Genesis 28 | “Everywhere a Bethel for God’s People”

Feeling Forsaken by God

Do you ever feel forsaken by God?  Have you ever wondered whether he’s rejected you?  Do you sometimes think he’s abandoned you?

We all do, and we’re not alone.  God’s people have wrestled with feeling forsaken by God for ages.  The psalmist asks, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?” (10:1)  “How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?” (13:1)  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1)

Maybe there’s a loneliness that you can’t shake, a frustration that you’re still single, a marriage that’s difficult, a health issue that won’t resolve, a nagging family dynamic that won’t go away, a besetting sin, a financial stress, a baby that won’t sleep, an inner turmoil that won’t subside.  All these things and more shake our confidence that God is with us.

We reason like this: if God were with us, I wouldn’t feel this way or this wouldn’t be happening.  We wonder why God seems far away when our desires are to be close to him.  We think that God has finally had enough of our sinning and has turned away from us.  We conclude that his presence in our lives is contingent on our performance.

God is with His People Wherever They Go

But then we read the Bible and we meet a man like Jacob.  He was a sinful and scheming and deceitful man.  He’s a fugitive on the run from his brother who wanted to kill him.  His parents sent him away for his own protection.  He’s leaving the promised land headed to a foreign country.  Jacob is all alone, journeying through the wilderness, a homebody wondering if he’ll ever get to go back home, wondering if his sins have finally caught up to him.

And then one night, as the sun sets and he drifts into sleep, something remarkable happens.  God visits him!  Instead of coming to punish him for his sins or curse him for his evil deeds, he comes to bless him and promises that he hasn’t forsaken him.  He tells him that he’s with him, and will be with him, no matter what.  This is amazing and surprising grace from God.

This is what happens in Genesis 28.  A sinful and scared man on the run, runs into God!  Just when Jacob may’ve thought that God was done with him, God shows up and says he’s just getting started.

Jacob stands for the nation of Israel and, in the New Testament, Israel expands to include God’s people everywhere, so the message for us from this text is that we can be comforted with the promise of God’s presence wherever we are and wherever we go.  The main point of Genesis 28, and the main point of this sermon, is that God’s presence comforts his sinful people wherever they go.

In this text, we’ll see Jacob leave his family (vv. 1-9) and Jacob find God (vv. 10-22).  Then we’ll consider how we can live in the presence of God today.  Genesis 28 reminds us that, though we may feel forsaken by God, God’s people know that God never leaves them.

Jacob Leaves His Family

In verses 1-9, we see Jacob leaving the presence of his family.  Verses 1-4 are the last words of Isaac in Scripture.  He agrees with Rebekah that Jacob should flee to Haran and find a wife from Rebekah’s relatives.  He then speaks the Abrahamic blessing over his son.  The promises of Abraham and Isaac are now the promises of Jacob.

Isaac, however, again leaves out the spiritual and missional aspects of the covenant promises, just as he did in 27:27-29.  He mentions the land, seed, and blessing promised to Abraham, but says nothing about how God will bless the whole world through him or about the special presence of the Lord with him.  Isaac is likely still reeling from the deception of chapter 27 and, as I said last week, is struggling to see in more ways than one.  God, however, will see to it that Jacob receives all the covenant promises and blessings.

Esau, on the other hand, attempts to please his parents one more time by taking a wife from Ishmael’s family (vv. 6-9).  This last-minute attempt to redeem himself before his father dies fails, as it seems to go unnoticed by Isaac.

Esau was a bitter, angry man desperate for the blessing of his father when Jacob left.  But, as we’ll see in chapter 33, he’ll be a changed man when Jacob returns.  No one is beyond the possibility of significant life change, no matter how hurt or how sinful they are.

Jacob Finds God

In verses 10-22, we see that after Jacob leaves the presence of his family, he finds the presence of God.  We might better say that God found Jacob, rather than Jacob finding God.  Jacob left Beersheba headed to Haran looking for a wife, not looking for God.  But God was looking for him!

The God of the Bible is a God who goes after sinners, not waiting for them to come to him.  In Luz on that fateful night, God went after Jacob, not because of his virtue – he didn’t have any.  He was a lying, scheming, thief of a man.  But he would be God’s man, and this only by grace.

One of the main things the stories of the patriarchs in Genesis are meant to teach us is that God saves sinners and that salvation is only and always by grace.  If God only made himself known to people who had their act together, the Bible would be a lot shorter and churches would be empty.

