Genesis 28 10 17

Pastor Timothy Patoka 2 Sunday In Lent – February 25, 2018 Jacob’s Comforting Dream Genesis 28:10-17 nd

1) The LORD is with believers in their low self-afflicted moments 2) We stand in awe and biblical fear of the LORD’s continual presence Jacob was known to have a trick or two up his sleeve. You had to keep an eye on him to figure out his true motive for doing things. In our verses this morning from Genesis chapter 28, we see Jacob making the long journey from Beersheba to Harrani where he is roughing it for the night about 50 miles away from Beersheba. Our verses tell us, “Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep” (Genesis 28:10,11). To understand how Jacob ended up sleeping on the cold ground with a hard rock for a pillow, we need to step back a few years. If you remember your Bible history, Jacob had an older twin named Esau whom everyone expected to continue the family line as the firstborn son. Yet God chose Jacob, not Esau, to be the earthly ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah promised to their father Isaac and their grandfather Abraham. But Jacob didn’t want to wait for God’s blessings. On two separate accounts, Jacob received Esau’s rights as the firstborn son.

First by buying the birthright for a bowl of lentil stew (Genesis 25) and second by deceiving his blind old father to receive his blessing (Genesis 27). It’s that second one that really angered Esau. So much that he was planning to kill Jacob for it! Jacob knew he had skip town if he was going to live. So, at the request of his parents, he left for faraway Harran where he had some extended family.

And this is where we find Jacob in our verses – sleeping on the cold ground, resting his head on a hard rock, and on the run from his brother’s murderous rage. Jacob thought he had lost it all. But it was in this low moment that he brought upon himself that the Lord would lift his spirits with a comforting dream. What the Lord would show and say in that dream would not only comfort Jacob. It also comforts believers today by showing us that God is always with us, even in our low moments that we bring on to ourselves.

Jacob’s comforting dream was something else. Listen to how the book of Genesis describes how the Lord comforted Jacob. “He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the LORD, and he 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. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over

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Pastor Timothy Patoka 2 Sunday In Lent – February 25, 2018 you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you’” (Genesis 28:12-15). nd

We see here that the Lord comforted Jacob in 4 ways. 1) First with the multitude of angels ascending and descending on the stairwayii between heaven and earth. We know from elsewhere in Scripture (Hebrews 1:14) that angels are God’s messengers, his perfect servants who minister to the needs of believers. Seeing the angels constantly ascending and descending from heaven and earth showed Jacob that the Lord was aware of Jacob’s needs and that he would take care of them. 2) Second is who we see at the top of the stairway – the LORD spelled in all caps.iii This is our God who is free and faithful with his grace given to believers. Grace that he would freely give to Jacob with our next point. 3) Third is the reinstatement of the promise given to Abraham and Isaac. God promised to send the world’s Savior through their descendants. Even though things looked really bleak for Jacob, the Lord would likewise bless his family line and send the Savior through his descendants. 4) Finally is the promise that the Lord would be with Jacob both during and after his time in Harran. Even though Jacob was leaving the Promised Land, Jacob was not leaving the Lord’s promises. With these 4 promises combined, Jacob could look forward to the long journey ahead of him with a renewed spirit.

The Lord would not abandon him even though Jacob had made quite a mess of his life.

I’m willing to guess that as I went through the 4 promises that comforted Jacob so many years ago, they may have seemed familiar to you and me today. That’s because our Lord comforts us in much the same way! With the exception of the coming Savior, because he has already come, we have the same comfort that Jacob did. The Lord’s angels continue to serve and minister to us today (Psalm 91:11,12). The LORD of free and faithful grace looks down the stairway from heaven to you and me on earth and knows what we need and will make sure we have it at the proper time (Psalm 145:15). He is always with us so that we are never alone (Matthew 28:20b).

And when we’re in a low moment of life, we especially see how Jacob’s dream comforts us today. I mentioned at the beginning of our worship service that our theme for this Sunday is how salvation and suffering often go hand-in-hand. If we’re going to be Christians in this sinful world, we need to be willing to take up our cross and suffer whatever comes our way. Usually we talk about the sufferings that are done to us because of our faith.iv But many times the suffering we have to endure comes from ourselves, from the sinful choices we make as Jacob did to himself. When was the last time we lied to someone? How long were we able to keep up the charade of half-truths and deceit until it blew up in our faces? It was because of Jacob’s deceitful lies to his father that he ended up sleeping on the cold ground with a hard rock for a pillow. How many times have we put our wants first selfishly thinking we’re more important than other people? Jacob selfishly took away Esau’s rights as the firstborn son and earned 2

Pastor Timothy Patoka 2 Sunday In Lent – February 25, 2018 Esau’s murderous wrath against him. How else have you and I brought suffering into our lives by our sinful choices? nd

It’s easy to get down on ourselves because no one knows our faults better than ourselves.

And when we consider the messes we’ve made of our lives, all of a sudden Jacob’s night on the cold ground and hard rock doesn’t seem so distant. When we’re in our self-afflicted low moments, life looks a lot like Jacob’s did in Genesis chapter 28. That we are all alone and there’s nothing and no one to comfort us in the mess we got ourselves.

