One of my favorite discussions of worldview relates to tribes of the Pacific Islands with their cargo cults. In their animistic worldview, the ancestors had given them all knowledge. They had no idea of the larger industrialized world. When colonialization came, their worldview offered no explanation for the cargo colonial powers brought to their islands. From their worldview perspective they saw people come who were dressed differently and clear airstrips in the jungle. Then planes would land laden with stuff. Believing that all things came from their ancestors, they would clear airstrip and wait for planes to appear. They would paint their bodies like soldiers’ uniforms and march, expecting suddenly to be magically changed into the armies like colonial powers had.
Like the cargo cults of the Pacific Islands, Jacob had a fabricated idea of what blessing meant and he pursued it through deception. Jacob wanted the birthright and the blessing and would do anything to obtain them. Yet, He totally misunderstood both. Jacob quantified the blessing. To him the blessing was a substance. He confused the result of blessing with the reality of blessing. Blessing, however, is living life in covenant relation with God. It is to have and know the presence of God in your life, realizing that He is committed to you and will walk with you and provide for you and care for you.
The problem we have with this is God may not care for us how we want him to care for us. We are prone to want God to care for us in the way Jacob viewed the birthright and blessing. He wanted stuff and all that came with it. It is the height of irony that the man who connived so to get the blessing leaves home empty-handed.
Blessing however is living in relation with the Personal, Present God, Who will take us through all kinds of experiences to bring us into close, personal relation with Him. Many have no room in their idea of God for suffering, hardship, loss, financial need, etc. Often the question in crisis is, “Where is God?” The answer is, “He is taking you through personal hardship.” Why? To show you who He is and make you into the person He wants you to be.
I want to say just a word about the structure of the text and, then, make a few points from the text that are true of living a life that is being transformed in personal relationship with God.
To this point the story has been skillfully constructed to build our sympathies for Isaac and Esau. Jacob has not been a very likable character. The writer, however, is teaching us that blessing works in spite of human character. God does not call men because of their character, but He builds character in those whom He calls.
The encounter with God at Bethel (28:10-22) informs our text all the way through. Bethel becomes a reference point so that the remaining section of this text cannot be rightly understood until we understand the Bethel experience.
29:1-31:55 is the account of Jacob outside the land. It is placed between the appearance of God at Bethel and the appearance of God at Peniel. God appeared to Jacob when he was leaving the land and when he was coming back to the land. This text references the Bethel experience, when at the height of Jacob’s conflict with Laban, God reminds him, “I am the God of Bethel” (31:13).
In the final section of our sermon text, Jacob is camped on the border of the land, praying because he is afraid of meeting his brother, Esau. This time, Jacob reminds God of Bethel (32:12), and God blesses Jacob.
So, here are a few points from the text that are true of living a life that is being transformed in personal relationship with God.
In this text, Jacob is fleeing the result of his own scheming to an uncertain future. Certain death is behind him, and Laban is in front of him. Jacob cannot keep going as he has been. Before his birth the prophetic oracle revealed that God had chosen Jacob. That choice, however, necessarily brings with it a relationship with the God Who is personal and Whose personal presence transforms us.
Here in this “certain place” (28:11), he met the God of “Abraham and Isaac” (28:13). God, however, will be known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But first, Jacob has to experience the transforming power of the presence of God.
God’s personal, redeeming presence in your life changes everything. That is what this text is about. The ladder reaching from heaven to earth is about the presence of God. It prefigures the incarnation of God the Son in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus brought this home to Nathaniel. Philip told Nathaniel they had found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Nathaniel skeptically answered, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” When Jesus saw Nathaniel he said to him, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” This is obviously a play on the events in Jacob’s life. Jesus then made a further assertion from Jacob’s experience, “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (Jn 1:43-51).
There is but one way to have a personal relationship with God and know His redeeming presence, and that is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the mediator between God and man. When God enters your life through Christ, His powerful presence is transformative and begins to change everything about you.
