We are going to look at a section in the life of Jacob, Genesis 28, as we look at experiencing the presence of God. How many of you would like to have more of God’s presence in your life? Tonight I want to show you some principles and then next week how to live in the presence of God and then how to pass the presence of God on to others.
Lets look at the first seventeen verses of Genesis 28. So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “you shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Paddan-aram; to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother. And may God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of people. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you; that you may possess the land of the sojourneyings which God gave to Abraham.” Then Isaac send Jacob away and he went to Paddan-aram to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram, to take to himself a wife from there and that when he blessed him he charged him saying; ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan’ and Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and had gone to Paddan-aram. So Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac; and Esau went to Ishmael and married besides the wives that he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebaioth.
Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. And he had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south; And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth will be blessed And 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.”
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘ Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the home of God and this is the gates of heaven.
Although my focus is from verse 10, I read the complete section so you can have an understanding of the journey Jacob was on. He had traveled out to the midst of a field where we find a rock to lay his head on to sleep. I don’t know at night where you lay your head, but my falls on soft feathers not a rock. I have a problem with foam, I can’t image a rock for a pillow, but that is what Jacob did for his sleep. It is not always comfort we seek, but the presence of God we seek. And Jacob fell into a fit sleep, having a dream. In this dream he sees a ladder descend standing next to God and God says to Jacob, And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth will be blessed And 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.”
How many of you are ready to have a dream like this? We are not talking about dreaming in church, this is at the very entrance of heaven Jacob has this awesome dream.
I. Our Acute Need. You and I have an acute need, a need to be in the presence of God. There is this longing, this desire. Some people reveal their need through boredom. Some say they are bored with their marriage, but that is not the problem, they don’t need a new spouse, they need the presence of God in their life. Here are several acute desires. The desire…
1. To Experience… David put this well when he said, “As a deer pants for water, so my soul pants for you. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I come and see the face of God?” There is this acute need, a restlessness to experience the presence of God. You and I have been wired on purpose by God to have fellowship, companionship with Him, to have a friendship with God, our Creator. Our first purpose is to get to know God and enjoy Him forever. God is a person, He is not an idea, or a power, or a principle. This is why Jesus called Him Father. God is a person who we are to get to know in an intimate, person to person relationship. We are different as humans from all of God’s other creation in we were made in His image which gives us the ability to have a relationship with God. We have been given the spiritual faculty to know God, cats don’t have it, dogs don’t have it, apes don’t have it, only humans, created in His image. We not only have an acute desire to experience God, but we have an acute desire…
2. Not to Believe. I am not talking about our belief in God right not. Everyone believes in God, some have different names for God, but I really believe deep down everyone believes there is a God, the majority just don’t know who He is and that His name is Jesus. Here is what I am talking about, so try to follow me. I believe we have an acute desire not to believe we will not see God. There is a big difference between a person who believes in God and reads about God and studies God and the person who sees God. In the Bible we read of scribes and prophets. Do you know the difference between them? The scribes were the people who studies God and wrote about God and a prophet is someone who saw God, and there is a major difference between the two. That is why when the people saw Jesus they noticed He taught differently than the scribes, He taught with power and authority. So many of us spend out time on the edges of the perimeter but we rally never enter into looking at God. So many of us get right up to the edges, we study about God, we sing about God but we never really come to the middle to look at God. I have been asked by a few people if I could teach something deeper about God, but it is not deeper teaching that is needed. The Bible says, When the Holy Spirit comes, you will not need people to teach you these truths. The Holy Spirit will lead into truth, so it is not teaching that is needed, it is really the presence of God they are actually looking for. We also have an acute desire …
3. To Life. Jacob said, surely the Lord is in this place and I didn’t see it. John 1:3 says, Here’s life. That they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. We have an acute desire to know God. It is burning within us right now. Psalm 34:8 says: Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. We have an acute desire to…
4. Taste and See. As David writes this in the Psalms, he is writing of experiencing God. This was not by accident Jesus picked up the bread at the Last Supper and said, This is my body, take eat… Jesus was saying that nothing, other than the presence of God, can satisfy your deepest longings or hunger. God is a lot more than just some principles or ideas you may have. Why do we come to worship, or to the communion table? We come to wake us up from our sleep to enter into the presence of God. We also have an acute desire …
5. To Smell. Psalm 45:8 All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia… Not only does the presence of God satisfy your hunger, there is an aroma about the presence of God. I can think of visiting my great-great grandmother, and my great grandmother’s house, there was a certain small that I associated with their home. I don’t know if it was the mothballs, or what, but I had that association with the smell of their house. My grandfather I could also detect the Old Spice, and also my dad. There is this smell of association. I am sure you have those smells as well that came from being in someone’s presence. Well God has a smell about Him that is recognizable when we come into His presence, have you smelled it? We have that acute desire to smell God, but not only to smell Him, but we have the acute desire…
6. To Hear. James 10:27 says, My sheep listen to my voice, I know them, and they follow me. God is more than an idea in our head, it is about tasting and seeing, it is about smelling, it is about hearing. And this is what happened when Jacob woke up and was aware of the presence of God. I remember coming to Ballard Assembly almost 2 years ago, 26 people in the first service. Can I tell you something. I did not act on what I saw, and neither did I act on what people here told me. I acted on what I heard Jesus saying and I know when I talk about the future here, some think I am crazy, but who do we listen to, the world, or what we hear in the presence of Jesus? I think you know the answer to that. Matthew 5:8 says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. This is all experiencing God. It is an experience. This week-end they opened the Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center. People lined up for the chance to see marquee musicians and the opportunity to experience music throughout the exhibits, but wouldn’t you most importantly want to experience God, the creator of all we have. To experience God is an acute need we all have and Jacob said after his experience, Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. How easy it is to miss God, distracted by the world.
