Main Idea: In every generation, God is faithful to His promises and calls His children to obediently follow Him
· But God is not like that – over and over again, God shows us in scripture what He is like and the kind of loving Father that He is to His children· And we are going to see from the text the kind of loving Father God is.
· From first to last, God is a loving Father.
1. God faithfully calls His children
2 And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before. 3 Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you." · In these verses, God is again calling Jacob but even as God calls him, God reminds him of the fact that He had called him to begin with back in Bethel.
· And it was good news for Jacob that God called him despite his character at the time.
Genesis 28:13-15 13 And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 15 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."
· God had come to Jacob after he had just messed up royally and sinned against his brother and his father. When Jacob had deceived and manipulated and lied.
· In Genesis 28 – when God appeared to Jacob, called him, blessed him, promised to be with him and keep him wherever he went and not leave him until God had done what He promised, Jacob had done nothing good to deserve God’s call.· Jacob had not earned God’s favor in any way
· God’s effectual calling has always been a work of His unmerited grace in the lives of His people.
· Prior to the law ever being given, God’s call came to Abraham and Isaac and now Jacob, not through deserving but through God’s grace.
· God called Jacob in Bethel and now God is calling Jacob again.
· Jacob’s notice of Laban’s displeasure alone was not confirmation of the course of action that he should take – but God used it to prepare Jacob to hear from Him
· But, it was God’s speaking that motivated Jacob to action. It was God’s promise that God would be with him that was the assurance he needed to leave.
· Where once he left Canaan motivated by fear, now he would leave Paddan-aram resting in the promise that God would be with him.
· After 20 years, God was still faithfully calling Jacob, because God is a faithful God who calls His people and who doesn’t stop calling to His people until He has brought them into the promised land
· God calls us even though we don’t deserve His favor too.
· This is great reassurance for us, because it means that His calling and His faithfulness to keep calling to us and to keep guiding us and leading us until He has done what He promised, depends wholly and completely on Him.
2. God faithfully provides for His children
v5 “But the God of my father has been with me”… v7 “But God did not permit him to harm me”…v9 “Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.”… v11. “Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am!’ 12 And he said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled… I Am the God of Bethel” · In verses 4-10 Jacob leads his wives and explains both the circumstances and also how God has been with them to provide and care for them in the midst of difficult circumstances. He sees that God is truly his provider.
· In verses 11-13, we see that the God who provided for Jacob is the same God who called him in Bethel, and is calling him to obediently return to the promised land. · God is bringing about his promise from 20 years ago and God has been faithful all along the way.
· In verses 14-16, Rachel & Leah respond in faith – they too now see the reality of the circumstances and see that in taking the wealth of their father, God has provided for them. They respond to Jacob with faith in God’s call because they see how God has provided
· And that is how God’s provision is to function for us as well – we need to look back over the years like Jacob and his wives and see the big picture – that God has been faithful to provide – that all along it was God who has cared for and protected us, even when we didn’t see it at the time.
· And this reflection on God’s provision – when we see that God does indeed faithfully provide for His children – it is meant to give us faith to follow God in His call.
· For Jacob, after many years, the proof of God’s favor was incontestable
· And now, for the first time, Jacob gives all the credit to God completely.
· He has learned that his manipulation was unwise and that really it was God’s provision all along that he relied on.
· Jacob even saw that the flocks bearing striped and spotted and mottled really had nothing to do with weird superstition and efforts to make something happen on his own.
· God was the one who had provided for Jacob and God had seen all that Laban was doing to him.
· Jacob has perspective now. Even though Laban did not have favor on him any longer, Jacob was aware of God’s over-arching favor on him through the past 20 years.
· As Moses was writing these words for the people of Israel, who had come out of Egypt to read, they really needed to be reminded of God’s consistent faithfulness to provide, protect and care for His people
· They needed to see all of their own history in light of God’s providential provision, so that they would have faith to continue to follow God’s call
· Because seeing God’s providence in our lives enables us to see that God is indeed continually trustworthy. It enables us to see that He is constantly faithful, and it helps provide the motivation to obey God and follow Him in what He has called us to do.
