Speaker 1Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels, and he drove all his livestock ahead of him, along with all the goods he had accumulated and pot on Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household gods. Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban, the Aramean, by not telling him he was running away. So he fled with all he had, crossed the Euphrates River, and headed for the hill country of Gilead. On the third day, Laban was told that Jacob had fled. Taking his relatives with him, he pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead. Then God came to Laban, the Aramean, in a dream. He came at night and said to him, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead when Laban overtook him, and Laban and his relatives camped there too. Then Laban said to Jacob, What have you done? You've deceived me, and you've carried off my daughters like captives in war. Why did you run off secretly and deceive me? Why didn't you tell me, so I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of timbrels and harps? Why didn't you tell me, so I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of timbrels and harps? Why didn't you tell me, so I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of timbrels didn't even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters goodbye. You have done a foolish thing. I have the power to harm you. But last night, the God of your father said to me, be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. Now you have gone off because you long to return to your father's household. But why did you steal my gods? Jacob answered Laban, I was afraid because I thought you would take your daughters away from me by force. But if you find anyone who has your gods, that person shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me. And if so, take it. Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods. So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he found nothing. After he came out of Leah's tent, he entered Rachel's tent. Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them inside her camel's saddle and was sitting on them. Laban searched through everything in the tent but found nothing. Rachel said to her father, don't be angry, my lord, that I cannot stand up in your presence. I'm having my period. So he searched, but he could not find the household gods. Jacob was angry and took Laban to task. What is my crime? He asked Laban. How have I wronged you that you hunt me down? Now that you have searched through all my goods, what have you found that belongs to your household? Put it here in front of your relatives and mine and let them judge between the two of us. I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts. I bore the loss myself, and you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation. The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you. Laban answered Jacob, The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. I see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine or about the children they have borne? Come now, let's make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as witness between us. So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. He said to his relatives, Gather some stones. So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it Jagar-sahaduthah, and Jacob called it Galid. Laban said, This heap is a witness between you and me today. That is why it was called Galid. It was also called Mizpah, because he said, May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me. Laban also said to Jacob, Here is this heap, and here is the pillar I have set up between you and me. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go away from you, but I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you, and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us. So Jacob took an oath in the name of the fear of his father Isaac. He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there. Early the next morning, Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left. He went to the hill country, and he left and returned home. Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2Thanks, Casey and Brian. It's a pleasure to be with you, and I'm excited to see what God does in our midst this morning. I want to tell you a story. It's not from Genesis 31. It's actually Genesis at all, but it's an important story, and I want you to do something. I want you to try your best to put yourself into this story. I want you to try to feel the ground beneath your feet, the aches and pains of these characters who are walking. Most importantly, I want you to be sensitive to your emotions, what you would be feeling if you were one of them. I call this story Great Expectations, Great Disappointment, and a Great Stranger. And if it helps, I encourage you to close your eyes. It'll be about a