Stairway to Heaven: Genesis 28.10-22

Church, you have been resilient.  We have about 180 people on our campus today in both of our services and some small groups.  You have been making lots of choices these last few weeks.  I want you to know how proud I am of you.  You’ve done well to encourage and support one another.  Those of you who are with us online; this takes persistence to worship online with is.  It’s a choice.  Thank you for joining us online.   It’s wonderful to hear the sounds of children.  Families are all together now in worship.  We’re old school!  We’re doing church like we did 100 years ago, all of us together in worship.  Some churches even had doors on the pews to keep the children from escaping. 

Do you ever wish you could just walk into a room with God?  You could hear God’s voice and know what God wants you to do?  Today we’ll read about a stairway to Heaven.  It’s a familiar story of God speaking into someone’s life.  Jacob’s name was later changed to Israel.  As we look at Jacob, he’s just come off a huge story of deception with his parents.  He had a scheme to bring down his brother Esau.  We’re in Genesis 28.  Even though Jacob got the blessing from his father he is running for his life.  He didn’t get anything.  He’s alone.  He’s sleeping on a stone.  God is going to show up.  How do you think God will respond?  How do you think of the God of the Old Testament?  We often view of the God of the Old Testament as a God of judgment.  As we go through these verses, there’s no judgment.  God shows up to restore, not to judge.  God speaks truth over Jacob.

God knows how to talk to us.

Whatever it is that you are struggling with, God knows how to speak to us.  We will see through Jacob’s eyes.  We’ll see a ladder or a stairway going up to Heaven with angels going up and down it:

                    ¹²And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 

As we look at this we have a terrific image of a ladder or a stairway to Heaven where communication is restored.  Angels communicate messages from God.  This is a two-way conversation.  Angels are going back and forth.  We all struggle with connecting to God.  Early in Genesis we read about the Tower of Babel, how people were trying to get to God.  Every religion in the world, except Christianity, tries to build a pathway to God.  Christianity is different: it’s about how God comes down and connects to us.  Jacob is here in this moment and it’s God who meets him.  Jacob is at a low point in his life.  He’s lost everything.  He’s running for his life and doesn’t know what’s next.   God meets him at this great point of need in his life.  When we are stuck we can find God.

One time I was climbing a hill in eight foot of snow.  I was trying my best but I finally realized I was stuck.  That can be a good point in our lives, to know we are stuck.  Jacob knows he’s stuck. He knows he needs God’s help.

God knows how to take care of us.

What God does here is remind Jacob who He is.   We need to understand who God is.  Instead of judgment God reminds Jacob of who he was born to be.

                     ¹³And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 

God is on the other end of the ladder.  Some translations say, “beside him.”  Jacob knew God was present.  He is reminded God is the God of Abraham and Isaac.  Jacob knows these stories.  I am with you.  It’s important for us to hear stories of what God has done in the past, stories of God’s faithfulness.  Not just stories of what God has done in the lives of others, but God can show up in your life.  God is present right now.  God has a future and a hope for you.  There’s a promise for your generation.  God tell Jacob He will give him this land.  It will be 20 more years before it happens and things will get really bad but God is promising Jacob this.  There will be times when Jacob won’t hear from God.

Have you ever played Peek-a-boo with a child?  No matter where you are in the world all kids know how to play!  Kids know you’re still there.  There’s a moment in our lives as babies that we don’t know if someone is there.  Babies have to learn someone is there.  Later on this becomes a game like Peek-a-boo.  God says to Jacob, “I am present even when you cannot see Me, feel Me or hear Me.”  God says this to you and I is still that God is present even when we cannot see, feel or hear God. 

God uses us to impact the world.

The words you’re about to read are words of promise God spoke to Abraham.  These are words of promise.  God is doing something in these circumstances. 

                    ¹⁴Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 

These words sound familiar?  These are the same words that were spoken to Abraham.  Think about how many grains of sand are on the seashore.  Have you tried to count the grains of sand on your own hand while at the beach?  Probably not!  Imagine trying to count!  We cannot possibly understand how vast what God is doing is.  It’s bigger than Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  God will enter the world through Jacob’s family line.  Jesus will come, God son into the world.  Jacob doesn’t understand it.  Jacob will endure horrible things.  God will form good out of Jacob’s circumstances.  There’s a plan for your life that is bigger than what you fully understand.  God is bringing about His plan.

Parents equip their children to do good in the world.  Sometimes we get glimpses of a child’s good actions.  God is using this pandemic for believers to rise up and do good in the world.  Like the sand, we cannot even count all the believers.  When you get back from the beach you always have a surprise waiting for you.  You sit on the beach and get sand on you.  What’s the first thing you do when you decide to leave the beach?  You dust the sand off you.  Three months later we are still asking where all this sand came from!  We cannot count what God is doing.  God wants Jacob to know God is with him.

God is with you.

You are not alone.  It might feel like you’re on a detour right now.

                    ¹⁵Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

This is what God said to Jacob a long time ago.  Let’s read this as God saying these words to you:

“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

This is not our usual experience.  Usually people leave us and abandon us.  God says, “I am with you.”  What we find is a God of grace, not judgment.  God will not abandon you.  God does not let go.  God says these same words to Joshua in Joshua 1:5 when Joshua is ready to lead the Israelites.  Some of you are having to make decisions you never had to make before.  “Do not be afraid, I am with you,” God says.  God called Jeremiah to a unique mission; he spoke to nations.  God called him.  People will not like him.  They will stick him in a hole and abandon him.  They won’t listen.  In Jeremiah 1:8 he asks why.  God says, “Because I am with you.”  All else in the world can fall apart if we know God is with us.  Does your soul know that today?  How will you know when God is done with you?  You’ll be standing in his presence.

Since God is with me, I am with Him.

What is our response to this?  Jacob does something in this last verse.  Jacob makes a vow to God.  This is the first time in the Bible someone makes a vow to God.  It’s difficult to translate because it sounds like he is trying to bargain with God.  “If” can be translated “since.”

                    ²⁰Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go…then the Lord shall be my God, 

Jacob is vowing to follow God.  To keep here can also mean to guard.  The image is the work of a shepherd who keeps, guards and leads sheep to green pastures and water.  Shepherds protect from wild animals.  Jacob is saying to God that if You will be my shepherd I will be your sheep.  Shepherds don’t say to the sheep, “Hey!  We’re going to take a right up here and then go for three miles.”  Jacob is saying he will face what he needs to face.  This is his vow and vision from God.  At rock bottom Jacob says he will go.

Psalm 23:1-3, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.”

We have a shepherd who will lead us exactly where we need to be.  Will you make that your vow today?  Where God leads you will you follow?

Sermon Notes are taken, transcribed and posted by Jeni Martin Johnson.