· God is the one who provides not only for Jacob but for all of His people, even in difficult circumstances
3. God faithfully causes His children to grow through difficulty
· It wasn’t just important for the people of Israel to see that their forefather grew and learned through trials and hardship and heavy labor, it is important for us to get perspective and see in our own lives today that God faithfully causes us to grow in the midst of difficulty.· Jacob is in charge of his home now and is the spiritual leader after being brokered as a pawn by his wives before
· Jacob was now more aware of God than he was of man’s attempt to thwart God’s plan and Jacob had become a man of faith who was willing to make a difficult journey out of obedience to God.
· It took Jacob many years to grow and learn about trusting and resting in the providence of God.
· He first had to learn, before he was to become Israel, the father of a nation and it was through difficulty and suffering and hardship that he learned to see God and trust in God.
· Jacob had fled to Laban as one who trusted in his own abilities and tried to get what he thought was best, according to his own means, (even if it meant stealing from his own brother and deceiving and manipulating his own father).
· Jacob was now being obedient to God’s divine summons.
V 12-13 says “for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. I AM the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise…”
· This is a staggering statement, the God who appeared to him over 20 years earlier and whom Jacob had made a vow and erected a pillar had seen all that Laban was doing to him.· So the question is – why did God have him there for 20 years?
· Why did God allow him to endure hardship, to be deceived, to be mistreated for so many years?
· Perhaps it is because God was at work conforming Jacob into the man God had called him to be.
· Perhaps God wanted Jacob to learn to trust in Him
· Perhaps God wanted Jacob to grow in character and stature and integrity, so that God might use him more powerfully?
· Maybe God even wanted Jacob to understand first-hand what it was like to be deceived, to be mistreated, to prepare him to go and meet his brother, so that he would have compassion on his brother and treat him differently?
· Whatever the purposes, we know that God had seen all that Laban was doing to him.
· God was not unaware. God had not been blind, even if He seemed slow to respond because it took 20 years in Jacob’s life.
· What we do know is that God clearly was working in Jacob, so that he could work through Jacob.
· What we do know is that these circumstances of 20 years served to shape and hone Jacob into a man of integrity – into a man of conviction and steadfast faith in the God of promise.
“behind the scene is God’s providence. The vertical event, not the horizontal activity, is decisive.” – Bruce Waltke
· How about you – what kind of circumstances are you in?· Have you had a long-standing trial?
· Have you faced challenges for many years now without respite?
· Do you have some difficult family relationships?
· Do you feel like God must not be paying attention? Do you feel as if God has forgotten you?
· God is the God who sees all that has been happening to you.
Genesis 28:15 15 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.”
· God had been with Jacob. God had kept Jacob wherever he went. God had not left Jacob. And now God was bringing him back to the land of promise 20 some years later.
· God is not unfeeling. God is not somehow detached. And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ and trust in Him for your salvation, you can be assured that God is not punishing you in any way.· Unlike Jacob even, God has adopted you Christian, as his son and daughter
· And you can trust in His benevolent love for you.
· You can trust in the fact that He sees and He is over all and He will lead you and guide you because He has promised to lead and guide His children.
· God gave a great promise to Jacob – He promised to not leave him until God had delivered him into the promised land
4. God faithfully delivers His children
· Laban’s daughters had seen that their father had not treated either them or their husband as he should have.· He was treating them as foreigners, but Jacob’s wives placed their trust in God as well
· Rachel’s deceitful actions in stealing Laban’s household idols were not good and they brought her very near to death.
· Laban pursued them quickly and he must have been furious – seeking to run them down and exact his revenge on Jacob.
· The night before Laban is about to overtake Jacob, God stops him and appears to him in a dream and say to him not to even say anything to Jacob either good or bad. And the implication is that if you aren’t to say anything, then surely you wouldn’t dare do anything either.