minute and a half. Cleopas and Eleazar shuffled their feet and hung their heads as they started their day-long walk home. They kicked small rocks as they proceeded in silence. It was only a week ago that they were full of excitement, believing that their fortunes were going to change, that they could be eyewitnesses of the greatest moment in history, the envy of all Israel, and they could pass the story on for generations. But here they were, about to spend the entire day returning back to their families, no glory, no power, no change, no exciting stories to tell, just nothing. Nothing to talk about, nothing to report. At worst, they'd be the laughing stock of their village. At best, no one even noticed they were gone. What a waste. Those words, what a waste, were captured in a silent look on each other's faces as they peered into each other's eyes, trying to read their minds. Eventually, Eleazar broke the silence. This is all your fault, Cleopas. My fault, he said. How is all this my fault? Well, you said, come with me. It will be an adventure. We can have front row seats for God's miracles. Ha! It didn't take much convincing. It's not like you had a lot going on. How could I have known that this was all for nothing? The two men were so embroiled in their argument, they both jumped when they heard a voice behind them. Friends, may I walk with you? The two barely muttered acceptance. The last thing they wanted was company. But the strange enthusiastically wedged himself between them as they journeyed on. Sounds like quite an argument. I would think you should be walking away from each other, not walking together, the stranger said with a chuckle that was only met with dead silence. Cleopas chimed in. We're from the same village. We came here for excitement. We were expecting kavod, glory, awe, power. But we go home now with no money and just wasted time. God didn't show up. We're fools. The stranger's demeanor changed from warm curiosity to insulting rebuke. Are you blind or deaf? Because everything God promised, what the prophets of old spoke about, happened. And somehow you two fools completely missed it. Cleopas and Eleazar stopped at the same time. Eleazar stared at the stranger's face for the first time. Mister? What did you say your name was? You can open your eyes. Later on we'll come back to Cleopas and Eleazar's story, but for now I want you to step into their sandals. We've all been there before. Great expectations, which turn out to be a big, fat, nothing burger. A bust. Wasted time. What did you feel in Eleazar and Cleopas' story? Maybe you got caught up in their initial excitement. About having an adventure. Maybe you felt the drag of their sheer disappointment or the bitterness of bickering back and forth. Maybe you picked up on the annoyance of a stranger pestering you when you just want to be left alone. Maybe you felt the piercing rebuke of the stranger. It stung, but it felt right for someone to name something clear and true about you, something you could feel in your gut. Not the way it was supposed to go. We know that feeling. Disappointment. My plans versus God's plans. That reminds me of this meme. We all know this image. It's the universal human experience. Proverbs 16.9 says, we can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. I found a Yiddish proverb based on this. Der Mensch tragt und Gott lacht. We make plans, God laughs at them. It rhymes in Yiddish. We got to be able to laugh sometimes at the messiness of life precisely because life can be so serious and hard and difficult and disappointing, like the dash hopes of Eleazar and Cleopas and Jacob. Lucky Jacob, the patriarch, he gets to be part of Yahweh's massive plans for redeeming the whole world from the utter devastation of sin. But little did he know when he laid his head on that rock pillow on his journey to Haran, what was in store for him. His mother, Rebecca, told him to disappear, lay low, while his brother Esau was angry for tricking him out of his inheritance and stealing his blessing. So Jacob was fleeing to be with his uncle Laban for, I don't know, a couple weeks, maybe a month. Esau would move on to something else. Jacob would return. And then there'd be the open floodgates of blessings, angels, riches, empowerment, glory, fulfillment, the whole shebang. But beware our assumptions, our plans, because God laughs. How many of you know, longing and disappointment as you wait on God? God's made you a promise, or God has put a unique calling on you, and you've been waiting and waiting for things to kick into gear, waiting for that divorce to finalize, waiting for that health issue to resolve, waiting for an estranged child to come back, waiting to get out of seemingly perpetual underemployment, waiting for a pregnancy test to say positive, waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right. In the Abrahamic saga of Genesis about