Encountering God – Part 13 - Is God your God?:
Last week we witnessed Jacobs’ first encounter with God which occurred in a dream. It was the first time he ever had any direct dealing with God. It was a supernatural encounter with God. It resulted in his acknowledging that God existed and had power over his life.
I have a question I want you all to ponder carefully this morning: “When was your first direct, supernatural encounter with God?”
Have you had a supernatural encounter with the Divine?
If not, then what we have is “religion” – a list of do’s and don’ts, and faith in a holy book rooted in believing certain propositions ABOUT God.
If you have not had an “encounter with God” then all you have is “hand me down faith” or “heard about God” faith if it is not rooted in a life-changing, supernatural encounter with God.
That is Jacob’s situation up before the encounter we read about last week.
Jacob had heard about God from his dad Isaac and his grandfather Abraham.
They had told the stories of how God had provided, how God had worked miracles in their lives, they had shared their testimonies and praises of who God is and what He had done.
His faith was second hand, rooted in the experiences and beliefs of others. It was not his own and it was not based in a personal encounter.
That may describe you today.
You have heard about how God has worked miracles in people’s lives.
If fact you may have heard the testimonies of the working of God in the lives of people in this room, and maybe you wonder…Can I know God this way?
Maybe you hear these things and wonder, “where do these folks get off attributing answered prayers to God. God never seems to hear my prayers.”
If so, your faith may be 2nd hand faith or religious teaching. It may not be rooted in the person of God but rather in the testimonies of others.
Then as we learned last week, Jacob, while running for his life, has a supernatural encounter with God in a dream.
He discovered that no matter how far away he ran or how fast, he could not escape the long arm of God. God reached into Jacob’s subconscious world of dreams, and met him where he could not run.
God was seeking a relationship with Jacob, not because Jacob was a goodie two shoes…he was a scoundrel and a liar! God sought Jacob when Jacob wasn’t even interested in God.
God is seeking a relationship with you. You can run but you cannot hide. As we discovered last week, God got into Jacob’s dreams and spoke to him. The encounter was so powerful and vivid, that Jacob’s life was turned right-side up.
Today, God may be calling your name as well. The supernatural nature of that event will be demonstrated by this funny feeling that God is speaking directly to you. You may even feel uncomfortable, as if somehow God knows your very thoughts. Today may be the day you have that supernatural encounter with God. Will you respond to Him today?
Jacob and Uncle Laban:
Let’s pick up our story from last week: Jacob travels to his mother’s brother’s home to find a wife. He sets his sights on a beautiful girl named Rachel and is told by her father (Jacob’s uncle) since he has no money for a dowry, he must work for seven years to earn the right to her. So at the end of seven long years, the wedding night comes. His new bride slips into his tent at night and they consummate their marriage. But the next morning, he awakens to find not Rachel but her older sister Leah. He is insulted and offended and angry, but Uncle Laban holds all the cards. Laban tells Jacob he must work another seven years to get Rachel as his wife. (Talk about love!). Fortunately, he only has to work a week before Rachel is given to him up front for his upcoming additional seven years of labor.
He works a total of 20 years for Uncle Laban. During that time, he asks Laban for a share of the flocks that he has been caring for. Laban agrees to give Jacob the spotted ones (which were considered inferior). But Jacob, now tending two flocks, takes great care at animal husbandry. He purposefully mates the strong ones in his flocks and sees to it that the weak mate in his Uncle’s flock. Ultimately, his herd gets bigger and stronger than his uncle’s who becomes very jealous.
It is about this time that Jacob has his second encounter with God, again in a dream.
Encounter #2: Genesis 31:10- 13 "And it came about at the time when the flock were mating that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which were mating were striped, speckled, and mottled. 11 "Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, `Jacob,’ and I said, `Here I am.’ 12 "He said, `Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. 13 `I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.”
God speaks to Jacob again, and again in a dream. Jacob has obviously learned how to pay attention to God in his dreams by now. He is paying attention to the details and he is listening carefully to what God is saying to him.
God tells Jacob in the dream that God is responsible for his advancement in prosperity and not his own wits or manipulative ability or even his efforts at inbreeding that would produce the striped and speckled sheep that Laban would not want. God tells him that God alone is the One who prospers His people and that God is responsible for Jacob’s success.
This is our first principle that we need to recognize from this encounter.
Our blessings come from the hand of God, not from our labors alone.
As we approach the Thanksgiving Season, this ought to ring in our ears.
What you have is not because you are so smart, so good, so talented or so shrewd.
What you have and what you are, are the direct result of God’s blessings upon you.
Should God close His hand toward you, you would have nothing. So express your understanding of this truth by thanking God with your worship.
Uncle Laban’s testimony:
Genesis 30:27 Laban said to him, "If now it pleases you, stay with me; I have divined that the LORD has blessed me on your account."
Laban recognized that God’s blessing was on Jacob and that God was blessing Laban as long as Jacob worked for him.
The 2nd principle we can recognize from this encounter is:
God blesses the work of His people’s hands.
I have seen this repeated over and over again. It doesn’t mean they won’t struggle or have tough times. It only means that God is in control and you can trust Him to meet your needs. Oftentimes God will go way beyond that because you show yourself faithful in little.
Psalm 1:3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers..
This is God’s promise to His people. He will make the work of their hands prosper.
