NIV Genesis 28:20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
Introduction: Do you have a vision? I mean a dream. My vision is pitching in the 7th game of the World Series in 9th inning and striking out the final batter. With my hands held high in victory the team pours off the bench and lifts me up in the air with the crowd going crazy with excitement, pride and awe! What’s your vision? I’ll probably never fulfill that vision, because there are too many things that would need to happen. I can’t throw very fast. I have other responsibilities. I’m too old now. What is your vision, your dream? What if God promised that he would take away all those roadblocks to your vision and he would grant you your dream? Would you quit your job, start throwing to a catcher, work on a curveball, make a videotape of yourself pitching and send it off to the major league scouts? Would you live on that vision? A sinner-saint by the name of Jacob did just that –no he didn’t pitch in the World Series but he did “Live the Vision” God promised to give him! Live the Vision! See God’s great grace to you. See your grateful response to that grace.
Part 1) See God’s grace to you.
“Jacob’s Ladder” is a vision that I learned about in S.S. It is one of my first memories of Christian day school. I remember being mesmerized by the artist’s rendition of the angels: the sweet “angelic faces”, the winged, robed and glowing bodies. It’s funny how you look at a bible story differently as you grow older and are weathered by sin and its consequences. Now that I have gained more experience as a Christian on this earth striving to make it to my heavenly home, this vision brings me great sorrow and great comfort. Sorrow because I see myself in Jacob’s lying and schemeing ways to obetian the blessings of God and great comfort because I see God’s undeserved faithfulness to Jacob just as he loves me in spite of my unfaithfulness. The angels don’t impress me as much as the promises God gave to Jacob. Oh of course the angles are truly powerful and amazing but they are only the tools that God would use to watch over Jacob, protecting him and providing the means by which God would fulfill every single blessing God promised Jacob. You see it is the promise of God -his grace- that is so powerful to me in this vision. During the vision God’s voice proclaims a summary of all the promises Jacob’s father and grandfather were given – a land to call their own, a great nation from their children and the greatest blessings of all – the promised Messiah would come from his family to rule the earth and rescue the world of sinners thereby becoming a blessing to the entire world. Jacob already knew those promises. Jacob’s mother Rebecca knew those promises. Esau, his brother and Isaac, his father all knew and remembered those blessings. The problem was that Jacob stole those blessings. He saw his brother as an enemy. In greed he saw those blessings and tricked his brother into giving up his birthright. He then proceeded to lie to his father pretending he was Esau so that he would receive the inheritance from Isaac. He stole the family farm, the line of the Savior, the Promised Land and the nation of Israel.
Tell me this; when your child steals from their siblings or takes things that don’t belong to them, what do you do? Child psychologist will tell you, “Don’t reward their bad behavior,” right? Talk to them about stealing – how it makes other people feel – and then make them give back whatever they have stolen. Jacob steals the birthright and all of those great promises but then the consequences of his actions start to kick in: Esau flies into a mad rage against Jacob –vowing to kill him; Isaac, Jacob’s father wants him out of the country; Rebecca his mother orders him to flee and never come back. Jacob runs away penniless and homeless. He is on the lamb – running away from his home, his family. When he sleeps all that he has is a stone for a pillow. There is no logical reason why God tells Jacob he will let him keep all those promises! Jacob doesn’t deserve anything but to suffer the consequences for his greed, selfishness and theft. And yet God shows his great love –we call it grace. He assures Jacob of all those promises will be his because he is the Lord who keeps his promises- in spite of sinful promise breakers –like Jacob.
Would you consider yourself a thief? Of course not, pastor. We don’t steal things, right? Have you ever “borrowed” something from work and its still in your home office or garage? Have you ever “borrowed” something from a friend that is still in your toy box or desk? Have you ever stolen something from God? We look at the vision of God’s love for us –the promises of peace, joy, love, protection and life to the full. Then we reason that God wants us to be happy – and well this is what makes me happy – and we take what we want. Or we may not actually steal it from someone else – but we steal it from God. We steal time that belongs to God. We steal money that belongs to God and we steal abilities that belong to God. What do you mean pastor that we steal things from God? The unhappy wife of 7 years reasons that God wants me to be happy. “This marriage isn’t making me happy anymore-God wouldn’t want me to stay in this marriage any longer and suffer.” The father and mother reason that God wants my family to have vacations and a nice home, new computer so they need to work on Sundays and come home late missing the chance for a bible reading with the family. Those blessings of a happy marriage and nice home, vacations and new toys may have all been granted to them by their Heavenly Father, but they stole them. They stole them from God. We are just as much a lying, scheming thief as Jacob was and maybe more.
Jacob was going to get all those blessings from God even without his scheming, lying and stealing. That was God’s promise at his birth. But Jacob used situation ethics, the end justifies the means approach to life instead of letting God be God and trusting him. In spite of Jacob’s theft, God commits to Jacob –He promises to be his God regardless of His unfaithfulness. What a comfort that vision was to Jacob. Can you imagine the burden that was lifted off Jacob’s shoulders? Everything would work out. God would see to it that Jacob would be kept safe – have a family and yes return to the Promised Land; the land of his family.