The Family God or Your God?

God doesn’t wait for Jacob to come to him.  He takes the initiative and goes to Jacob, meeting him in a dream while he slept.  The focus of the dream is the promise of verse 15.

Keep in mind what’s happening with him.  He’s a fugitive fleeing his murderous brother Esau, being sent away by his parents on a 500-mile journey to Haran.  Jacob is on his own for the first time in his life.  It’s time for Jacob to find himself apart from his family.  His situation required a change in his understanding of God, a change in his relationship with God.  The Lord had been the family God but not his God.

This is where some of you may find yourselves today.  You’ve left home to go to college or grad school or start a new career in Dallas.  All you know and love is hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles away.  You’re starting to realize that life is a bit harder than you anticipated.  You’re wondering whether you really believe all the stuff your parents do.  You’re tempted to stop going to church until you’re older and have a family of your own.

The Lord is bringing you to a place where you have to decide whether the Lord is the family God or your God.  In his kindness, he’s stripped away some of the comforts and securities of your life so that you’ll start asking life’s most important questions.  Who are you?  What do you believe?

Friends, if you grew up around the church but aren’t following Jesus, let me remind you that you aren’t a Christian just because you grew up around the church, prayed a prayer at VBS or youth camp, got baptized, and have tried to be a nice person.  You aren’t a Christian just because your parents are.  God doesn’t have grandchildren, only children.  You must realize that you’ve sinned against the holy God who made you, that your sin deserves God’s judgment, that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and that he alone can save you from your sins.  If you call out to him with faith and turn away from your sins, you’ll become God’s child.

If this is you this morning, the good news is that God is coming to you, just like he came to Jacob, and calling you to himself.  Jacob’s dream wasn’t his idea.  He didn’t turn to God, God turned to him.  And he’s turning to you now, telling you of his goodness and bringing you to a point of decision.  Will you trust God and give your life to him?  Or will you live for yourself?  Will Jesus be your family’s God or your God?

A Staircase to Heaven

In verse 12, it says that Jacob sees “a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.”  The better translation of this “ladder” is a “flight of steps,” also known as a staircase, not to be confused with Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” from their 1971 song.

This “staircase” probably resembled the broad stone staircases that went up the side of ziggurats found in ancient Mesopotamia.  The gods were thought to live at the top of these sacred mountains, so to worship them you had to ascend the steps to the summit.

What’s remarkable about Jacob’s dream is that he sees God, not at the top of the staircase, but at the bottom.  “The Lord stood above it” in verse 13 can also be translated “the Lord stood beside him” (as the ESV footnote says).  This translation makes better sense of verse 15 when the Lord says to Jacob, “I am with you.”

The “angels of God ascending and descending on it” indicate that this staircase is one that joins heaven to earth.  The angels (literally “messengers”) symbolize communication between heaven and earth, but in Jacob’s dream, God has bypassed them.  He himself has come down the staircase and stands next to Jacob.  Jacob doesn’t have to climb the mountain steps to meet God at the top.  God is “with” Jacob (v. 15).

Jacob’s Vow

This was Jacob’s first personal encounter with God.  He knew about his parent’s faith and their experiences with God, but now for the first time he’s come face to face with God.  And the experience leaves him scared and overwhelmed.  He wakes up afraid and in awe that the Lord has visited him (vv. 16-17), so he immediately starts to worship in ways familiar to the customs of his day.  He sets up the rock he slept on as a pillar, anoints it with oil, renames the place “Bethel,” which means “the house of God” (vv. 18-19), and makes a vow (vv. 20-21).

Vows in the Bible were often made by those in distress (eg. Hannah, Jonah).  Vows were solemn prayers in which the worshiper promised to give God something when the prayer was answered.  Some question Jacob’s faith in making a vow to God that’s contingent on his safe return to his homeland when God just promised him this.  It’s thought that Jacob, ever the bargainer, is still being Jacob here.

But a real experience of God always results in worship, and Jacob seems to be worshipping here.  He’s given the stone pillar and the oil to God and promised to give him a tenth of all his future income.  Praying for a safe return shows his faith, not his unbelief.  People who don’t believe in God don’t pray to him and make vows with him.

God’s presence has changed Jacob’s life.  His vow reveals how utterly dependent he is on God.  Jacob’s vow is based on his confidence in God’s promise, not his desire to put God to the test.

