Jacob's Journey: Embracing God's Plan and Faithfulness
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Bible Study Guide
Sermon Clips
### Quotes for Outreach
1. "No matter how messed up your life is, God has planned for you the same spiritual passages, the same spiritual moments, the same spiritual developments and relationship that he had with Jacob. And so you may actually have maybe a family that's more messed up, but it doesn't matter. You may actually have a very healthy family. It doesn't matter. Your life may be smooth-flowing compared to what's going on. It doesn't matter. Your life doesn't matter. We see here in this passage, that God has spiritual moments for each of us that are very, very similar. He just gets at it a billion different ways." [06:51]
2. "God enables you and I to understand that there is a greater meaning for life than what we see here. God enables you and I to understand his love and grace for us to the point that we are drawn to ask forgiveness for who we are and our self-rule, to reject the meaning that the world has convinced us there is and instead trade that meaning for his meaning. God enables you and I to see his plan a little bit at a time, but he's got a plan for your life and for my life." [33:55]
3. "You and I should say together to God, I will pursue God until I have this moment of choice in my life, this moment where I understand the things that Jacob suddenly understood. And when I have that moment, I will tell others of this moment in my life. Instead of building, physical rocks somewhere out in the community, which might annoy city planners. Instead, I'm going to build that stone of faith in your heart, in your heart, in your heart." [34:51]
4. "God has given us the ability to be responsible, and it's given us the ability to choose. All these wives, I don't know what's going on there, to bring context to it. And if you work through your readings this week and try and track the story of Jacob, and we're going to do the second half of Jacob next week, you're like, what in the world's going on there? And back at this point in human development, if you were going to make sure that your family survived, and there's a lot of families, that did not survive this time period, if you were going to make sure that your family survived, if you were going to build wealth, if you were going to build security, then a lot of things had to be born." [30:29]
### Quotes for Members
1. "Jacob took the stone and he set it up as a pillar and he poured oil on top of it and he called that place Bethel. What's taking place here? First of all, the oil represents in symbolically throughout the old testament in the new testament the oil represents the spirit and the presence of God. But he took that rock and he stood it up as a pillar and this also happens throughout the old testament when some when God did something major in somebody's lives or in the lives of the people of Israel they would oftentimes build an altar they would take a bunch of rocks and they would say here is an altar or they would take a bunch of rocks and they would build a pillar and the purpose of that was to bring definition and remembrance to what God did so their children and their children's children and their children's children would walk by that pile of rocks and they would go we remember what happened those rocks bear witness to God's movement and our father Abraham those rocks bear God's witness to God's movement in this case the like of Jacob and what took place there so those rocks those inanimate objects that those hard parts of creation seemingly indestructible back in that day these hard parts of creation are piled up and they bear witness to what God did so he uses that pile of rocks to acknowledge the event and acknowledge the personal turning point in his own life to bear witness to that moment and he renames it he puts words on it." [21:45]
2. "Jacob is committing to the meaning of this life-changing moment through life sacrifice. So he's committing to its meaning by allowing it to change him deeply. And he's committing to its meaning in a way that is sacrificial as he lives his life, referring to the one-tenth and the many other ways that following God's plan causes him to sacrifice. And he backs that vow with some very tangible ways. But what we see, what we see in this response is the way that God's heart plays out in our heart. We may not be Jacob. We may not be trying to build some sort of nation through his family. We may not be trying to build wealth through having all kinds of livestock." [28:03]
3. "God's activity does not stop once we decide to walk into his plan. But as we're going to see next week, instead, he has a plan for an ever-deepening, ever-growing relationship with us. He has a lifetime of spiritual passages and heart passages. He will continue to pull back not only the curtain of heaven, but pull back the layers of who we are so we better understand who we are and who he is. And our intensity of love for him will increase the longer we walk in his plan and allow him to bring these heart moments and heart passages into our lives." [32:24]
4. "Jacob's preparing to leave. And while he's already received the birth of Jacob, he's already received the family blessing. His dad does want to kind of pray over him or pronounce a blessing for his departure. And so Isaac, the father, called for Jacob to bless him, and he commanded him, do not marry a Canaanite woman. They were kind of surrounded by a bunch of Canaanites, and those marriages weren't going well, at least according to Rebecca Caddy. So anyway, he said, don't marry a Canaanite woman. Instead, go to somebody from our tribe, like our tribe. And then here's what Isaac said. Go at once, Jacob, to Pandan Aram, to the house of your mother's father, the fuel. Take a wife for yourself there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother." [09:00]
