Scripture Passage: Genesis 35:1-29  

Main Idea: God graciously calls & redeems His people in the middle of sin

1.       God graciously calls His people

·         God was gracious to call Jacob so many years prior as he fled for his life on the way to paddan-aram.
·         When Jacob was running, when he wasn’t looking for God, God stopped him, called him and promised to bless him
·         In the day of his distress, God had been with him
·         God had been with him all along, wherever Jacob went
·         Through many dangers, toils and snares God had by His grace brought Jacob safely home
·         And Jacob wasn’t called just once either
·         God chose him about 30 years prior in Bethel when he was on the run and the first verse in chapter 35 opens up with God reminding him of His prior calling
·         God changed his name to Israel 10 years prior just before he was about to face his brother and 400 men
·         Jacob was at a low point yet again when God graciously called to him
·         His daughter was defiled and he didn’t respond.
·         Out of fear, he didn’t respond well and he didn’t lead his family as he should have.
·         He feared the inhabitants of the land instead of trusting or even seeking God.
·         But God graciously came to Jacob when Jacob didn’t deserve and when Jacob wasn’t seeking Him.
·         Why? Because God is faithful to His promises and God keeps His Word
·         God is a God of grace and mercy & seeks us out when we need it most.
·         God graciously calls His people to come back to Him and to worship Him.
·         The first 15 verses of chapter 35 highlight God’s gracious call to Jacob to come and worship Him, and Jacob’s response in worship

2. God calls His people to a life of worship

·         God calls His people to worship Him
·         Jacob immediately responded to God’s Word and he was obviously convicted, because he took action in response to God’s Word.
·         They ritually purified themselves by bathing and cleaning and they put on new clothes, to signify  a new and pure way of life.
·         This was an outward acknowledgement and sign that they were changing their ways and living differently now – they were set apart

Psalm 24:3-4  Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?  ⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

·         Jacob applied what God said to him by putting away idolatry from his household

·         Responding to God in repentance means getting rid of whatever it is that gets in the way of worshipping God
·         Israel’s covenant with God entailed exclusive allegiance to God
·         In order to live a life of worship to God, God’s people must put away their idols
·         God is calling all of us to worship Him – in fact, we are to live our entire lives as worshippers of Him

John 4:23-24  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

·         Jacob worshiped God for who He was - God answered Him in his distress and he had been with him wherever he went

