Meet God Personally

Genesis 28
I. Intro: Suddenly Jacob awakens with a start. What time is it? Sometime after
midnight. He rubs his eyes, stretches, yawns, sits up, and then he remembers. Was it a
dream? Or was it reality? Or was it reality within a dream?
a. Thinking, pausing, pondering, he begins to put the pieces together in his mind.
“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ’Surely the Lord is in this place, 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.’” The phrase “house
of God” in Hebrew is the word “Bethel.”
i. What was it that Jacob discovered? He discovered the omnipresence of
God—that God is everywhere present all the time. That’s why he called
the place where he slept Bethel—the house of God. In years to come
Jacob’s descendants would build a vast temple in Jerusalem and that
would be called the “house of God.”
ii. But no building of brick and mortar—no matter how expensive—can
contain the presence of the Almighty. When we call our church buildings
houses of God, we simply mean they are dedicated to the worship of God.
What God is teaching Jacob is that anyplace can be a “house of God” for
you if you meet the Lord there.
1. You can meet him on the freeway.
2. in a hospital waiting room.
3. at McDonald’s.
4. on a boat on Lake Michigan.
5. in a plane soaring over the Atlantic.
6. alone in a rocking chair.
7. riding a bus to school.
8. sitting on a park bench.
9. riding in your car.
b. God is everywhere. Wherever you are, there God is. And wherever God is, there
is a stairway to heaven reaching down from God to right where you are.
i. if you stop and listen to God’s voice speaking to you. Sometimes we have
a deep spiritual experience, and we say, “I really felt the presence of
God.”
1. Note the tense: “Surely the Lord is in this place.” “Is” not “was.”
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Jacob
has just learned that God is always with his people whether they
know it or not.
II. No Pit So Deep
a. It’s been my observation that relatively few people meet God in church service.
i. You are much more likely to meet God on the bed of affliction, or when
you lose your job, or when your children are sick, or when your friends
betray you, or when your marriage collapses.
ii. You are much more likely to meet him after the accident than church
service. You’re much more likely to meet him in the hospital than in the
sanctuary.
 1. Not because God is not here. He is here, and not just on Saturdays
either. Our problem is, God speaks but we don’t listen.
2. It takes tragedy, it takes failures, it takes financial setback, it takes
heartache, it takes illness, it takes the collapse of our dreams—then
at last we look up to heaven and say, “Surely the Lord was in this
place, and I knew it not.”
b. The Ladder from Heaven: Do you know where this story is referred to in the
New Testament? I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the gospel of John.
i. When Philip met Jesus for the first time, he was so excited that he hurried
to tell his friend Nathanael. He called him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” That
didn’t impress Nathanael because Nazareth was just a tiny village in
Galilee. Nathanael asked the famous question, “Can anything good come
out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
ii. Philip’s response is quite sensible. “Come and see.”
1. No pressure, just make up your own mind. When Jesus saw
Nathanael, he said, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is
nothing false.”
2. We might pass right over that statement, but it ties directly into our
story. “Israel” was the name given to Jacob by God himself. If
“Jacob” means “cheater,” then “Israel” means “a noble person who
prevails with God.”
3. In essence, Jesus is saying to Nathanael, “You are a true son of the
man called Israel. There is nothing false in you.” To say it that way
would remind Nathanael of the story of Jacob.
a. Later on Nathanael says, “You are the Son of God, you are
the King of Israel.”
b. Jesus responds by saying, “I tell you the truth, you shall see
heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1:51)
c. Where did Jesus get a picture like that? What is he referring
to? He’s referring to our story in Genesis 28—the story of
Jacob’s ladder.
iii. What is the New Testament application of Jacob’s ladder? In the New
Testament, Jacob’s ladder is not a what; but a who.
1. In the gospel of John, Jesus is the ladder to
2. heaven. In Genesis 28 God was at the top and Jacob was at the
bottom. In John 1 Jesus the Son of God is at the bottom of the
ladder. What does it mean? It means that in the person of Jesus
Christ, God has come down the ladder to join us on the earth.
iv. Jesus Christ is himself the stairway that leads back to heaven. If you want
to go to heaven, Jesus is the stairway, he is the ladder, that will take you
from here to there.
1. That’s why—later in the gospel of John, Jesus said, “I am the way,
the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.”
(John 14:6) Jesus is “the way” to heaven. Without him, there is no
other way.
 2. Perhaps you’ve heard it said this way:
a. The Son of God became, the Son of Man, so the sons of
men might become the sons of God

III. Conclusion: The next morning Jacob decides to set up an altar commemorating his
remarkable dream.
a. He called the place “Bethel"—house of God.
i. Then he made a vow to serve God faithfully and to worship God on that
same spot when he returned to the Promised Land.
ii. He also vowed to give God a tithe (one-tenth) of all his wealth (vv. 18-22).
Some commentators have criticized this as a conditional, inadequate
response, but I think that is somewhat unfair.
1. Jacob’s vow means, “Lord, I am taking you at your word. I believe
you will do what you said and therefore I am committing myself to
you wholeheartedly.” I think this is a great statement of faith.
b. Looking at this whole story, it stands as a statement about the nearness of God at
the moment of our personal need. It’s a story about how close God is in times of
deep desperation. It’s a story about how God reaches down to us. It’s a story of
the grace of God finding us right where we are.
i. Now that Jesus has come, we know that God can never be far away from
us. He is the ladder that leads to heaven, he is the bridge that crosses the
great gulf, he is the stairway that leads to paradise, he is the way to eternal
life.
ii. Bethel is the place of new beginnings. It is the place where you can start
all over again.
1. Story of Lucas: “All my life I’ve heard about God’s forgiveness.
But I never really experienced it until this week. Now I know that
God can forgive even for people like me.”
c. Jacob’s ladder reaches all the way down from heaven, down to the bottom of the
pit of your sin. And the minute you are ready to come clean with God, you can
start climbing Jacob’s ladder back up to heaven.
i. The Bethel Prayer:
1. Lord Jesus, I need a fresh start. I need a new beginning. I tried to
do it on my own and it didn’t work. Forgive me for thinking I
didn’t need you. By your grace, I have learned that I cannot live
without you. Lord, if you are willing, I am ready to start over
again. But this time I want you to lead the way. Amen.”