the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there's a lot of waiting. There's a lot of searching the skies for that bolt from the blue, but most of the time, there's nothing. There are a lot of promises and a lot of silence from heaven. Do you know that feeling? But I want to tell you today, there's more to Jacob's story, and there's more to your story too. Last time I was on this stage two years ago, something pretty amazing happened. Does anyone remember what happened two years ago? Lightning struck and the power went out. So we're counting on God to show up again, but hopefully spare the sound system. A few years ago, I was preaching somewhere and someone came up to me and said, you're not really a preacher. You're more of a teacher. And I think that was their roundabout way of saying, Nije, you're kind of boring. Like I'm a geek. Well, yes, I am a geek. So I've learned to accept that. So we're gonna do something a little bit different today. About 20 years ago, I read a really awesome bestseller book called How to Read Literature Like a Professor. What if you could sit down with a literature scholar and learn how they read Shakespeare or Tolkien or Toni Morrison or Madeleine L'Engle? What is their method? What do they look for? What pops for them that doesn't to the untrained common reader? I thought, I don't have Tyler's poetic imagination. I don't have Charming Charm. I don't have Gavin's pastoral warmth or Christian spiritual energy. But what I do have is the gift of geek. So I want to take you to the classroom, to seminary for about 30 minutes. How does that sound? All right. You don't have a choice. So we're gonna do How to Read Genesis Like a Bible Scholar. Now, technically, Genesis is Tim Mackey's area. So if you see him, one church is canceled, okay? I don't want any notes. How to Read Genesis Like a Bible Scholar, I want to teach you through six symbols that represent six methods or tools we're gonna learn about. The shovel, the drone, the snorkel, the cross, the mirror, and the ear. So if you're a note-taking person, get ready, because you're gonna be busy this morning. I'm gonna walk quickly through each of these symbols, then we'll go back through and look at Genesis 31 with each one. Number one, the shovel. Principle number one, before you can fully understand a story or passage from Genesis, you have to understand the ancient context. There's a great quote from L.P. Hartley that says, the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. So when you study the Bible, when you study Genesis, be curious and ask about the who, what, where, when, and how. Learning about history, place, culture, religion, politics, you're digging you're unearthing the past history, which is different from ours. I like to say, before we can make the Bible familiar as God's word, we have to make it foreign. God speaks to us in Scripture, but he chose to do so in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic on the other side of the world, a long time before iPhones and Crocs and the boo-boos. Ancient Israel was a time and place where they do things differently there. We'll illustrate each symbol from Genesis 21. Hang on, but first, I want to go through all the techniques. So number one is the shovel. Number two, the drone. The drone is the big picture from on high. Principle number two, study each passage in light of the whole book of Genesis and its story and themes. Because our modern Bibles are broken up into chapters and into cutesy refrigerator magnets and discount bins, it's hard to understand and remember that the original scroll of Genesis didn't have chapter numbers and verses. You heard and learned and memorized whole stories. So as you study a particular section of Genesis, like Jacob fleeing from Laban, ask, how does this touch upon master themes of the whole of Genesis and the overall Abrahamic saga? Keep the big picture. Keep the big picture in mind. That's the drone. Number three, the snorkel. Genesis is primarily a story with many episodes. Stories can teach theology, but the goal isn't to just try to pull out the theology and abandon the story. Stories are one of the primary ways that we learn from Scripture. So the goal of the Bible stories are not to deconstruct them to get to theology, but rather to step into. The story. So put on your snorkel and immerse yourself. Let yourself be caught up in its drama, its characters and places, smells, sights, sounds, tension, emotion, the struggle, the joy. Soak it all in. Be patient. Be slow. Let it seep into your bones because these are actually great stories if you give them a chance. Number four, the cross. This is the God symbol. The goal of reading Scripture is to know God. God is the great constant throughout Scripture. So always ask, what does this text tell me about God? How do I see the personality and character of God? And how does this come to a climax