God’s presence transformed the place where Jacob was. Notice the way “place” is used in the text (28:11 x2,17,19). Jacob was at the city of Luz, a very large Canaanite city (28:19). It became “Bethel,” the house of God. Jacob was in a dark and lonely place with his head on a rock, and God transformed that place, that place of crisis and hopelessness, to the “House of God.”
Thus, God began his work of transformation Jacob. He stood over Jacob’s life and promised him a future (28:13-15). He reaffirmed the promises of Abraham to Jacob, transformative promises. He didn’t berate Jacob about his past. He didn’t heap condemnation on Jacob for his present situation. Instead, God spoke to Jacob of His plans for him. God does not call a person because he or she has been transformed, He transforms the people he calls.
We need to meet God on our journey. We must find Him in our dire circumstances. When we meet Him there, what is behind us and what is in front of us loses its power over us because of Who is with us.
In whatever crisis we meet God, His presence transforms our dark crisis to the very meeting place of God. We don’t desire to know God in this way. We don’t want to be in a crisis where we discover God. We don’t want to be in a crisis where we don’t find Him either. In fact, we rightly avoid the crises of life.
When crisis comes our first response is often unbelief. We feel abandoned by God, mistreated by Him, and neglected. But He does not shy away from the crisis, our complaint in the crisis, or us in crisis. He will be known by us in difficult and desperate times.
The encounter with God not only transforms our crises, but also, transforms our ordinary life and secular pursuits to a sacred pilgrimage. He will be known in every situation of life. This is the transforming presence of God in Christ working out redemption in his people.
God, at Bethel, begins His transformative work in Jacob. He who begins a good work in us will complete that work. Jacob, however, had much that needed changed. God will deal yet more severely with him to make Jacob into the man He wanted him to be. The presence of God, His transformative presence is both a comfort and a concern. Transformation is not something God would like to do in us, it is something He is going to do.
This leads us to point two.
In this text, God is going to lead Jacob into extreme hardship to continue His work of transformation in Jacob. The writer subtly hints at the providential presence of God by connecting chapters 28 and 29 with the repetition of the word “behold” (28:12 x2,13,15, cf. 29:2,7, 25).
Standing behind Jacob’s arrival in Haran, his meeting of Laban, and his servitude to Laban is God. God is working in this text to build Jacob’s family and his wealth. Jacob, however, thinks he is building those things, thus, he goes about with no thought of God. Yet, the God of Bethel has promised, “I will be with you.”
In spite of Jacob’s disastrous family life, God built the foundation of a nation out of him. Jacob’s arrival in Haran to find a wife is meant to be contrasted with Abraham servant’s arrival to find a wife for Isaac, Jacob’s father. The servant’s arrival in Haran, all of his negoiations were done full knowledge of the providential guidance of God, prayer, thankfulness, and carefulness. Jacob’s arrival is as providential but is prayerless and void of any acknowledgment of God. He exerts his independence and strength removing the stone from the well (29:10) and, though he wept when he met Rachel, offered no thanks to God.
When Jacob went to Laban’s house, he recounted his story to Laban, and Laban acknowledged their kinship (29:13b,14). In other words, Laban is saying, “Jacob, old boy, we are cut from the same cloth.”
We know the story. Laban offered Jacob a job (29:15): “What shall your wages be?” God appeared to Abraham in Genesis 15 and said, “I am your reward.” Wages and reward are the same word. This word will come up again in the Jacob saga (30:28; 31:7,8,41). Jacob has no concept of God being his reward. He wants the wages of Laban, so he bargains to work for 7 years for a wife. Laban deceived him, giving him the wrong daughter and bargains for another 7 years for Jacob to have the woman he wants. (29:15-29).
In the final 7 years of his servitude, Jacob sires 11 children by 4 women, his two wives and their maid servants. The scene in 29:31-30:22 is ugly. Jacob is reduced to a pawn in the game of jealous wives vying for his affection. Their children are named by their mother’s envy of each other. Their idea of what God is actually doing in building Jacob’s family is nowhere in the neighbor of what God is actually doing.