Jacob’s Commitment to Tithing

Perhaps the greatest indicator of Jacob’s faith is that he voluntarily commits to tithing (v. 22b).  People who make these kinds of commitments are serious about their relationship with God.  Jacob understands that any money he comes into is from God, “of all that you give me” (v. 22).  He understands that proportional giving is what people who’ve been blessed by God do.  He learned this from his grandfather Abraham, who gave a tenth of his wealth to Melchizedek after God helped him rescue Lot (14:17-20).

God did not command tithing until he gave the law to Moses.  Here we see the people of God voluntarily committing themselves to proportional giving before the law was given.  They didn’t have to be told to give – they wanted to!

It’s true that the command to tithe is not in the New Testament, but nowhere does the New Testament tell us not to tithe.  Randy Alcorn, in his little book The Treasure Principle, says that the New Testament seems to assume the tithe and that the tithe can function like training wheels for Christians.  In other words, tithing is a good place to start.  I sometimes wonder what would happen if every Christian committed to giving 10% of their income to the Lord, instead of the average 2-3%.  Can you imagine the missionaries we could send, pastors we could hire, churches we could plant, orphans we could care for, and hungry we could feed!

Because tithing isn’t commanded in the New Testament, we don’t teach that you must tithe.  Rather, with Paul, we say that we should give joyfully, sacrificially, generously, regularly, and “in keeping with our income” (1 Cor. 16:2).  This may mean less than 10% or it may mean much more.  Galatians 6:6 says, “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.”  We take this to mean that we should give to our local church first.  Since the local church is our primary source of teaching, it should be the primary recipient of our giving.

Like Jacob, when we’ve encountered the presence of God, worship will result, and a significant part of that worship is what we do with our money.  Those who’ve been redeemed by Christ have even more reason than Jacob to give voluntarily to the Lord.  What we do with our money says more about our relationship with God than perhaps anything else.

Everywhere Will Be a Bethel

What was it that moved Jacob from scheming how to take to scheming how to give?  What moved his heart from being selfish to being sacrificial?  It was what he learned about God in his dream (v. 15).  He learned that Almighty God is with even a sinner like him.  He learned that God is not just at that place, but that God would be wherever he is, that God isn’t just in Bethel, but that he’s wherever Jacob goes.

This revelation of God’s presence is so powerful because it’s so timely.  Jacob is a fugitive on the run, sent away by his parents, on a journey by himself into the unknown.  But as he sets out on this journey, God meets him and tells him that, from now on, everywhere Jacob sleeps will be a Bethel.  “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”

This promise marks the rest of his life.  The Lord gives it again when he flees his evil father-in-law Laban in 31:3.  Then when Jacob is preparing to return home, he tells his family that God “has been with him wherever he has gone” (35:3).  As an old man, he had to make another long journey to join his sons in Egypt.  This was a daunting journey for an old man.  And hadn’t God promised him the land of Canaan?  Why does he have to leave it again and settle somewhere else?  In those moments of confusion, God goes to his son Jacob again and reminds him of his lifelong promise (46:2-4).

Then at the very end of his life, Jacob looks back over all his years and confesses that God has been with him every step of the way (48:15).  Jacob knew what it meant to be a shepherd.  He looked after his father-in-law’s flocks for many years.  He knew that a shepherd must lead his flock to pasture and water.  But most fundamentally, a shepherd must be with his flock.  He must be with them in order to provide for and protect them.  An absent shepherd is no shepherd at all.

“The Lord Be with You!”

Jacob’s comparison of God to a shepherd of course reminds us of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (v. 1).  The exact middle of the psalm says, “for you are with me” (v. 4).  The center and source of God’s guidance and provision and protection is his presence “with” his people.

That little word “with,” when it links humans and God, is so powerful.  In the Old Testament, God promised to be with Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, and others.  “The Lord be with you!” was a standard greeting used in Israel.  It’s what you wished for yourself and for others.  It’s the way life should be.  Many Christians around the world still say something like, “May God be with you” or “Go with God” when parting ways.  Our English word “goodbye” is a contraction of the phrase “God be with ye.”  George Lucas was borrowing from Christian vernacular when he coined the well-known phrase in Star Wars, “May the Force be with you!”[1]

God’s Presence Makes All the Difference

God’s people in the Bible, and throughout history, have realized that God’s presence “with” us is never a neutral or inactive presence that makes no difference in our lives.  Rather, God’s presence in the lives of his people makes all the difference in the world.

