Sermon UpdateAlright, I didn't get a chance to update you yesterday on how my first sermon went. All things told, it was pretty good. It was a fairly small Sunday. Probably only about 29 or 30 including kids. The actual sermon delivery was okay I think. While I was delivering it about 10 times at midnight Saturday in my kitchen Heather told me "you wrote it, you should sound like you're passionate about it." -Which, by the way, is why I write. It's a lot easier to sound passionate, or even mildly emotional, in my writing than my speaking.- I suspect Sunday's delivery wasn't all that much improved. But I tried, and nobody fell asleep, so that's good. I was pretty proud of myself for not rushing it. Heather timed me at 16 minutes. Not bad for my first sermon, if you ask me. I did though, forget to close in prayer, as I was going off my meeting outline on which I did not specifically write "close in prayer". Oh well. It happens. Anyway. If you're curious, my sermon is below. I didn't give it verbatim, I highlighted certain parts I didn't want to forget, but I read through it so often the day before that I suspect I gave it basically verbatim just from memory, without looking at my notes. Read it if you want. I won't be offended if you skip it. I. SETTING THE SCENE I want you to sit in your seat for a minute and imagine a scene. Close your eyes if it helps - I promise I'll wake you if you start snoring. Imagine that you are all alone. You've been walking through warm, dry, dusty, and hilly country for two, maybe three days. There are probably 15 more days of walking before you reach your destination. Your feet are already starting to hurt. You're on your way to visit family that you have never met; but it's not just a friendly visit. Your Mom sent you off to go find a spouse. So you're tired of walking, lonely from making the trip by yourself, and you're nervous thinking about this visit and thinking about what the person you're going to marry might be like. In addition to this, you're still jumping at shadows and a bit paranoid because your twin brother was dead serious when he threatened to kill you. You're sad because you don't know when you're going to be able to go home or when you will see your Mom and Dad again. Plus, you're really starting to feel guilty. Your brother has a right to be mad, you pulled some pretty underhanded crap and robbed him of what was rightfully his. In short, you're broken. You're at the bottom of the barrel. You're probably near tears. You may even have tripped and fallen on your face one or twice because you're so preoccupied that you're not watching where you're going. Then, to add insult to injury, you realize you're not going to make it to the nearest town before dark, so you're going to have sleep outside, using a nice soft rock as a pillow. Yuck. Sounds pretty nasty to me. But this is where our story starts. This is the position that Jacob was in. Yes, the famous Jacob. The son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. But remember, at this point he was just a conniving young man who had gotten himself in way over his head. II. SINNER Captain Trevor spoke a little bit last week about Isaac, Jacob and Esau, but just to refresh your memory, lets talk about what a sneak Jacob was at this point in his life. He cheated his brother out of his birthright. In order to figure out what a birthright is I had to look it up. Basically, the firstborn child in those days was entitled to a double portion of the inheritance as well as any titles that were passed down from the father. Esau was the older brother. He was entitled to that birthright. Jacob took advantage of Esau when he was tired and hungry and conned his older brother out of his birthright. He got Esau to trade his inheritance for a bowl of soup. Later, his Dad asked Esau for some wild game before he gave him a special blessing. Isaac was old and almost blind at the time. So while Esau was out hunting like his father asked, Jacob grilled up a donkey, dressed up like his brother, and served his Dad a big steak of pack animal pretending it was game so that Isaac would bless him instead of his brother. Jacob was basically a semi-pro hustler. He was sneaky. He was arrogant. He was selfish. In other words, he was a sinner. Just like you, me, and everyone else. III. PROMISE FOR SINNER Now think back to the scene I had you picture a couple of minutes ago. You’re broken, exhausted, and drained. Your brother wants to kill you. You’re preparing for one of the worst nights of sleep of your life, with you’re a bunch of small rocks in your back and a big one as a pillow. Instead, you have one of the most incredible nights of your life. You have a dream, and what a dream it is. READ Genesis 28:11-15 Wow. That’s quite a dream. I want to take a closer look at what God told Jacob in this dream. The end of verse 13, and verses 14 and 15 if you’re following along in your Bibles. “I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.” Not bad. Some good property is always useful “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth” This has lost some of its impact over time because we don’t think about lineage in the same was as people