So God worked behind the scenes to build the family of Jacob despite their envy, jealousy, and manipulation. He overruled them. What they meant as harm to others, God meant to bring about his promise of a great nation. Laban meant to cheat Jacob, and God meant to build a nation.
God also worked behind the scenes to build Jacob’s wealth. With the birth of Joseph, Jacob is ready to return to his country, so he thinks. Again Laban desired to set Jacob’s wages (30:28). This is the first indication that a scheme is brewing. There is a cursory acknowledgment of God’s blessing by both Laban and Jacob but only in terms of gaining the advantage with each other (30:27b,30b).
A plan is hatched for Jacob to take the livestock with certain markings as his wages. Laban agreed. Immediately, they both set about to cheat the other. Jacob employed white magic, and Laban employed deception. The result, however, is Jacob became wealthy (30:43).
As a result of Jacob’s success, Laban began to look on Jacob with disfavor (31:1). The problem, however, was God. He was prospering Jacob not Laban. With his wealth in place, the Lord told Jacob to return to the land (31:3).
Jacob informed his wives of how God had prospered him in spite of Laban’s deceit (31:5b,6b,9). Apparently, at some point, God had revealed to Jacob that his success was a result of His providential care of Jacob not Jacob’s shenanigans (31:11-13). God reminded Jacob of Bethel and commanded him to return to the land.
Jacob left Haran with his wives, children, and possessions, and on the third day Laban found out and pursued them (31:22). Things turn around on the third day. Reversals are made. Turn arounds are good for one person and bad for another. Here Laban draws the short straw. God met Laban in the night as he pursued Jacob and said, “Be careful not say anything to Jacob either God or bad” (30:24).
Laban might have been Jacob’s match but he was no match for God. Vividly this is illustrated in the text by the impotence of Laban’s household God’s—he can’t find them and they are being sat on by a menstruating woman (31:30, 34). Further, Laban had to acknowledge Jacob’s status in a non-aggression treaty (31:44).
So, we are shown that God works providentially in the details of our lives to transform our character. Jacob was prayerless, manipulating, self-reliant trying to achieve what God had promised to give him. Finally, after 20 years of hard labor, he is confronted with the fact that it is God who has prospered him in spite of every effort of Laban to keep Jacob as empty-handed as when he arrived (31:42).
Here you are in the hearing of this text today. Moses’ original audience hearing this text could see the parallel between themselves and Jacob. God preserved them in servitude and prospered them as he brought them out of Egypt. Can you not look over your life and draw similar parallels? The enemy looks over your life, like Laban looked over Jacob’s life, and claims ownership (31:43). This is a ludicrous claim. If that’s the case, why desire a covenant? Jacob’s prosperity is of no thanks to Laban.
The enemy always brings up the past to curse your future. He reminds you of what you were and where you were. He never points out who God has made you to become. Everything the enemy intended to use to destroy you, God intended for your good, and He has brought you to this moment. He used the very situation and circumstances that the enemy meant to destroy you to build godly character in you and make you prosperous in His Kingdom.
What a powerful moment in the life of Jacob to see Laban held at bay by the rebuke of God and realize the God who is present has worked in every circumstance in your life not simply to make you what you are but positively to make you what he has purposed for you to be.
You would think at this point that Jacob would be ready to enter the land but not quite yet. God must be a bit more severe with him to make him what He wants him to be. How dangerous and intrusive is the God who is present, and how kind is His danger and interruption to us.
This means every vestige of self-reliance and self-sufficiency must be eliminated. God requires faith, trust, reliance on Him. You will never be able to see your way clear to do what God wants you to do. If you can do it by all means go ahead, but you will find yourself herding Laban’s flock.
Again one would think that Jacob is ready to return to the land. It is God who commanded Jacob to return, and God who stands in his way. Now, on the border of the Land, God meets Jacob. Before Jacob can enter the land, before he can resolve his problem with Esau, he must meet with God.