The fact that God is with his people wherever they go means that they have direct access to God’s infinite wisdom, strength, comfort, protection, provision, power, peace, guidance, and help anytime and anywhere.  God’s presence is what we need to survive.  Without God with us, we have no hope in this world (Eph. 2:12).

How Can We Live in the Presence of God?

This begs the question: how can we live in the presence of God?  First off we must understand that God’s special presence is only with his people, not with all people.  God’s people are those who understand their need for God.  They understand that their sin has separated them from God, that they’ve been removed from God’s presence like Adam and Eve in the Garden, and that the curse of death now hangs over their heads.  They also understand that God sent Jesus into the world to bring sinners back into God’s presence.  By dying on the cross, Jesus took away the thing that separates us from God – our sin.  “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).  Through faith in Christ, we can come back into God’s presence.

Jesus is the Staircase

Jesus himself alludes to this at the very beginning of his ministry when he’s calling his disciples.  In John chapter 1, Jesus has called Phillip to follow him, and Phillip is trying to persuade his friend Nathanael to follow him too.  But Nate is skeptical, until he meets Jesus (1:45-49).  After Nathanael believes, Jesus responds by alluding to Jacob’s dream (vv. 50-51).

In Jacob’s dream, the angels ascend and descend on the staircase.  But Jesus says these new disciples will see the angels “ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”  Jesus is drawing a connection between the staircase and himself, and between the disciples and Jacob.  They’re a second Jacob who see angels ascending and descending on the staircase which is Jesus.

Jesus’ point is that he is what bridges the gap between heaven and earth.  This is what he means when he later claims to be “the way” to the Father in heaven (14:6).  Jesus didn’t come to open up the way to God; he is the way to God.  Everyone who wants to be brought back into the presence of God has to travel up the staircase of Jesus.

How Can We Enjoy the Presence of God in Our Lives?

Once we’re brought back into the presence of God through faith in Christ, we’ll never be cast away.  But we’ll sometimes feel forsaken by God.  We’ll wonder where he is.  So what can we do when God feels distant?

First, be honest about where you are.  If you’re broken and angry, talk to God about that.  If you’re living in sin, tell God about it.  When we’re pretending we’re okay when we’re not, God will continue to feel distant.  “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted” (Ps. 34:18).

Second, confess your need for God regularly.  Stop living like a practical atheist and admit your vulnerability.  One of the best prayers to pray every day is, “God, I need you.”  Paul tells us to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18), so pray for the Lord’s presence to fill your life daily.

Third, commit yourself to the body of Christ.  Join a local church and attend worship weekly.  The church is the temple where the Lord lives on the earth.  Neglecting it, or keeping it at arm’s length, will keep you detached from the Lord’s personal presence, a presence that he many times makes known through the love and care of his people.

Fourth, honor sleep.  Sleep is like a spiritual discipline because if we purposely neglect it for extended periods of time, we’re not only more prone to being sick and grumpy, our hearts also grow more open to sin, doubts, self-condemnation, and fears.  There are legitimate, non-moral, reasons why many struggle to sleep.  But getting good sleep can increase our awareness of God’s presence in our lives.

Fifth, honor the sabbath.  Ceasing to work one day out of seven is commanded in the Ten Commandments.  Moses said that the sabbath is for worship and refreshment.  Jesus says it’s a gift.  What if one of the reasons it’s so hard for us to sense God’s presence in our lives is because we never stop working long enough to do so?  Sabbathing is not a luxury.  It’s a fundamental aspect of how God made us, reminding us that we’re not God and that we need God.  If you’re endlessly exhausted, constantly battling feelings of despair and wondering where God is in your life, let me encourage you to honor the sabbath.  It’ll look different for each of us, but it at least means making intentional time for being spiritually renewed by God’s word and for being physically renewed by God’s world.  The Bible’s idea of rest is not watching TV, playing endless video games, and scrolling social media.  It’s getting with God and doing things that refresh your soul.  Doing this regularly will increase and sustain your sense of God’s presence in your life.

Not About What We Feel, But What We Know

We all eventually feel that God has forsaken us.  In those moments, it’s not what you feel but what you know that matters.  And what we know, from Genesis 28 and from the gospel, is that God is with us and will keep us wherever we go, that he won’t leave us until he’s done what he’s promised us.

We may feel forsaken by God, but we know that God’s people will never be forsaken by God.  Because of Jesus, everywhere we sleep is a Bethel.  God lives with us and in us.  He could not be closer.  We are never alone.

[1]Richard Bauckham, Who Is God?: Key Moments of Biblical Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 11.