in Jesus on the cross? One of my favorite TV shows growing up was The Simpsons. My parents technically didn't allow me to watch The Simpsons, so I had to sneak into the basement. But I did learn some theology from The Simpsons. There's a great episode where Homer's at home lounging, and there's a knock at the door, and he can see through the window that it's Reverend Lovejoy. And he's bewildered, concerned. He goes to the door. He says, Reverend Lovejoy, is this about Jesus? And Reverend Lovejoy responds, Homer, everything's about Jesus. That is great theology. Everything is about Jesus. So, get to know God better when you read the Bible, because everything is about God, and God is there in everything. every moment. Number five, the mirror. See yourself in Scripture. I hear people on social media sometimes say, hey, get over yourself. The Bible's not about you. It's about God. And I respond, it's kind of both, isn't it? The gospel is a beautiful story about God and about us. So maybe it's two sides of the same coin, the God who loves and those who are loved by God. So read Scripture with the cross. It's about God, but read it with the mirror because it's also about you. So when you're reading Genesis, ask, who am I in the story? Am I the skeptic, the naive believer, the fool who gives up his birthright, the trickster, that steals it, the mother who hedges her bets, the father who hasn't spent enough time with his kids to tell them apart? You are there somewhere. You just need to read carefully and be willing to be honest with yourself. And it's not all bad news. Sometimes you're Abraham who receives an amazing calling, or Sarai who is blessed with a miracle child, or tricky Jacob whom God blesses with material abundance out of his sheer grace. Or maybe you're just. Wildly hairy like Esau, just a thick sweater everywhere all the time. The last symbol is the ear. This represents praying when you're reading Scripture and listening to God because he wants to speak to you. Amen? We don't actually worship the Bible. We refer to the Bible as holy, not divine. The Bible is the means, not the end. The end is communication. Communication and communion with God. Knowing and being known. So, talk to God yourself. Scripture sets the table for a relationship with God. You need to open your ears and be willing to listen for the living God. Okay, recap. There you have it. Six symbols for six steps. Shovel, drone, snorkel, cross, mirror, ear. Real quick, as a summary, shovel, dig up the ancient world. You'll learn something. Drone, fit your passage into the wider story. Get a bird's eye. Snorkel, these are rich stories. Immerse yourself. Cross, look for God. What does the passage tell us about who God is? Our God. Our God who climactically revealed himself in the incarnation, life, ministry, suffering, arrest, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session. See, I got the new. Testament in there. The mirror. Hey, look. Good news. You're in the Bible, too. Figure out where you fit in. And the ear. Slow down. Listen. Pray. God spoke then. God speaks now if we learn to listen. We're going to practice these tools in Genesis 31, but first, we need to break this episode down section by section. Genesis 1 and 2. Everything is perfect. Enjoy it while it lasts. Genesis 3 through 11. Oh, no. Sin causes things to unravel, devolving into devastation and chaos. Boo. Genesis 12. A new hope. God speaks to us. We're going to do a flyover. I'm going to go really, really, really fast. And if you want to slow down, then just listen to all of the messages from Bridgetown from the last three months. Genesis 1 and 2. Everything is perfect. Enjoy it while it lasts. Genesis 3 through 11. Oh, no. Sin causes things to unravel, devolving into devastation and chaos. Boo. Genesis 12. A new hope. God speaks to us. We're going to do a flyover. I'm going to go really, really, really, really fast. And if you want to slow down, then just listen to all of the messages from Bridgetown from the last three months. Genesis 6 again, calling Abraham as the beginning of the gospel of redemption. God makes a covenant, a new relationship that will lead to renewal, but it's not an easy straight line. Most of Genesis is a saga of one step forward, two steps back. But God is there guiding the way slowly and steadily. Genesis 12 begins the Abrahamic saga. Genesis 12 through 25, Abraham and Sarah. 