Turn in your Bibles please to Genesis 35. Today I plan for us to kind of wrap up the life of Jacob. Jacob's not even close to dying yet, but I want the rest of his life to be covered in our study in the life of Joseph - to which we will return in some weeks after we have studied the New Testament book of Galatians.
So today, an end of the trip.
When I was a little boy in Elementary School, the class was divided into groups. There were Rabbits, and there were turtles. That was the way they addressed that there were some kids who needed special help to do well, and others who didn't. The kids, of course, were supposed to have no idea what was going on. The rabbit kids were the "faster" kids - and the turtle kids were the "slower" kids - and I'm not talking about foot-races. I'm talking about quick on the up-take. Remember that? Did you have that in school?
I was a turtle. At least I was grouped there. I think that was mainly because I frustrated the teacher. I was actually more of a cat. You know how cats will just stare at something else, and you really can't make them do what you want them to do, or really get their attention in any serious way? That was me. I was usually studying something different than what the class was. In fact, that continued all through my life. Terri will even tell you that when she sat behind me in college, I was usually reading something different than what the teacher was talking about. But that's a different story.
I do know this - the kids knew what those divisions meant. I thought it was terrible. "Yeah. The turtle kids won't get that we're saying they're slow." Sure, they were designed to be colorful and nice looking and build some kind of team spirit. But the turtle kids all knew that when spelling bee time came, the rabbits would win every time.
I wonder if up in Heaven, God has a list of Rabbit Christians and a list of Turtle Christians?
* There are surely Rabbit Christians - Christians who dart ahead and move quickly toward the goal.
* And there are surely Turtle Christians - Christians for whom the trip is a life-long slow inching forward, dragging the weight of the shell.
* I think that's most of us Christians. Don't you?
Jacob is one of those, isn't he? His whole life is a slow, struggle, inching toward godliness - and decade after decade, God keeps working. That's grace.
Jacob, slow-growing, scoundrel Jacob - slowly growing into a godly man.
Today, we're going to look at another pivotal step in his life and draw a conclusion.
Let's recap.
Last week, we saw Jacob's incomplete obedience to God.
God had clearly said he should return to Bethel, where Jacob had first personally encountered God.
But Jacob hesitated, settling elsewhere. And tragedy struck.
His daughter is assaulted. His sons take revenge, not just hunting down the perpetrator, but slaughtering all the men of the same village, and taking the rest of the people captive.
His sons having committed a heinous revenge for the violation of their little sister, Jacob fears the Canaanites are going to gather together and wipe him out.
And our story begins with Jacob quaking in fear.
To him, his family is in danger, and all the promises God has made to Him about the future are called into question - a chain of events brought into being by his failure to go all the way back to Bethel, where God had called him.
Let's begin reading at Genesis 35, verse 1.
Gen. 35
1 ¶ Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau."
2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone."
4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.
5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.
6 ¶ Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan.
7 There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
8 Now Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel. So it was named Allon Bacuth.
9 After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.
10 God said to him, "Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel." So he named him Israel.
11 And God said to him, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body.
12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you."
13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.
14 Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.
15 Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.
Our story begins with God's calling Jacob back to Bethel.
Now, if you'll recall, Bethel was that place where Jacob first met with God, received promises from God, and made promises to God. Having heard from God there, he named the place Beth-el, which means "house of God".
It's been a long time since Jacob left. 30 years. He almost made it back 10 years before. But he settled at Succoth and the city of Shechem - a mere 30 miles away. And a journey that should have taken him a few days took 10 years.
10 years in which disaster fell upon his family. Until finally Jacob was at the breaking point - terror-filled, angry, disillusioned, and God calls him back.
Now, I want to make a key point here.
Some people may say I am spiritualizing a bit here, but I don't think so. Over and over in Scripture, God's people go back to significant places or revisit significant times where they first met Him. Sometimes it's in person, sometimes in memory. But either way, God calls people back to where they first met Him.
I want you to know something - sometimes God calls you back to where you first met Him - in heart at least if not in place.
