are only the means and the tools who God uses to transmit his blessings to us. Let us rather concentrate our thanks and devotion on the Creator and giver of all things, God himself, who through Christ and the Holy Spirit grants all of us spiritual and everlasting gifts. Let us devote ourselves wholly to serving him alone both in our grateful worship and in our willing service to all people, and our Awesome God will make us to be an awesome blessing to others. Amen.