26 through 36, their children, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob, Rachel, and David. Genesis 37 through 50, Joseph and his amazing technicolor dream coat and some trippy dreams. This week, we are deep into the Jacob story in Genesis 31. Recap of previous episodes. Jacob's a mama's boy. Nothing wrong with that. But Jacob and mother Rebecca craft a plan to steal Esau's blessings. It worked. Tricky Jacob strikes again. Now, there's a little bit of meathead bits. From back to the future in Esau. And there's a little bit of Marty McFly in Jacob. Or if I'm channeling Pastor Christian, we could use Marvel here and say that Jacob is Loki, the master of deceit. Then Esau, let's be honest, is the Hulk. And Jacob makes Esau angry, so Hulk wants to smash something. Genesis 27, verse 14. From that time on, Esau hated Jacob. And Esau began to scheme. I will soon be mourning my father's death. Then I will kill my brother, Jacob. Hulk not happy. Hulk angry. Rebecca warns Jacob, maybe get out of town. Lay low. Visit your uncle Laban in Haran. So Jacob flees. Now we have Jacob's dream, angels, rock pillow, amaze, amaze, amaze. Then life with Laban, Jacob's uncle. Laban is also a trickster. Jacob gets a taste of his own medicine. Jacob's tricked into marrying Leah to get Rachel. Long years in Haran with Laban. This wasn't the plan. He wanted to get back to his parents. Laban knows that Jacob's god, Yahweh, favors Jacob and has made Jacob successful. In their business. So Laban wants Jacob to stay so he can squeeze more material blessings out of him. I want you to ponder this when we dig into Genesis 31. Jacob went to Haran for a short holiday to lay low. A respite. A hideaway. Maybe a few weeks. A month. He was always to go back to the promised land. The land God gave to Abraham. But Genesis 31 informs us 20 years past. A pit stop turned into a hundred laps in the race. Jacob was experiencing life's curve balls. From Genesis 31. The decision. The theft. The flight. The chase. The confrontation. And the pact. Scene one. The decision. Jacob has had it with Laban. But he's afraid of him too. So Jacob decides he'll take his family, livestock, and wealth and secretly flee back home. So let's use our drone for this. To see the big picture. God gives the Abrahamic family these amazing promises. A blessing. A relationship. With the expectations of peace, hope, and joy. But it's never a straight and simple path. The plan God has meanders and takes detours. Sometimes short. Sometimes very, very long. So Abraham is called to go to Canaan but has to detour during a famine. Genesis 21. Joseph, who's one of Jacob's sons, has amazing dreams of glory and honor. But gets sold out by his brothers and ends up in a jail in Egypt. A seemingly dead end. But it's not. And the famous one. Genesis transitions into Exodus. Yahweh frees his people from slavery. They're meant to make a short trip to Canaan. A short trip that ends up taking 40 years. We plan. God laughs. It rhymes in Yiddish. Scene #2: The Theft. Before they leave Haran, where Laban lives, Rachel steals Laban's religious figurines. The statues of Laban's gods. Why? Let's use our shovel for this one and dig into the history and background. What are these figurines and what are they worth? In Hebrew, they're called terafim. They may have looked something like this. Maybe the size of action figures or little toy dolls. The images here look to be made of clay, but we know sometimes they were made of precious metals. Like gold or silver. Maybe Rachel wanted the cash value? But more likely, these were viewed as talisman. Lucky charms. Objects used to secure the favor of the gods. These were not figurines of Yahweh, these were foreign and false gods. But Rachel couldn't help herself and Jacob didn't know. Lesson learned. Jacob believed he was returning home, but sometimes your past life gets dragged there with you. Next scene, the flight. Verse 21, so Jacob took all his possessions with him and crossed the Euphrates, heading for the hill country of Gilead. The chase. Laban gets wise to Jacob's flight, and he goes in hot pursuit. This is a good time to use the snorkel, and this is where we immerse ourselves in the biblical story. Often we read the Bible, mining it for little nuggets of insight. We squeeze the life out of it, looking for the juice of spiritual life hacks. But Genesis is God's word he gave us in beautiful story form that's meant to leave an impact as gripping, emotional stories. For example, in Genesis, you're meant to be in awe in Genesis 1 when God is shaping the heavens and the earth, or be shocked when Cain murders Abel, or concerned when Isaac asks Father Abraham, Papa, where is the room? Ram for the offering. You see, we moderns with our YouVersion Bibles and snippet devotionals sometimes flatten out scripture, trying to surgically extract insight, but often at the cost of killing the living drama of the story that God wants to teach to his beloved but messy people. So we need a return to innocence to read these stories afresh as really interesting, really entertaining, really gripping tales, a saga of redemption with flawed families and a persistent cause. Covenantal God of love. How, though? How do we rekindle these stories? Well, the answer is easy, but the execution requires significant effort and skill. Use your imagination. That's the reason I had you do that exercise