* God does not usually call you on to some new thing.
I ran across this advertisement for "The Phobia Clinic" - which can help people deal with "Newness Fear". Apparently there is a large and growing segment of our society that is terrified of things that are new. They can't stand change. They live in terror of something changing in their lives.
It must be terrible to cope with life in modern times that way. Because everything is changing all the time. In technology, more and more advances occur all the time. The kids grow up with it - and are comfortable with it. While many older people are still intimidated by it.
Beloit College catalogues a list of differences for the faculty to wrap their minds around the lives of their incoming students each years. Here's the list for the kids who just graduated high school and are now entering college, with regard to technology.
* For the kids of today, email is too slow. Just text. Or tweet.
* They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
* DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.
* Unless they found one in their grandparents' closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.
* Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
* "Viewer Discretion" has always been an available warning on TV shows.
* The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum.
* Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
* The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.
* Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
* Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.
* Food has always been irradiated.
* Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
* They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.
Change.
But that's just technology. How about style? If you wear the same clothes you wore years ago, you are hopelessly out of date. In fact, if you wear the same watch you wore 6 months ago, or listen to the same music you did 6 months ago, you are ready to be thrown out like a moldy tangerine. This is the age of things new!
No, I know it's not a good thing.
How about spiritually? Well, there you get into some funny territory. I wish that you could sit in my place for a week, and listen to the strange phone calls and read the utterly bizarre mail I receive as a pastor.
Hello, Mt. Pleasant Bible Church.
Hi, Pastor Mike. This is Frank from Christian Resources in Houston. Are you having a blessed day today?
Ahhh...
Well, it's about to become more blessed yet! I have a chance to offer your church a once in a lifetime opportunity! Christian Resources has put together this amazing series that actually gives people a chance to live the Bible. For a mere $1149.00, you can receive this 12 DVD set of videos with the Bible made real, acted by real Hollywood Actors. But it's not just the old Bible anymore! We've updated it! We've put the Bible in modern times. Watch Moses and the children of Israel ride in style to the Promised Land! Watch Paul jet-set around Europe and Asia to start the early church! And we don't want to spoil the surprise you'll find in our amazing Revelation DVD. All of this comes with study guides, and enough material to keep your church busy for a year! You may never have to preach another sermon for a year! We're ready to send this out on a 4 day free trial basis, after which your church credit card will be billed the whole amount. And if you order today, we'll enter you in a drawing for a free trip to the Holy Land! Well, Pastor Mike, can I place your order today?
Uhhh...
Pastor, you should be ashamed! Failing to get this life-changing series will leave your congregation hopelessly behind the times. You'll be passed up by other churches that are more in tune with the times! Your people cannot survive another year under Satanic oppression without the help of this vital series!
You say, Pastor Mike, you're exaggerating! Barely. Just barely. I'm not exaggerating the attitude or the high-pressure. Hardly a week goes by that I am not told that you people cannot make it without some program or product that this church must buy for you - or you're just going to spin around and go down the spiritual toilet. And the prices are frequently hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
One of the worst offenders, Outreach Magazine, will do my entire job for me. I can order banners and posters and matching sermons, on themes that everyone will want to hear - whether they're Christians or not. I can have them do mass mailings to the whole community so they know to show up. This church could break it's budget spending tens of thousands of dollars to become unspeakably cool.
And appallingly unbiblical.
And I go to the Christian bookstore, and the endless hype of this new book that will change my life - this new video, this new Christian group - all going to change the face of Christianity. And nothing changes.
Jacob's story today shows us what's wrong with the "new thing" movement in Christianity. God didn't call Jacob to some new place to do some new thing. He called Jacob back to the old place for the same old thing. Back to Bethel.
Now hear me! If you know Christ, there was a time in your life when you gave your heart to Him, when the Spirit was moving in your heart and you were tender to God's things. You would have done whatever he asked then.
But the years come and go and the fire dies and we let little things build into big sins and we no longer care the way we used to. We no longer hear his voice as we once did. And we are busy with our own agenda.