·         God is the God who answers His people in the day of their distress
·         The Israelites consistently struggled with believing this and just like Jacob needed the reminder of the altar, they needed to be constantly reminded that indeed, God is the God who answers us in our distress
·         As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness – they had no idea what they would encounter
·         They didn’t know where they would get food or water or what the cities around them would do to them
·         They were in a foreign, unfamiliar and hostile land. It was most likely that none of them had ever lived there. They had all just come out of 400 years of slavery in Egypt
·         They weren’t welcome in the land of Canaan and they didn’t know exactly where they would settle
·         They had no idea how they would settle down and have a place to call home amidst a hostile people in an unfamiliar land.
·         And these were some of the same circumstances that their patriarch Jacob was in as he returned to the promised-land.
·         Although Jacob had grown up in a small area of the land, the peoples that he was in the midst of in these past two chapters were foreign to him.
·         He likely didn’t know them and especially after his sons killed a whole village, he was definitely not well-liked
·         The people were hostile – but God protected them and caused a terror to fall on them so that they didn’t pursue them
·         In purifying themselves and changing their garments as it tells us, they were distinguishing themselves from the world around them and setting themselves apart for worship to God
·         In our worship of God, we are called to distinguish ourselves from the world around us by living and acting differently, distinguishing ourselves from the world around us by how we live lives that are devoted to God.
·         We are not just to worship God on the outside by putting nice clothes on and getting cleaned up for church
·         God calls us to worship Him on the inside – to worship Him in Spirit and to worship Him in truth
·         Jacob responded to God’s call with obedience, repentance and sacrifice
·         Jacob immediately obeyed God. Then he led his household and prepared them to obey God as well as they went to Bethel.
·         A life of worship calls for obedience & repentance.
·         Jacob instructed them to give up their foreign gods. He knew that they could not serve God and worship Him and yet still hold onto their idols
·         They responded by unceremoniously burying their idols in a figurative grave of sorts – putting them under a tree in the ground, mocking the idea that they were any real sort of god any way.
·         Certainly a real god could not be buried in the ground. They weren’t like the living, Almighty God of Israel – these were dead, mute gods, who were powerless and could be buried in the grave
·         They put away their false idols and then they gave him their earrings, which were likely amulets or charms that were thought to have magical properties.
·         They gave up trusting in magic to protect them or keep them and they trusted in God anew
·         They didn’t gain from them – they got rid of them and buried them in the ground likely under the same tree where Abraham had earlier called upon the name of the Lord
·         Then some 400 years later, shortly after Genesis was written, Joshua may have stood by the same tree and called upon the people of Israel to repent in Joshua 24:23ff
·         A life of worship calls for sacrifice
·         How is God calling us to obey Him? We don’t have to wonder and try to figure it out. God’s will for our lives is not hidden. God makes His will for us and how we should live plain.
·         God’s will is that we would love Him with all of our heart mind and soul
·         God’s will is that we would love our neighbor as we already love ourselves
·         Jacob rebuilt the altar at Bethel and the act of making an altar implies a sacred consecration – it was a setting aside and a giving up
·         God was calling Jacob to a life of worship that was demonstrated in sacrifice and as he set up the altar again in front of his entire household this time, he was making a public declaration of his devotion to God.
·         What idols do we need to put away?
·         God calls His people today to a life of worship
·         Now, Jacob hasn’t just heard from God – he has experienced a lifetime of troubles, hardships and toil.
·         Jacob has had relational difficulties, family troubles and tragic circumstances happen to his own children
·         He has gone from his own rebellion against his father to experiencing the rebellion of his own children.
·         He has faced death and gone from poverty to great wealth – to sacrifice
·         And now, Jacob returns to the place where he was first called and where he once fled, he was fleeing no longer.
·         Instead of just rededicating it as the house of God, he named it El-Bethel which means “God of Bethel”
·         God had brought peace between him and his brother
·         For the children of Israel after the Exodus, this altar also signified a symbolic claim that Israel had made of the land, much in the same way that planting a flag in the New World by Columbus was seen as a symbolic claiming of the land for Spain
·         The remainder of the chapter is mixed with both the evidences of God’s redeeming power and the effects of sin and these verses show us that,

3. God redeems amidst the effects of sin

·         Adam’s sin brought death and sadness and as a result, all of the people that Jacob loved were beginning to die off.
·         First we see Deborah’s death – although she was old by our standards, her life was 180 years, death was never meant to occur prior to sin
·         But right after she is buried, we are drawn to the blessing that God have to Jacob
·         Then, once again, God reminds Jacob of whom he is to be. His new name is not just for him alone – he is to be called Israel by others and this name is directly attached to the giving of the covenant
·         In verse 11, we see the language of the creation order. When God commissioned Jacob to be fruitful and multiply, it signified that God was redeeming a new people for Himself from Israel.
·         Not only a nation but a company of nations shall come from him – one of the first allusions to the salvation of many nations that culminated in the Messiah yet to be promised
·         This expression that was used where God told Jacob that kings would come from his body,  isn’t seen in scripture again until the giving of the Davidic covenant, when in 2 Samuel 7:12, God told David

2 Samuel 7:12, 16  “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom… And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.'"