at the beginning of my message with Eleazar and Cleopas, and we'll do this again now with Jacob and Laban. Try to imagine the setting, the heat of the Middle Eastern desert, stinky sheep braying, tents flapping in the winds. Try to imagine it like a drama. How do the people feel? Is there tension? I'm going to give you just a snippet of Laban realizing that Jacob has fled and taking an army of people to catch up and confront Jacob. So I created a little fiction. I want you to close your eyes and bear with me. And I really want you to try to immerse yourself in this story. Close your eyes. Jacob paced back and forth for hours as he saw Laban and his crew unpacking their tents. It took all day for Laban to set up his full camp with what looked like dozens of people, most of them Laban's nephews and distant relations. It was dusk when Laban finally made the long walk to talk to Jacob. Jacob was sitting by a fire when Laban quietly but noticeably emerged from the darkness into the flames flickering illumination. Jacob gestured for Laban to sit, but he could tell Laban was too angry to relax. Jacob braced himself for an unleashing of fury in shouts and fits. Jacob knew very well Laban's anger from many confrontations in Haran over 20 years. To Jacob's surprise, Laban stood silently as if collecting his words. That's unlike Laban, Jacob thought. For a long while, all you could hear was the crackles and pops of the fire. Finally, Laban spoke, clearly restraining himself. I came here to kill you. I mean, I wanted to kill you. Everything I've done for you? You're going to take my daughters away from me? Not so much as a goodbye? Just run off in the night like a thief? You could have told me you were unhappy. Am I a monster? I would have thrown the best goodbye party money could buy, music, food, gifts. Instead, you treated me like a stranger, so I was going to chop you into pieces like a poacher stealing my sheep or butchering my sheep. I was going to kill you. I was going to kill you. I was going to kill you. Or butcher you like a weak animal. But your God, this Yahweh, appeared to me. He told me, I couldn't lay a finger on you. I like my finger, so good for you. You got protection. If your God is so powerful, why take my gods, my tefillin? First you take my family, and then my gods? Okay, open your eyes. Could you put yourself there? Could you hear it, the fire? Smell it? Could you put yourself in that conversation and feel the emotion? The fear Jacob had at Laban walking up? The anger that Laban had towards Jacob? amazing stories. They're meant to pull you in. So don't rush through reading the Bible looking for a little snippet. Let it steep. Don't just read it. Feel it. Let's keep going. Laban confronts Jacob, accusing him of stealing his tefillin, his cult statues, his gods. And Jacob doesn't know what Rachel did. And Genesis narrates a humorous cat and mouse game as Laban searches Jacob's tents and Rachel keeps the tefillin hidden. Rachel, you hiding something? Father, don't come any closer. It's my time of the month. Laban, never mind. I'll get new gods. Forget I asked. Jacob turns the tables and confronts Laban. Laban, 20 years I worked for you. You worked me hard. You think we were like family? You showed no grace, no mercy. I worked hot days. Cold nights. Fought off wild beasts. You tricked me into 14 years of hard labor to marry Rachel and Leah. And you renegotiated my pay 10 times in your favor. The only reason you kept me on the hook was because you knew Yahweh favored and blessed me and you could benefit from that. And boy, did you benefit. Next scene, the pact. After they got their words and feelings out, they made a deal. Laban says, I'm paraphrasing, I want to kill you. You're under Yahweh's protection. So let's make a peace deal. I leave you alone. You leave me alone. Take care of my daughters and you will never see me again. So Laban kisses his daughters and grandchildren goodbye and returns to Haran. Genesis 32, a new chapter. Jacob also went on his way and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, this is the camp of God. So he named the place Mahanaim. Mahanaim means two camps, as in Jacob has camped and so has Yahweh. The clouds parted, the trumpet sounded, the angels descended. This is a key bookend to Jacob's latter experience. Jacob is finally home. The end after another thousand pages of the Bible. Okay, time to use our cross and our mirror. Look for God in the text and look for yourself. So the cross, where is God? What does God do? And what does this tell us about our God? Before we address Genesis 31, let's go back to Eleazar and Cleopas. Does anybody here know where this story comes from? Eleazar and Cleopas, I see a nod. Where's it come from? What do we call the story? The road to Emmaus, Luke chapter 24. Two disciples who followed Jesus looking for big Messiah blowout action, maybe a revolution