I want you to know that when Jacob got old, and hardened, and kind of stale spiritually, God called him not to some new experience. He sent him back to the place where it had all begun for him spiritually. Back to Bethel.
All over Christianity, people are looking for a new thing that will change or fix their Christian life. And I am telling you that what we clearly need is not a new thing - but to go back to the beginning - back where it all started. To that tender moment when God called so plainly, and you heard, and you obeyed, and you started that walk with Him. Go back there.
Let's say you are asked to coach a baseball team. And if you're like me, you don't know much about baseball, but you say OK. The team you've been asked to coach used to be a championship team, but now their the worst team in the league. You arrive at the practice diamond, and the team is all standing around in fancy clothes talking on cell-phones. They are clearly running to fat more than running the bases. And they don't seem to have any thought of practice.
"Well, team, what do you normally do at practice?"
One says "Well, I talk to my agent and try to get some kind of endorsement deal."
Another says "I talk to my lawyer, cause I'm always being accused of something."
A third says "I go to high schools and urge the kids to stay off drugs."
What do you say?
Guys, guys, guys. That's all good, I'm sure, but we need to get back to basics here. How about we do some gut sprints. And spend some time practicing at bat? How about we get back to the basics, instead of focusing on the next thing over the horizon that is a new deal? How about we get back to the love of the game?
The team that forgets the basics would be a losing team.
Spiritually, there comes a time to get back to basics...
* 30 years before, at Bethel, Jacob had bowed low in awe before a holy God, and been afraid. He had talked to God, and heard God's promises for Him. He had made commitments to God, and had left greatly comforted.
And Jacob wasn't going to get back to God any other way but to go back to that first experience and meet with God again.
The same is true of you.
* If you can think of a time when you were more in tune with God than you are today, you need to go back to your Bethel.
* If you can remember a time when you wanted to serve the Lord more than you do today, you need to go back to the place where it all started for you - at the foot of the cross, bowing in awe before Jesus and His grace and mercy.
It's not something new we need. It's the same old thing that brought us into the house of God the first time. It's Revival. Not fancy clothes put on a dead corpse.
The words of Keith Green ring true...
My eyes are dry.
My faith is old.
My heart is hard.
My prayers are cold.
And I know how it ought to be.
Alive to you, and dead to me.
What can be done, for an old heart like mine?
Soften it up, with oil and wine.
The oil is You - your spirit of love.
Please wash me anew in the wine of your love.
We have to go back to the beginning. A re-start. As surely as a patient on the table needs those paddles to jolt him back when the heart stops.
You may say "Pastor Mike, I don't get it. Why are you saying that we need to go back to the start? We're saved ONCE, right?" Sure. But our salvation is much bigger than a one-time event that occurs when we trust Christ to be our Savior. It has on-going results. God is continually working in us, changing us, improving us.
And here's the rub - something we'll be going back to again and again during our Galatians series. We do not become stronger Christians and better Christians merely because we are "trying harder". We do not become better Christians because we are "getting smarter."
The Bible is clear that we are growing because of His work in us. Yes, we work to become holy, but we work because of His work in our hearts. And revisiting our beginning with God, our salvation, and remembering who we are in Him and His work of grace is vital.
_________
Now, there are some things that were required of Jacob to return to Bethel.
Look in verse 2.
2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.
Jacob had gotten sloppy. Last week we saw how he tried to get all religious on us, even though he hadn't obeyed God.
* He built an altar, and prayed a prayer. Hurray!
* But when you look at him, you find that he wasn't obeying God.
* You find his people talking about intermarrying with the wicked Canaanites whom God had already cursed.
* You find that he didn't really care much for his kids.
* You find that he allowed his sons to take the wives and children of Shechem after the slaughter there - and apparently they brought all their pagan idols with them.
Jacob has grown pretty lax. He has been through a period of spiritual impurity. "The details don't matter! I built an altar!"