God is concerned about the reliance His people have on Him. As long as we have one more trick up our sleeve, one more modicrum of self-reliance left, we will not trust God. That lack of faith will cripple us in service, or God will cripple us so we can no longer rely on ourselves. This is what happened to Jacob.
On the way into the land, Jacob is met by the angels of God. This language ties this to his Bethel experience (cf. 28:12b). God came calling. But instead of God’s presence making the place the house of God (28:10-22), the presence of the angels make this place the “camp of God,” or more specifically, “Mahanaim,” two camps—the camp of God and the camp of Jacob. And they are at odds.
Jacob sent “messengers” to Esau (32:3). They returned with the report that Esau was coming to meet Jacob with 400 men (32:6). Jacob was gripped with fear (32:7), so he schemed (32:7b-8), prayed (32:9-12), and schemed some more (32:13-21). Jacob is obviously not ready to meet Esau. He doesn’t get it. God promised to be with him, protect him, and bring him back. Yet, he is still scheming.
In the night, he sent his family across the Jabbok into the land, but he remained on the other side, not yet in the land. Jacob is not ready to enter the land. Suddenly, he finds himself in a wrestling match with a man. We are not given the identity of the man to help us see from Jacob’s viewpoint. He is fighting for his life and appears to be holding his own. He is a strong, self-sufficient, self-reliant man.
The wrestling match is to end all of Jacob’s self-reliance. The man will do two things to bring Jacob to the end of himself. He will touch his hip, putting it out of socket, and he will give Jacob a new name.
A hip out of socket pretty much decides a wrestling match. Jacob can do nothing but hold on. Undoubtedly, he realizes this is no ordinary man, so he asked for a blessing before he would let go. Do you see how Jacob is in a place where he cannot deceive, manipulate, and trust in himself? He moves from wrestling to clinging. Then comes a question that transforms Jacob, “What is your name?” Jacob, right there, in powerless clinging to the man, answers, “Jacob”—a deceiver, a manipulator, and self-sufficient proud man, an arrogant man. Jacob to his own mind had grabbed and clawed and fought for everything he ever had, and it led to one disaster after another.
The man said to Jacob, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (32:28). Jacob had striven with men by trickery and deception and had prevailed. Now, he is striving with God, and all he can do is hold on and ask for a blessing. Jacob asked the man’s name. His answer is, “Why do you ask my name?” In other words, “It’s beyond understanding” (cf. judges 13:12-18). Jacob then realized he has been wrestling with God.
Coming to the end of himself, Jacob realized that the promise is not the result of human effort and initiative. How then does Jacob prevail with God? The name “Israel” actually mean “God prevails.” In what sense then did Jacob prevail? He realized to receive the promise and blessing of the God of Abraham and Isaac is simply to live in dependence on Him.
The event of seeing God face to face, causing him to realize his complete dependence on God, prepared him to meet Esau (32:30; cf. 33:10). Seeing Esau was like seeing the face of God. Really? Yes. Jacob was not ready to enter the land and meet his offended brother until he had abandoned his heel-grabbing life and walked in total dependence on God. You see a transformed Jacob in 33:3 when goes in front of his family to meet his brother. Now he had no thought to steal his brother’s blessing, but blessed his brother because God, not himself, not his scheming, not his deception, was the source of his blessing.
What is that you know God wants you to do, but you hesitate? You can’t see your way clear. You know He has called you, but you are scheming to try to accomplish what He has called you to do. What if I told you that I would underwrite for you what you feel that God wants you to do? What would you do? Would you then trust me more than the God who has called you?
What about you if you don’t know Christ? Do you think that somehow by self-reliance you can save yourself? Will you then decide that you know how salvation should work and will you take your demand and place it on God to fulfill? Will you decide that sincerity is all that is necessary? Will you insist that all religions are the same? Will you assert that there is no hell and everybody goes to heaven? How long will you trust your soul with the ideas of your own mind?