·         And kings would come from his own body – even though this wouldn’t be fulfilled for many years and ultimately would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ
·         But in these verses, we are reminded of the reality of death and the effects of sin as well
·         Rachel dies in childbirth
·         Rachel wanted children so greatly she had once told Jacob "Give me children, or I shall die!"” and ironically, in the end her death came through the birth to a child
·         In verse 20, there is an interesting side note almost about the fact that Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb and it was still there to that day
·         The Israelites could have proof that this story happened just as it was told them because they were given landmarks that were still there 400 years later.
·         Not only is there a lot of death in this account, we can see that the effects of sin in Jacob’s entire life were many and widespread
·         But at the same time, God redeems amidst the effects of sin.
·         Jacob’s sin was the reason he had to flee for his life from his brother’s wrath
·         Although he had to live out of the promised land for many years because of his sin, God redeemed Jacob and brought him back safely
·         God redeemed his relationship with his brother and brought reconciliation
·         Laban’s sin against him had made for a difficult marriage and family life.
·         But God redeemed his marriage and brought many tribes of Israel from Leah
·         Jacob’s sin of favoritism against Leah caused her suffering
·         In fact, Jacob’s sin of favoritism against Leah and her children was probably what motivated Reuben to sin against him and sleep with his concubine.
·         This was likely an attempt to forcibly secure Reuben’s own inheritance as the rightful heir but it didn’t turn out that way and Reuben was disqualified from being the heir.
·         But God redeemed Reuben’s sin as well as that of Simeon and Levi, even though they were not able to be the heir, God brought the Messiah through Leah’s son Judah, the next in line
·         The Lord redeems the downcast, the mistreated, and the rejected.
·         God still honored the sons of Leah greatly.
·         God chose the sons of Levi to be the priests of Israel and Moses and Aaron were from this tribe
·         The sons of Judah would give birth to David, whose offspring would forever be on the throne
·         Jacob didn’t intend for Leah’s descendents to be the ones who were most blessed and Jacob didn’t intend greatness for them.
·         Jacob loved Joseph the most and named Rachel’s last son Benjamin, which means son of the right hand – the place of honor and position
·         But God didn’t chose like Jacob.
·         Later in history, Jesus was from the tribe of Judah – the ultimate redemption and vindication of Leah’s rejection and Jacob’s shameful treatment of her.
·         Perhaps you feel like your sin of the sins of others is too big to redeem. Look at the life of Jacob.
·         God’s redemption didn’t depend on Jacob’s obedience
·         God’s plan of redemption wasn’t hindered by the sin of his people
·         Consequences of sin remained in the life of Jacob – but God redeemed them.
·         God redeems His people amidst the effects of sin
·         Not only was Jacob reconciled to Esau – he came back to his father prior to his death
·         Isaac – the promised child, the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham and Sarah’s laughter was laid to rest.
·         Before Isaac died, his blessing on Jacob was fulfilled
·         With the completion of the twelve tribes of Israel, now the promise made through Abraham was being carried out and would be fulfilled.
·         We can have hope in the grace of God to redeem us, to redeem the sins of others, to redeem our sin, even if the consequences are not removed,
·          God will redeem even bad consequences for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His name, as Jacob was.
·         This chapter, in contrast with the one before it, is all about God and it really highlights the grace of God to call and redeem His people even in the midst of their sin.
·         Another preacher named John Newton, who lived in the 1700’s, understood God’s grace and that there is real hope in God’s grace, and he penned these words,

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine

Potential Application Questions
1.     How does it encourage you to respond to God, knowing that He graciously calls His people?
2.     How does seeing how God interacts with His people help you deal with condemnation? (Read Romans 8:1 to find out why there is no condemnation for His children.)
3.     How has God been patient with you?
4.     Is there anywhere you’ve been complacent like Jacob, in responding to and living for God? How would God have you respond now?
5.     What does worshipping God with your whole life look like?
6.     What is some way you can set up some kind of regular reminder in your life of who God is and what He has done?
7.     Is there any area where you need to purify yourself?
8.     Are there any idols you need to put away that keep you from worshipping God alone? (maybe an idol of reputation, idol of ease, idol of money, etc, - idols can be whatever we want so much that we sin in order to get it)
9.     How is God calling you to worship Him in obedience, repentance or sacrifice?
10.  How does knowing that God redeems His people amidst the effects of sin help build your faith?
11.  What circumstances, challenges or sin makes it hard for you to see that God is the great Redeemer? (your sin or the sin of others can make it hard to believe that God redeems in the midst of sin)
12.  For further study, read 1 Corinthians 10:11-14. How does this apply to common temptations in the way we view our sin, in the areas of: pride, unbelief, idolatry?