I went to work for a printing company in 1986 (Alphagraphics, Downtown Fort Worth, Texas). The store I took over as manager had been losing over $10,000 a month for over a year. Within just a few months after managing it, it began to become profitable and by the time I was promoted a two years later, it was earning over $10,000 a month in profit. Did that happen without hard work? No. I worked hard, but so did the previous operator. The difference between the former operator and myself was that I asked and trusted God to bring us customers, to prosper the business and to bear witness to the community. God provided us great employees, He provided us customers who just seemed to “show up” with big orders. He gave us customers who paid their bills regularly. Some folks would say, “nah, it was just good management.” I was the management, and I have to tell you that it was God!
God is for me!
Genesis 31:42 "If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had not been for me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, so He rendered judgment last night."
What this verse says is that God was FOR JACOB.
Laban had prosperity but he didn’t have God. What he had was never enough. He wanted more. He wanted to keep Jacob as his permanent good luck charm. He was making Laban rich. Laban’s God was his money.
"Rather than seeking to follow the truth of God’s plan as witnessed by Jacob, he merely resented and coveted the blessing of God on Jacob. He finally ended up with neither. His life constitutes a sober warning to a great host of semireligious but fundamentally self-worshipping and self-seeking men and women today."
God is “for you” too!
If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you can know that God is for you!
Romans 8:31-32 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Have you ever given much thought to that? “If God is for me? …Who can be against me?”
In Jacob’s case, it was Uncle Laban against him. But God was for Jacob!
God did not spare His own Son, He gave Him for us, He did not withhold His most precious and valuable possession. Why would He not FREELY give us all things?
Is God Your God or is He just God.
At the beginning of my sermon I asked you if you have had a supernatural encounter with God.
Many of you have.
But some of you have never encountered Him in any form or manner other than coming to church, being a good church attender or member.
I want to encourage you that God wants to encounter you, personally and supernaturally. He is not playing “hide and seek” with you. If you will seek Him, He says He “is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”
Now for all of you who answered that you have had a supernatural encounter with God, I want you to know that you aren’t off the hook.
Jacob has had 2 significant, supernatural encounters with God.
Jacob has both seen and heard God in a dream.
Jacob has experienced God’s incredible provision of food, clothing, wives, children and riches.
Jacob has heard God make a promise to him that he will be the father of a nation.
Yet there is something missing in Jacob’s life and it may be missing in yours:
In Genesis 32: 9-10 “Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, `Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ 10 I am unworthy of all the loving kindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies.”… 12 "For You said, `I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered”’
Nowhere does Jacob say, "He is my God."
Jacob knows some things about God:
He knows God as the Supreme Being.
But while he was brought low before his first encounter with God, low to the point of not even having a rolled up cloak to use as a pillow and having to use a rock instead, he wasn’t broken before God.
God was God but not His God.
(Who was?)
He knows God as Provider and Prosperity Maker.
God has not only met his needs but has made him rich beyond his wildest imagination.
Jacob knew God was able to meet his needs. But he was still not his God.
(What was?)
He knows God as Justice Giver.
God judged between him and Laban and blessed Jacob.
Jacob was brought low in the price he paid for his wife, he was brought lower by the changes in wages that Laban had cheated him on.
But while God met his need, He still didn’t see God as His God, just as God.
Jacob is still calling God the God of his (grand) father Abraham and father Isaac.
What about you?
When I was in college, I was witnessed to by a student who worked with Campus Crusade for Christ. He led me in a prayer to ask Christ in my life. But my heart wasn’t in it. I was low, but I was not broken. Later, I began selling insurance to pay my way through college. Before each appointment, I would pray to God and ask God to help me make the sale. I was top salesman for several months, and I attributed my success to God. When money got tight, I would ask God for help. God provided. But God wasn’t MY God, He was only the Great Genie in the sky. I was low at times, but I was not broken. I wanted other things other than God. I wanted success, fame, fortune, happiness, etc. So God was “out there” somewhere, available for me, but not near to me.
Have you been seeking something other than God alone?
Is God merely the means to an end for you?
Is God the tool for your happiness?
At this point in Jacob’s life, He is. He may be in your life as well.
Until you are broken, brought low, brought to the end of yourself.
In Christ Alone: (I want to read the rest of the passage about “if God is for us”
Romans 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written, "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED." 37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If God is really for us, we must be really for Him. He must be “our God.”
Our Lord. Our ruler. We cannot have other Gods.
God will never settle for 2nd place in your life. He won’t sit in the co-pilot’s seat. He can only bless your life if He is in charge.
Christ must be the object of our lives, the center, the fixation, the hub.
He is not the means to an end, He alone is the end. He is our goal.
And if He is not your goal, your supreme motivation for all you do and are, then you are at the same spot Jacob was and that I was while in college.
Today, you are asked to examine your life. Two questions for you to think about.
Have you had an encounter with God…or is your faith only religion?
And is God only a means to an end for you…or is He truly your God, your all in all. Is your life built upon Christ alone?
Choose today who you will love most.
Let’s pray.
Notes :
Matthew 6:8 & 33 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him…..But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”
This is God’s prosperity for us. Meeting our needs.
Psalms 1:1-3-1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers..
Satan complained about Job that God had “blessed the work of his hands,”
The only way you will ever prosper is for you to make God the number one in your life.
You don’t make Him number one so you can get rich. You make Him number one because He is worthy of being number one. You live for Him. You worship Him. You honor Him in all you do.
You seek His kingdom first and lo and behold, all these other things (that you once sought and wanted, like prosperity) are given to you as well. Once you stop seeking them, they become yours because you set your heart on God instead of the world.
Dt 30:5 "The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.
Dt 30:9 "Then the LORD your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers;
Mal 3:10-12 "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. 11 "Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes," says the LORD of hosts. 12 "All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land," says the LORD of hosts.