against Rome, maybe the old church. And they're looking for a new overthrow of the Herodian dynasty, maybe a parting of the Jordan or a new set of plagues. But after Jesus, the so-called king is executed unceremoniously. They head home, heads bowed low in disappointment, and they say, God wasn't here. He didn't show up. Great expectations, great disappointment. But this stranger appears who is more than meets the eye. And once they finally put all the pieces together that this is in fact the risen Jesus, the whole time, zap, he disappears. But they could feel their hearts burning. And Eleazar and Cleopas said, God was with us this whole time, and we missed it. I believe Luke chapter 24 is the New Testament mirror image of Genesis 31. Jacob is promised the world-changing work of God in the land of Canaan, the land given to Abraham. And he's promised the world-changing work of God in the land of Canaan, the land given to Abraham. And he's promised the world-changing work of God in the land of Canaan, the land given to Abraham. And he's promised the world-changing work of God in the land of Canaan, the land given to Abraham. And he's promised the world-changing work of God in the land of Canaan, the land given to Abraham. And Jacob did some things, some things he probably wasn't proud of, and had to skip town, probably in his mind for a few weeks, maybe a month. But it turned into 20 long years, a life detour that just became life. And I know some of you here today know what this is like. You're stuck at a waiting period. Maybe it's not 20 years. Maybe it's 30. Maybe it's two years. Maybe it's three. Maybe it's four. Maybe it's five. But it's longer than you expected and longer than you expected and longer than you expected and much longer than you want. You know God much longer than you want. You know God much longer than you want. You know God has something great in store for you. you, but you're currently far away from that with some lurking disappointment. But Genesis 31 and 32 tell us God does have big things in store, blessings and abundance and angels from heaven, but God has been there all along in the 20-year detour. Amen? In Bethel before the 20 years, as Jacob slept with that rock pillow, Yahweh said, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I'll bring you back to this land, and I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. The enemy will whisper or yell at you, God is dead. God is gone. And I want you to carry around the promises of Genesis 28, 15. I'm with you. I will never leave you until all my promises are fulfilled. You have nothing to worry about. This is eerily reminiscent of Matthew 28, 20. And surely I am with you, Jesus says, to the very end of the age. This is right before Jesus ascends, and disappears into the clouds of heaven. But just because you can't see him doesn't mean he's not there. With you, in you, among you, protecting you, and blessing you. Back to Jacob, while Laban was trying to trick Jacob in Haran, Yahweh was counteracting behind the scenes. When Laban wanted to kill Jacob, Yahweh appeared to Laban to stop him, and Jacob was none the wiser. This reminds me of a story. About 20 years ago, my wife and I were visiting a church in the Midwest, and I had to use the restroom. I don't want to get graphic, but let's just say I was in there for a while. And a few minutes into the business, the lights went out. I thought maybe someone else came out and accidentally shut the lights off, so I meekly yelled, hello? Can someone please turn the lights on? And I heard a whoosh, and voila, the lights went off. And I thought, well, I'm not lights click back on. It's a miracle. Few, back to work. Then again, a few minutes later, lights turn off. Then again, whoosh, lights turn on. No need to get into details, but this happened a couple more times. And I was so confused. When I had left the bathroom after washing my hands, of course, I realized the lights were motion activated. And this was a long time ago, so I didn't know that was even a thing. My amazing wife, Amy, realized this was happening, so she was standing near the bathroom door. And when she heard the lights click off, she fling the door open and gesticulate wildly to trigger the sensor. She did this over and over without me knowing. You see, I thought I was on my own in there. At the seemingly random whim of people that willy-nilly turned the lights on. I was like, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm going to do this on and off in public bathrooms at church. This is where I'm going to an altar call. But someone was looking out for me. Someone I couldn't see. Jacob knew God had big plans for him, a hope and a future. Jacob knew this would happen in the promised land, but Jacob's life took a big detour of 20 long years. Let's use our mirror now. Anyone here been disappointed at the twists and turns of life? Anyone here been