· Laban clearly was angry and wanted to do Jacob harm. But God restrained him through a dream. And now Laban knows he has no power to go against God
· Once again, we see that God rescued the patriarchs through intervening even in the lives of unbelievers.
· God rescued Abraham by appearing to Pharaoh in a dream
· And God rescued Isaac through appearing to Abimilech in dreams
· The only reason Jacob left Paddan-Aram with anything was because God spared him his life and all of his possessions as well.
· Laban easily could have taken all that Jacob had by force and he could have taken Jacob’s life as well – but it was not part of God’s plan and God didn’t allow it.
· God is clearly over all circumstances and all relationships and God can even change the minds of those who hate him and live for their own idols.
· There is no one whom God cannot change or influence.
Proverbs 21:1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
· Rachel rashly stole the idols and Jacob rashly made a vow in anger and both almost brought death into their family through their foolishness but God protected them even in this.· God would be the judge of Jacob and even though Jacob did not deserve to get off free, God protected him.
· The fear of Isaac – the Awesome One of Isaac, the One of Isaac who inspires dread in His holiness protected Jacob
· We can rest in the fact that God will keep us, even when it seems as if He is not. In the end, He will preserve us in Him eternally, even if our bodies are killed – our eternal hope is secure.
· In the end, God has vindicated Jacob
45 So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
· The monument that Jacob set up pointed to the fact that God Himself had freed Jacob and released him from a life of servitude
· For us – the Cross stands empty now as a monument to the final and ultimate freedom that God had brought to us – He has delivered us from slavery to sin and bondage to serving our own desires and now we are free to enter into the promised land.· Despite all of Jacob’s failures in the past – despite his lies and deceit, God is still with Him as the great redeemer
· If you are now a child of God – the Lord will be with you always. In fact, Jesus said He will never leave us nor forsake us (Romans 8).
· God proved to Jacob that He is God over all, the faithful redeemer and God wants each of us to know Him as God over all, our faithful redeemer as well.
21 He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
· It says that Jacob took everything that he had and obeyed God’s call.· And then it says, that he “set his face toward the hill country of Gilead”
· He was determined – he set his face towards the promised land and nothing would stop him for living and maybe even dying to get there.
· There is another time where we see another Biblical character who the scripture says that He set his face in a similar way and that is Jesus.
Luke 9:51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem.
· Jesus was determined to go to the Cross in the Promised Land – He let nothing stop Him in His dogged determination to fully obey God’s call and Jesus was committed that no matter what pain and suffering it would entail· He was going to go to Jerusalem – a name that means “the city of peace” – where as a man, He would lose all of His peace with God, bearing God’s infinite wrath in our place, so that we might be delivered from our accuser.
· The difference with us, is that we truly deserved punishment for our sins. We truly deserved not the wrath of Laban but even more - the wrath of God
· But because Jesus perfectly fulfilled God’s call to follow Him – because Jesus set His face towards Jerusalem and nothing stopped Him, we can have peace with God
· The fear of Isaac can become our refuge, the one in Whom we can hide from all our fears – the One to whom we can run in the storms of life
· We can shelter under His care, knowing that ultimately, He has rescued us from slavery and He has taken us out of darkness and He has delivered us from the Kingdom of the evil one and brought us into the promised land.
· It is clear, that in history, Jerusalem has known little to no real peace in the past three thousand years, but one day God will bring a new Jerusalem - and will one day, ultimately deliver us finally and completely into His new city of everlasting peace.
· God has already called us into His true Promised Land and we can rest assured that God will bring us into the ultimate promised land.
· We can trust that God has already made the ultimate provision for us – He has given us all that we need for life in Him
· He has made the ultimate provision in giving us His Son – Jehovah Jireh – the Lord will provide.
· And now, He calls us to follow is Jacob and our Lord’s footsteps and to set our faces towards the promised land of heaven as we make our journey here on earth by His grace and through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.