But just as the Lord comforted Jacob in his low moment, so he comforts us in our low moments. He says to Jacob, you, me, and every other believer “I will never leave you. I will always be with you.” And to see proof of that continual love, I read to you what the Apostle Paul wrote in our 2nd Lesson from the book of Romans chapter 5. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). It’s rare enough that people will help others, but to have God himself die for sinners who are in no way good without him? That is love as only the Lord can show. A love that surely comforted Jacob in his low self-afflicted moment. A love that surely comforts us in our low self-afflicted moments. When we feel alone because we have driven people away, when we get down on ourselves for the messes we’ve made in life, know this – God will always be with you with his grace and angels so that you will never have to suffer alone.

What a comfort that was for Jacob sleeping on the cold ground and hard rock. But his rough sleeping arrangements were the last thing on his mind. As Genesis chapter 28 tells us, “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven’” (Genesis 28:16,17). Jacob responded the only way he could to such a comforting dream – by standing before the Lord with awe in his eyes and with biblical fear in his heart. Awe because of God’s grace to him in such a low moment of life. And biblical fear which is not a negative idea like we may think today. Luther’s Small Catechism defines this fear as “awe and respect for God and his commands as a result of faith in him.”v When we consider the Lord’s heavenly power and gracious love for sinners, we cannot help but have biblical fear in our hearts in the positive sense that is intended here. Jacob certainly did when he realized how the Lord stooped down to be at Jacob’s side and comfort him.

And this too is our response when we consider how God comforts us in our low moments where we can only blame ourselves. We stand before the Lord with awe in our eyes and biblical fear in our hearts. We know what messes we have made like Jacob did in his life. Because 3

Pastor Timothy Patoka 2 Sunday In Lent – February 25, 2018 salvation and suffering go hand-in-hand in this life. Sometimes that suffering is brought on by our own sinful choices. Yet no matter how low we bring ourselves, be comforted by Jacob’s comforting dream. As Jacob saw those angels ascending and descending on that stairway serving God’s people as he knows best, know that those same angels are carrying out God’s will for you too. As Jacob looked up the stairway to see the LORD of free and faithful grace looking down on him, know that the LORD today doles out his free and faithful grace to you too as he did 2,000 years ago with the cross on Calvary. As Jacob was comforted with the timeless truth that God is always with his believing children, know that you will never be alone in this walk on earth. This is the comfort of Jacob’s dream – no matter where you go, you will always have your God, his grace, and his angels with you on this side of heaven and the side to come. Amen. nd

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Pastor Timothy Patoka 2 Sunday In Lent – February 25, 2018 nd

End Notes i

It is roughly 650 miles from Beersheba to Harran. Beersheba was at the far extreme south of Old Testament Israel. Harran, also known at Paddan Aram, is in modern-day Turkey and was an important crossroads town in ancient times. It is first mentioned in Genesis 11 where Abraham’s family lived for a while before resuming their journey from Ur to the Promised Land. Isaac’s wife Rebekah was from Harran as was Jacob’s two wives Rachel and Leah. ii Bible scholars debate what this word exactly means. This is the only occurrence of the Hebrew word ֻ‫( ֙םָּל‬sellam) which, judging from the context of Genesis 28:10-17, must refer to a conduit of some kind between heaven and earth. The Greek-speaking Jews of the ~250s B.C. translated this Hebrew word with κλίμαξ (klimax) which is generally translated as a “ladder; staircase.” While we cannot be sure as to the exact conduit between heaven and earth that Jacob saw, the function of a ladder or staircase certainly communicates what Jacob saw – angels ascending and descending from heaven to earth on something that functioned as a ladder or staircase would. iii When you see the name LORD in all capital letters, it is referring to God’s name of Yahweh/Adonai. Both of those names were considered the holiest name for God in the Old Testament. The intended idea behind Yahweh/Adonai/LORD is the free and faithful grace which God bestows on sinners. This difference between LORD and Lord is found only in the Old Testament. In the New Testament the same Greek word is used for both LORD and Lord and thus it is impossible to identify which spelling of LORD/Lord is intended by the inspired author. iv This is the specific type of suffering which Jesus is referring to in the Gospel for this Sunday – Mark 8:31-38. But the phrase to “take up your cross” is not narrowly limited to persecutions or other hardships we suffer on account of our faith. It is generally understood to be “suffering of any kind as a result of sin.” Persecutions and the like that Jesus refers to in Mark 8:31-38 are one example of that general understanding. v I have personally found the glossary in Luther’s Small Catechism very helpful in defining key biblical terms that have a unique definition in the biblical context. The word “fear” is one such example. The general understanding of “fear” in the American culture is a negative connotation where the person never wishes to meet the object or person they fear. This is a faulty definition of “fear” when it is the emotion that a believer has towards God. Looking at the context of Genesis 28:17, the word “fear” or its close cousin “afraid” must mean something in a positive light. Luther’s definition is an excellent summary of fear in the positive biblical sense.

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