disappointed at the twists and turns of life? Look around. Anyone here been disappointed at the twists and turns of life? I have. Perhaps you knew you wanted kids. You dreamed about being a mother or a father. And one year of waiting turned into two, or three, or five, or ten. You had big plans for their career, but a family member, maybe an aging parent, got sick. And you stepped into help, what you thought was six months, that turned into six years. When does life get back on track? Or you've been trying to get your finances in order, and you've been working really hard, responsible spending. You've been climbing out of the deep pit of debt, and you can finally see light. And then a war breaks out, and everything gets more expensive, and that daylight fades. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God? I could use some help. Friends, listen to me. Genesis reminds us over and over and over again, whether you're on the mountain with the fireworks of God's presence, and you proclaim Maha Naim to camps, or in the valley or the wasteland, God's presence. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God? I could use some help. Friends, listen to me. Genesis reminds us over and over and over again, whether you're on the mountain with the fireworks of God's presence, and you proclaim Maha Naim to camps, or in the valley or the wasteland, God's presence. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God? I could use some help. Friends, listen to me. Genesis reminds us over and over again, whether you're on the mountain with the fireworks of God's presence, and you proclaim Maha Naim to camps, or in the wasteland, God's presence. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God's presence. And you proclaim Maha Naim to camps, or in the valley or the wasteland, God's presence. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God's presence. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God's presence. And you proclaim Maha Naim to camps, or in the valley or the wasteland, God's presence. And you pray, are you coming anytime soon, God's presence. And you there all along. James in the New Testament reminds us, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. Every good thing we have, the little blessings that we easily take for granted, sunshine, drinkable water, going to the movies with your family, a hug you desperately needed from a friend, or that encouraging text that makes you smile. Every big or little gift we have is from God. That's part of what it means to be Christian. We believe every good thing in life, great and small, comes from above. And he doesn't change. He's always there for us. Whether we feel like we arrived at our promised land or we're slaving away for Laban in a foreign country. Most of the events, the book of Genesis, what I call the Abrahamic saga, happened in the 21st century BC. Tradition says that happenings were passed down from generation to generation, were collected by Moses at some point. But when were these stories finalized into the book that we call Genesis? Most scholars would say that happened during Israel's exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC. Israel has this up and down story. And at some point, the one kingdom of Israel was divided into two, northern kingdom and southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was wiped out by the Assyrians and the southern kingdom called Judah was sacked by the Babylonians. Their temple demolished. The people dragged. Into exile like slaves, forced to live in another land, away from their temple, away from their home. You could see in that situation why they desperately needed the book of Genesis in exile. Because exile was not the gospel plan that they were promised. No land, no temple, no visible indicators of God. And they constantly wondered, have we been abandoned? Will there really be any hope or future for us? Old Testament scholar Terence Frettheim imagines how Genesis would have been so powerful for people living in the aches and longings of exile. Not where they want to be. Numb by the seeming absence and silence of God. Frettheim, you're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. You're going to have to go to the book of Genesis. Boab to help guide us through God working in us during this time. Spend a quiet moment letting
Speaker 3Jacob's story come alive in your life. Thanks for joining the Bridgetown family as we engage in this teaching series. To learn more about the life of our church and how you can get involved, visit bridgetown.church.com. If you're interested in contributing financially to Bridgetown Church and to our ministry, you can do that at bridgetown.church giving. Wherever you're joining us from, we hope this resource blesses you and encourages you to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.
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