II. The Ultimate Reality Here is the ultimate reality in Genesis 28:15, 16. Jacob is in the middle of nowhere, with his head on a rock. Perhaps you might have felt like you were in the middle of nowhere with your head on a rock, perhaps you feel that way right now. Can I tell you this…
A. God is here. What does God tell Jacob, Know that I am with you. Ultimate Reality. Surely the Lord is in this place and I forgot. Ultimate Reality, Know that I am with you. So where is God right now? God is here. Wherever you are, God is here. God is everywhere all at the same time. The Bible uses a religious word to describe this experience of God, He is called omnipresent. This means God is everywhere at the same time. There is no place, none, that is closer to God than any other. Look at Jacob. Where was he? Out in the middle of nowhere. And Jacob had never been for one moment outside of the pervading presence of God but he did not recognize it and that was his problem. It is also our problem as well. Far too often we do not realize that God is here—wherever we are. That there is no point nearer to God than any other point. You can run from God, but you cannot hide from Him because there is no place where you are hidden from God.
B. God Never Stops. Psalm 139:7-10 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I go to heaven, God will be there. That would be a given, but it says if I make my bed in the depths, in hell, God will be there. Can you believe that? You cannot go to hell and be away from the presence of God. That is what the Bible says, and a lot of us understand what it means to make our bed in hell but we are not alone, God is there with us. Have you ever felt separated from God and wondered where He was, feeling as though you needed to chase Him down? All the while you were wondering, he had you in His right hand. There is no point closer to God than any other point. Remember Adam and Eve when they messed up. What was it Adam wanted to do? He tried to do the impossible, he tried to hide from God. That’s ultimate reality. And God never stopped speaking, God was never silent in His pursuit, God never stopped. And God is constantly speaking to you, right now. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What was the word, speaking, who was the word, Jesus Christ. It then says, And we beheld we saw his glory we saw his presence. You and I have a great need, we feel guilty and for good reason, we win. We feel unworthy of God’s love, we think that He is ticked off with us but Jesus speaks to us like he did Peter telling us that even though we fail him, once, twice, three times, six times or more, whatever the number, Jesus says God is for you because God loves you. We might struggle at times and thing we don’t believe in God anymore, but can I tell you, God still believes in you. God will never forsake us and He sent His Holy Spirit as proof of His love and presence with us.
III. The Spirit
We are in the church age where the Holy Spirit comes with His presence, God, to live with us, comforting us, taking us to a higher level in our faith as we yield. To experience what God has for us we must…
1. Participate in the Presence . The presence of God is all around us and the Spirit of God allows us the opportunity to participate in the presence of God. I don’t know where each of you are at in this computer age. If you are a teen or a child I know, you are part of this new era of technology. You understand the Web and all the information concerning how to get on and how to surf and 28K, 56K 256K, cable, and other server terms. A couple of weeks ago Dan Moore put up the first of our web pages, www.ballard-aog.org. How many of you have tuned into the web page so far?
I have had some of you talk with me about getting on line and there are several ways to connect to a server, either by paying or for free but you have to plug into cyberspace to get the information which is available. Just having a computer is not enough, you need software, shareware. I bring this up because every human being has the hardware to experience the presence of God, but not every human has the software. The Holy Spirit is the software that logs us into the presence of God. The Holy Spirit is the software that gives us eyes to see—remember what Jesus said when He was talking about human beings? He aid you have to have eyes to see but you don’t have the software to see, you have to have ears to hear but you haven’t downloaded the software to hear. The Holy Spirit is the software that allows us to participate in the presence of God.
You cannot earn the Holy Spirit. Microsoft does not have a program you can buy that will download the Holy Spirit into your hard drive, your life. Some people thin they have to work hard praying to bring the presence of God in their lives, but you don’t achieve the presence of God. The presence of God is already here. But to receive the Holy Spirit you must surrender to the presence. You surrender to the presence than you experience the presence. Aren’t you glad you did not need some complicated formula, you don’t need to understand DOS but God has a universal windows program that is user friendly for us. We just need to cry out to Jesus. If you will take one step, God will take two and the Holy Spirit allows us to participate in the presence of God.
2. Practice the Presence. Our part is to practice the presence of God. Can you image, you are at a job you hate, when all the sudden you realize, surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. Or you are in a marriage you are bored with, when suddenly you realize, surely the Lord is in this place and I didn’t even see it. Or you are single and think you will never be satisfied until you find the right relationship and suddenly you discover the presence of God and you go, wow, this is an awesome place, surely the Lord is here and I forgot. I want to encourage you tonight to move beyond believing in God and studying God, to seeing God for he is the reality. What is that reality? God is with you, wherever you are, so guess what, God is here!
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