Tit-for-Tat - Audio
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I just want to say thanks for being here, it's meaningful to me, and I hope to you, because I've been at this church for a really long time and I really believe that CoSpout with church is a special place. I believe that what happens here is it's consecrated, it's special, because we really do attend to the Word of God, we don't just gloss over it. We really embrace it and let it guide our lives. So thanks for being here with us. If you've been with us for a while, you do know that we're in a series fresh look at the old book. We're looking at maybe stories and characters that even if you don't have a huge church background you might be familiar with, you might not, but you might be. Last week we met Jacob, Jacob, he was kind of a scoundrel, and we actually met him last week at the worst point in his life where things had gotten really, really bad for him. And if you weren't here last week I do want to catch you up, because we're literally just continuing the story, so I wouldn't, I would like to just read the text from last week so you know where we're at, because we're about to hear Jacob's response. This is last week, this is the stairway to heaven, as it were, the ramp up to heaven. If you've heard of that song by Led Zeppelin, this is where it comes from, it says Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set, taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down there. Then he had a dream look, a ramp was set up on the ground with its top reaching the heavens and there, God's angels were going up and down it, and there Yahweh was standing next to him. He said, "I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac, I will give you the ground you're lying on to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will be like the earth's dust. You'll spread to north, south, east, west. Every family on earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants. Jacob, listen, I am with you. I will guard you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land because I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you." And we saw that this took place right after Jacob had swindled his father. He needed his brother. His brother was trying to kill him because he's stolen all of his brother's money. He's on the run. His whole family has abandoned him. He expects God to abandon him too. And then God sends this dream or God uses this dream to show him that what he thought was true wasn't true. In fact, I am Yahweh and I am with you. I will keep you. I will guard you. It's this incredible act of grace. Jacob doesn't deserve it. God comes after him and gives him the grace anyway. We've seen this over and over and over in the Old Testament. We think the Old Testament's about rules and laws, but really it's all about God's grace. He's jumping out into people's lives and taking hold of them and giving them good things and trying to save them over and over.
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How should we respond to God's grace?