But Jacob has seen where that leads. It cost his family plenty of hardship. And tragedy. And this time he makes sure his family purifies themselves as much as possible.
Renewal requires purification.
I can come to God in sin and ask for forgiveness. But I cannot come to God holding onto my sin and asking him to bless me. It won't work. I need to lay aside the things that God has told me again and again are wrong - if I am to find my way back to a place where God wants me to be. Right?
In the forests of northern Europe and Asia lives little animal called the ermine, known for his snow-white fur in winter. He instinctively protects his white coat against anything that would soil it.
Fur hunters take advantage of this unusual trait of the ermine. They don't set a snare to catch him, but instead they find his home, which is usually a cleft in a rock or a hollow in an old tree. They smear the entrance and interior with grime. Then the hunters set their dogs loose to find and chase the ermine. The frightened animal flees toward home but doesn't enter because of the filth. Rather than soil his white coat, he is trapped by the dogs and captured while preserving his purity. For the ermine, purity is more precious than life.
Is it for you? Is holiness valuable to you? Purification, the process of removing the stains from our lives - is that important to you?
And in an era where people feel like purity is a kind of death, we need to keep our priorities straight as Christians. God wants us to be clean, holy, pure. And part of the renewal process, by which we draw close to God and let Him purify us and prepare ourselves to meet with Him.
Let me tell you something - every day, you should be praying for God's power in your life and for God's purity and holiness on your life. Because you cannot find Spiritual Renewal when you are filthy.
Renewal requires complete obedience.
Jacob had already built an altar before. He had gathered the family before and talked religion. There was nothing that happened at Bethel that couldn't have happened anywhere else - except that God had told him to go to Bethel.
We saw Jacob build altars before. But when he builds this one - in the place of obedience - where God tells him to - things happen. He has multiple visions of God. He hears special promises from God.
And Jacob leaves this place different. We never see Jacob so cold, so dead again. We never see him plotting and conniving again.
Jacob had to go someplace where God told him to go and do what God told him to do in order to be revived.
And here, toward the end of his life, Jacob finally arrives in a place of spiritual maturity and seals the deal with God.
He's not flawless, but he has finally grown and learned.
It took decades.
Flip ahead to Genesis 48.
In verse 15 there is a precious moment, where Jacob, prior to death, has a chance to put the blessing on some of his grandchildren. Listen to his words...
15 Then he blessed Joseph and said, "May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,
16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm-may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly upon the earth."
Note those words in verse 15.
...the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day...
At the end of his life, Jacob saw who had been working in his life.
Sure, there's no question that among believers, Jacob was a turtle. He grew very slowly. Sometimes he just didn't get it. I'm sure that God was frequently very frustrated with him.
But a shepherd is the shepherd of the wandering sheep and the submissive ones. A shepherd corrects his sheep and keeps them with the flock.
The point of the story is not that Jacob kept wandering and grew so slowly.
The point of the story is the faithfulness of the Shepherd - the Lord - who kept working and working on him until he finally got it right.
* We've seen Jacob absorbed with the folly of multiple wives - something we do with divorce and remarriage, but they did with multiple marriages. Some of you have made those same mistakes, and seen the complications of life rain down on you as you pursued 2nd or even 3rd marriages - and all the complications with kids that follow.
* We've seen Jacob playing favorites with his family. And all the damage that did.
* We've seen Jacob making carnal decisions throughout his life - -choosing on the basis of money, or looks, or convenience.
But the key to the story is that Jacob kept plodding on, that God never let go, but kept working on him - until finally, Jacob got it.
Maybe I'm talking to someone today who is "prone to wander". You know it. You do the wrong things again and again. You can't seem to get this Christian life down. You say "Pastor Mike, I'm definitely a Turtle Christian." Keep on crawling. God is faithful - and by the end of your days you will see His face smile upon you.
But when it does - it will do so not because you found some new nifty technique, or special method, or new plan. It will be because you found your way back to that place where you first met the Lord in your hour of need - and found that He never left. He's been there waiting all along.