Living the vision of God’s grace doesn’t begin by throwing money into the offering plate or selling all your cars and electronics or even making a resolution to be more active in worship, bible class and leadership in a congregation. Living the vision of God’s blessings begins by seeing the vision of God’s grace- God’s grace to an undeserving group of greedy, self-absorbed thieves. We have no right to God’s forgiving love, his angelic protection or any of his blessings. But out of his undeserved grace he has fulfilled all his promises and will continue to do so, sometimes in an ordinary way through our employment and his Word, baptism and the Lord Supper, but he also use extraordinary means through angels and miracles to give us treasures and blessings beyond our wildest dreams. Living the Vision: See God’s grace to you –yesterday, today and into eternity.
Part 2) Live the Vision: See your grateful response to His great grace.
Living the vision is not just seeing God’s gracious love to us but it is also living the vision as we see our response to God’s grace. Jacob’s response to the vision of God’s promised blessings is astounding. Jacob promises to God that he will make a house of worship right there on that spot. What is so astounding about that promise you ask. Jacob doesn’t have anything to build a house of worship with. All that he has is a rock for a pillow. He is on the run. He left behind all his creature comforts that were his as a child of Isacc and Rebecca. He was penniless and alone. But he lived the vision God gave to him. He lived God’s promise of future blessings so he started the altar to the Lord with the one pillow rock he had. That is how certain Jacob was of God’s faithfulness to His Word. That is how certain Jacob was that God would be with him and bless him in the days to come. Not only did Jacob promise to build a place of worship to the Lord but he promised to give the Lord 10% of everything the Lord would give him. What is so astounding about that you ask? Well, Jacob had no idea how many flocks and herds of sheep and camels he would be given. He didn’t tell God he would give him 1000 sheep or 1000 camels –instead he would give God 10% of whatever he would receive –rich or poor or yes even middle of the road poor or rich. Jacob was going to show his thanks for whatever he would receive.
Have you ever heard of Tithing? Some people claim it is the key to success in God’s Kingdom. Have you seen someone giving a sermon or presentation about Tithing before? They are up there telling you their success story about how they were poor or middle of the road rich. Then when they finally obeyed their pastor and God’s Word about Tithing The Lord opened the floodgates of the treasures to heaven and rained down blessings on their heads –alleviating their credit card problems, paying back taxes and furnishing them with a nice home and vacations every year –but none of this was possible until I began to Tithe to the Lord.” Have you ever seen a poor person presenting the teaching about Tithing? Can you picture them? “I was born homeless and penniless. The pastor found me at the homeless shelter and told me about Tithing and then nothing changed. I am still penniless and homeless. The Lord didn’t give me anything more. If you Tithed you too can have nothing more just like me.”
Jacob had no idea how the Lord would bless him. Jacob had no idea how he would be able to build a place of worship for the Lord at Bethel. We are told in the last portion of Genesis that Jacob does return and build an altar to the Lord at Bethel – but we aren’t specifically told if Jacob ever gave a tenth of his blessings to the Lord. We are told that he routinely made sacrifices to the Lord. Jacob didn’t give a percentage based offering because he wanted the gravy train from heaven to continue making stops at his front porch. He was grateful for all the Lord’s blessings in good times and bad in sickness and health, rich or poor. Hmmm sound familiar? Hmmm marriage vows? Yes it is about faithfulness and trust in God. That is what tithing is all about. Our response to God’s grace is one of the heart in gratitude and trust. Jacob was thankful so he responded with what he was given a pillow rock served as the first building block of Jacob’s offering to God, because he trusted God’s promises.
I have a certain attitude that I am not sure I was born with. I think maybe it was cultivated by our society today to have a “The Best” attitude. You see when I go to purchase a car, a microwave oven, a TV, a stereo, a video game a piece of jewelry, I want the “best”. I actually am angry when I tell someone about my new best purchase and they tell me about a better model that has a better price. That just irritates me beyond normal limits. Surprisingly my favorite store is Best Buy. Do you have an item in your house that is the best? Do we have that same “Best” attitude when it comes to worship and our offerings to the Lord? It is wise for us to calculate how much the Lord blesses us and it is wise for us to calculate a percentage to give back to him to show our gratitude. But remember that whatever the Lord deems wise to bless you with, live the vision of God’s love! See your grateful response and live that grateful response with joy in your heart. May our prayer be the same as the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon -
Proverbs 30:8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. 9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ’Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.
Do you see yourself fulfilling your vision, your dream in 2003? If your dreams and visions are like mine – winning the World Series –we probably aren’t going to accomplish them because of our age, talent, and bodies. Do you see yourself being blessed by God in the year 2003? Nothing will stop that from happening. God is faithful to us his children. Do you see the vision of God fulfilling all his promises to you? Live that vision in 2003 – See his grace to you and See your grateful response in everything you do. Live the Vision of God’s certain grace!