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1. "No matter how messed up your life is, God has planned for you the same spiritual passages, the same spiritual moments, the same spiritual developments and relationship that he had with Jacob. And so you may actually have maybe a family that's more messed up, but it doesn't matter. You may actually have a very healthy family. It doesn't matter. Your life may be smooth-flowing compared to what's going on. It doesn't matter. Your life doesn't matter. We see here in this passage, that God has spiritual moments for each of us that are very, very similar. He just gets at it a billion different ways." [06:51]
2. "God enables you and I to understand that there is a greater meaning for life than what we see here. God enables you and I to understand his love and grace for us to the point that we are drawn to ask forgiveness for who we are and our self-rule, to reject the meaning that the world has convinced us there is and instead trade that meaning for his meaning. God enables you and I to see his plan a little bit at a time, but he's got a plan for your life and for my life." [33:55]
3. "You and I should say together to God, I will pursue God until I have this moment of choice in my life, this moment where I understand the things that Jacob suddenly understood. And when I have that moment, I will tell others of this moment in my life. Instead of building, physical rocks somewhere out in the community, which might annoy city planners. Instead, I'm going to build that stone of faith in your heart, in your heart, in your heart." [34:51]
4. "God has given us the ability to be responsible, and it's given us the ability to choose. All these wives, I don't know what's going on there, to bring context to it. And if you work through your readings this week and try and track the story of Jacob, and we're going to do the second half of Jacob next week, you're like, what in the world's going on there? And back at this point in human development, if you were going to make sure that your family survived, and there's a lot of families, that did not survive this time period, if you were going to make sure that your family survived, if you were going to build wealth, if you were going to build security, then a lot of things had to be born." [30:29]
### Quotes for Members
1. "Jacob took the stone and he set it up as a pillar and he poured oil on top of it and he called that place Bethel. What's taking place here? First of all, the oil represents in symbolically throughout the old testament in the new testament the oil represents the spirit and the presence of God. But he took that rock and he stood it up as a pillar and this also happens throughout the old testament when some when God did something major in somebody's lives or in the lives of the people of Israel they would oftentimes build an altar they would take a bunch of rocks and they would say here is an altar or they would take a bunch of rocks and they would build a pillar and the purpose of that was to bring definition and remembrance to what God did so their children and their children's children and their children's children would walk by that pile of rocks and they would go we remember what happened those rocks bear witness to God's movement and our father Abraham those rocks bear God's witness to God's movement in this case the like of Jacob and what took place there so those rocks those inanimate objects that those hard parts of creation seemingly indestructible back in that day these hard parts of creation are piled up and they bear witness to what God did so he uses that pile of rocks to acknowledge the event and acknowledge the personal turning point in his own life to bear witness to that moment and he renames it he puts words on it." [21:45]
2. "Jacob is committing to the meaning of this life-changing moment through life sacrifice. So he's committing to its meaning by allowing it to change him deeply. And he's committing to its meaning in a way that is sacrificial as he lives his life, referring to the one-tenth and the many other ways that following God's plan causes him to sacrifice. And he backs that vow with some very tangible ways. But what we see, what we see in this response is the way that God's heart plays out in our heart. We may not be Jacob. We may not be trying to build some sort of nation through his family. We may not be trying to build wealth through having all kinds of livestock." [28:03]
3. "God's activity does not stop once we decide to walk into his plan. But as we're going to see next week, instead, he has a plan for an ever-deepening, ever-growing relationship with us. He has a lifetime of spiritual passages and heart passages. He will continue to pull back not only the curtain of heaven, but pull back the layers of who we are so we better understand who we are and who he is. And our intensity of love for him will increase the longer we walk in his plan and allow him to bring these heart moments and heart passages into our lives." [32:24]
4. "Jacob's preparing to leave. And while he's already received the birth of Jacob, he's already received the family blessing. His dad does want to kind of pray over him or pronounce a blessing for his departure. And so Isaac, the father, called for Jacob to bless him, and he commanded him, do not marry a Canaanite woman. They were kind of surrounded by a bunch of Canaanites, and those marriages weren't going well, at least according to Rebecca Caddy. So anyway, he said, don't marry a Canaanite woman. Instead, go to somebody from our tribe, like our tribe. And then here's what Isaac said. Go at once, Jacob, to Pandan Aram, to the house of your mother's father, the fuel. Take a wife for yourself there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother." [09:00]
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