“Jacob’s Dream” Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17

  A few weeks ago in worship I prayed a prayer thanking God that not everyone in scripture is perfect. That prayer was prayed in the context of 1 Corinthians and how it reminds us of God’s redemption even when we are broken people. Friends, that exact same prayer could be prayed over the story of Jacob as well. 

Often when we think of Jacob we equate him with the new name that he received from God - Israel. He was the father of the twelve tribes. He was one of the patriarchs of the nation of Israel. And he was not perfect. 

The story of Jaco is a fascinating one. Literally from the moment he came out his mother’s womb grasping on his brother’s heel, he spent his entire life trying to get one foot up in the world by any means necessary. And sometimes those means were a bit unsavory. Instead of feeding his twin brother when he was hungry, he had him sell off his birth rite for a bowl of stew. He went to his elderly father, whose vision was failing, and pretended he was his brother so he could get his final blessing. It doesn’t necessarily get better for quite a while from that point in Jacob’s story - but by the end of his life you can tell that he is a man who had been changed by the grace of God. 

But that isn’t where we find ourselves at today. Not yet. This is closer to the beginning of Jacob’s story, where he is being sent away for his life. His brother Esau, for who that final blessing of Issac was actually intended, is none too happy that it too has been stolen from him and actually threatened to kill him. So Jacob is sent off, on the run if you will, to go and live with his mother’s brother, his uncle, Laben. It’s a long journey, that he wasn’t apparently prepared for. And while on the run, God’s grace catches up to Jacob in the form of a dream.

God came to Jacob, yes that Jacob, and said: I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.Your descendants will become like the dust of the earth; you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants. Why Jacob? Why now? Why will he become the one to carry on the promise given to Abraham?

I sometimes wonder if we have some of those same questions about ourselves. Who are we to be the one through whom God is going to reach out to this community? Who are we for God to call us to be partners in spreading the Gospel message? Why us? Why now? Especially in all of our flaws and brokenness and sin?

But then we look at people in scripture like Jacob and realize that if God can use them, then God can use us. God came to Jacob and gave him a vision that was so much bigger than anything he could imagine on his own and essentially said - I’m going to use you in this way. I know that its so big.  But trust and believe that I am going to be with you every where that you will go. 

Friends, are those the type of visions that we are praying for in this place? Visions of revival? Visions that are so big that we know that they have to from God? Because that’s what I see when I look at Biblical visions like this - they are so large that they challenge even the most fearful among us and call for us to trust God. 

  Jacob knew when he woke up that he was standing on holy ground. And that thought terrified him. He was struck by the fact that he was in the awesome presence of the Lord Almighty. So he made a monument, a sign of worship, and made a promise that the Lord would be his God. 

We are a people full of excuses. If anyone knows that it’s Jacob. Why did he buy the birth rite - because life isn’t fair. Why did he steal the blessing - because his mother told him too. Why was he on the run - because his brother unfairly was trying to kill him. 

But at some point all of our excuses run out, friends, and we come face to face with God. For Jacob it was in a dream. A dream that he had not earned and did not deserve, but came from God any way. 

When we set down our excuses church, we can pick up trust and confidence in our God. Confidence that even when God is calling us to big things, that we can respond. 

Jacob may not have been asking God for a vision, but God showed up anyway. 

If that’s what happen when we fail to ask God to show up, what do you think can actually happen if we call upon the name of the Lord? 

It’s time for us to set down our excuses. That we are too young or too old. That we don’t have enough people. That no one shows up. That we don’t have enough kids. And pick up trust in the Lord my friends. It’s time for us to claim the promise of God, even if we don’t understand it.

Jacob probably had grown up hearing about this promise land that his dad would talk about. He would have grown up hearing about his grandfather Abraham and how God counted it as righteousness that he left his home and family in order to follow God. And now here is Jacob, utterly broken in spirit, being told that he was the one chosen to live into that promise of old.

Friends, the past year and a half have felt a lot like a breaking, have they not? They have taken us apart from what we are comfortable with and set us in an unfamiliar place. But it is in this place that we, like Jacob, can clearly hear the call of God. If we are willing to listen. 

Now is the time for us to trust and believe in the Lord our God. We need to pray to the God for a vision that moves us forward, out of the place of who we once were into the place of who we will be. We pray that God open up our hearts to be stirring with the Holy Spirit. We pray that God start to give us glimpses of vision in our hearts. 

What does that look like? I don’t know. But I do know that the next right step is to pray and then to wait on the Lord. Would you join me, my friends? Would you join me in seeking the face of God? Amen.