from the ancient middle east. But a promise to a man of Jacob’s day to give him so many descendants that you can’t count them would have been a spectacular thing. “All peoples of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” That would make me feel good. “I am with you and will watch over you” And “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Now, I don’t know about you, but there have been plenty of times in my life when I would have really appreciated God to tap me on the shoulder and say “I’m taking care of you, don’t worry,” and I’ve never had a family member try to kill me! If I crave that encouragement from God, I’m willing to bet that Jacob was absolutely desperate for it by this point! If you’ve got your Bibles open, let’s do a quick comparison. Flip back a little bit to Genesis 12:2-3. READ Genesis 12:2-3 This is God talking to Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather. Sounds awful similar to what we just heard him telling Jacob. And more similarities follow in verse 7. READ Genesis 12:7 When God makes this promise to Abraham he is maybe 10 miles from the place Jacob had his dream. It’s the same land. God is making the same promises to this miserable sinner man Jacob that he made to the great patriarch Abraham. Why? I mean, when God made a covenant with Abraham, the promises were about his descendants, they didn’t end with him. That means that these same promises should have already applied to Jacob, after all he is one of those descendant of Abraham talked about in the promises from God. IV. GOD OF HIS FATHERS Listen to the first thing God told Jacob in his dream: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.” God did NOT say: ‘I am your God’. Because he wasn’t Jacob’s God at that point. Let me explain. God was, is, and always will be the only all powerful God and creator of the universe. Jacob is part of that universe. In that sense, of course he was Jacob’s God. However, Jacob did not know him. While Abraham and Isaac had communed with God and had personal relationships with him, we have no reason to believe that Jacob did. There are no mentions previous to this dream in our passage of Jacob even thinking God had anything to do with him. Sure, Jacob must have grown up listening to the stories about how God had led Abraham out of his home town of Ur. How he had protected him in Egypt. The miraculous old-age conception of his father Isaac. Even the story of Isaac as a boy being offered as a sacrifice and God stopping it at the last minute. But Jacob was out for himself and only worried about himself. God had never done anything for Jacob, so why should Jacob worry about God? The Lord was his father and his grandfather’s God. Let them have him. In fact, in Genesis 27:20, while stealing his brother’s blessing, Jacob responds to his father by saying “The Lord your God gave me success.”. Your God. Isaac’s God, not Jacob’s. Sure Jacob believed in God. He had no reason to doubt what his father told him. But believing in God didn’t do Jacob any good without having a relationship with God. God wanted to bless Jacob. God wanted to continue the promises he made to Abraham with Jacob. But Jacob’s father having a relationship with God was not enough. Jacob had to have a relationship with God in order to experience the promises God had for him. In Jacob’s case it took hitting rock bottom and a direct message from God piped into his dreams to get him to start that relationship. V. HOW THIS APPLIES TO ME Jacob was sinner to compete with the worst of us. He was born that way. Every one of us is born that way. There’s nothing we can do to change that. You and I may not have swindled our brothers or deceived our fathers, but every one of us has lied, or cheated, or stolen, or lusted, or in some way sinned and become unworthy of God’s promises to us. READ Romans 3:23: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Just like God made promises to Jacob in his dream, he has promises for each of us too. READ Romans 8:17: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Wow. God actually promises us that we can share in his glory! What an amazing promise! But, just like Jacob, there is a condition to receiving that promise. It’s right in the first few words of the verse I just read: “…if we are children…” This is talking about being children of God, about having a personal relationship with Christ. It’s not enough to believe that there is a God, or to assume that you’re good to go because you attend church every Sunday or participate in Sunday School. No, when God makes himself known to us we have to respond. We have to pursue that personal relationship with Him. When God made himself known to Jacob, Jacob responded. Verses 16-19: READ Genesis 28:16-19 Have you learned about God, but don't really know him? Do you come to church on Sunday, know the words to all the songs, but not really understand what they're talking about? Are you in the same place Jacob was at the beginning of our story? Broken and running from your sin? If so, are you willing to follow his example and respond to God's offered promise for your life? God wants you to share in his glory.
Take him up on the offer. | 
