We turn this morning in the Bible to the first book of the Bible, which is the book of Genesis, and we're working through this book. This morning we are considering the first 15 verses of Genesis chapter 35. And I spoke with a visitor last week who was here, and he said to me, he said, well, pastor, he says, I heard you preach on two passages now since I've been here. I've been here twice. I heard you preach on two passages. The first was Lot and his daughters in the cave, And the second was the Dinah incident. And I thought to myself, well, if it falls that way, just wait for a few chapters more. Maybe he'll show up in the Judah and Tamar incident. Genesis has been challenging on many of these passages. And many of them really do show the dark side of what's wrong with our hearts and what's wrong with our lives. And just like this morning with the reading of the law, that it's a challenge for us to see that. And that's why you go through and you study the course of somebody's life like this and Jacob, you're noticing the real ups and downs, aren't you? And that's real to you. That's life. But the beautiful thing today is, is in Genesis chapter 35, we've got a real up moment. So as far down as the last section was, I hope you feel today how far up. this one is and how the Lord is committed to bring us to this place. And so it's a passage that should greatly encourage you in the Christian life and Christian walk today. Genesis chapter 35, let's consider the first 15 verses. God said to Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. So Jacob said to his household and to all who are with him. Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone. So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And Jacob came to Luz, that is Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. And there he built an altar and called the place El Bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother and Deborah Rebecca's nurse died and she was buried under an oak below Bethel so he called its name Alam Bakuth and God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan Aram and blessed him and God said to him your name is Jacob no longer shall your name be called jacob but israel shall be your name so he called his name israel and god said to him i am god almighty be fruitful and multiply a nation and a company of nations shall come from you and king shall come from your own body the land that i give to abraham and isaac i will give to you and i will give the land to your offspring after you then god went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. The scriptures everywhere are describing for us and showing for us what it looks like to return to the Lord, to come home to the Lord. Again, using that language of the prodigal son, when he came to himself, he says, I'm going back. I'm returning to my father. It's wonderful in his house. Why would I stay outside of his house? And that theme of returning to the Lord, that imagery that we have all over the scriptures is described in a call form that the lord gave throughout the old testament to his people to return to him i think of isaiah 55 let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts let him return to the lord and he will have mercy on him and to our god for he will abundantly pardon in the book of chronicles you even had runners that were pictured as running out and giving this message of calling to return the runners went through all israel and judah with letters from the king and his leaders and spoke according to the command of the king children of israel return to the lord god of abraham isaac and israel and he will return to you all over come return if i asked this morning have you returned how would you answer would that be a foreign concept to you would that be something that you've never really stopped and given a lot of thought of in the course of of life what it is to return to the lord and and what that looks like and that that is not just a one-time shot it's actually something that will go on throughout the whole course of the Christian life? I want everyone this morning to look at Genesis 35, beginning at verse 1. You have a great call that God gives to Jacob here, and it's a very powerful call. It's an effectual call right at the beginning of Genesis 35, verse 1. And God said to Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother esau i don't know how you feel when you read that but what a wonderful calling that the lord gives after a giant mess isn't it come up to me come home to me i want you to come home go up paul described the christian life as this upward calling that god gives to us in christ Come. This scene had so much impact, I believe, as I was studying this this week and thinking about the impact that this had on New Testament writers. This scene had so much impact on them that when they looked at this, they understood what was meant when they were describing the change that takes place of transitioning from the old life to the new life. And I think Genesis 35 was their passage to grasp what it looked like in reality. When they were describing what a changed life looked like, the new life. I believe they said, there it is. They looked at Genesis 35 and they said, see, there it is. I love this passage this morning because what we see here already is God showing us now after this long run in the life of Jacob, the righteous life that he desires. And it's so offset. Jacob had been running throughout the course of his life. And do you know how long now? 30 years. Where were you 30 years ago? 20 years in Haran. And then this has been a 10-year mulling around in the wilderness. Boy, Israel would have a lot to think about when they looked back at the life of Jacob. for about 10 years it took him to get back in fact we studied last week that he stopped at one point and before he had even entered the land he builds a house he wanted to root down before he had even come home to the lord he wants to stay out in the world and in the wilderness and he builds a house he builds his own house and he builds booths for his livestock and he sets himself up and then of course he gets up after that and he moves to shechem and one of the worst scenes in the Old Testament plays out that we looked at last week. Remember one of the worst scenes where he sits there, he shouldn't have been there, and lo and behold, his daughter goes out to see the daughters of the land, and she gets raped. And it turns into this snowball. I mean, what an awful scene of the sons taking the sword and living by the sword and wiping out an entire city of people because of this. So much so that now Jacob is the target in this life of revenge upon all the peoples of Canaan. Everyone's talking about this Jacob and his family and they all now have the bullseye on him. And what moved me about the account, if you remember, is that in that entire chapter 34, God's name was not mentioned. We were getting a window into what if God said, okay, you want the life you want, go, go, go, go. And he let us run for a little bit. He gives us a taste a little bit of what life would be like without grace. And it would be absolutely awful. Our lives would spin out of control and they would unravel and you would utterly wreck your life. You wouldn't be here today. You wouldn't come home to the Lord. And the Lord is showing us that, that in one of the worst messes, and this is what really encourages me this morning as I'm preaching this and studying this. In one of the worst messes recorded in the life of Jacob, one of the worst choices he made in life, what do you have at the opening of chapter 35? God didn't say, that's it. I'm done with this bum. He comes to him. And he calls him. God did not abandon him. God did not leave him. We all should be standing back from this and thinking, that is remarkable. God's not mentioned in chapter 34. Jacob didn't want him. He's mentioned before, and it brackets the whole scene to show us. Grace bracketed it before and after to teach us the great truth that God never left nor forsook him. Chapter 35 begins with God calling. God says, go up to Bethel and make an altar to your God. I love that. Did you notice how it's phrased? To your God. To God. This is what he's emphasizing here. To God. To the God who's redeemed you, Jacob. Go up to him. The God who had years ago dropped the ladder to you and came down to you and blessed you when you were running from your brother, when you ran, and you shouldn't have run. You should have reconciled right then and there. When you ran, and you can feel the weight of that, 30 years have passed. You've been running. And I can't help but think that there was a point at which Jacob could finally hear that call. I want you to ponder that just for a minute with me this morning. I'm not going to go real far into this chapter because I think it's one of the most glorious chapters in Genesis. I was always puzzled why God let him go in the first place. Jacob, you're going to go, you're going to run, but I'm going to be with you and I'll bring you back. And you stop and you say, well, why? Why even let him run this way? Why even let him do this and do these kind of things for 30 years of his life? And God had assured him in it, I'm going to be with you the whole way. And the Lord in his providence, let him go. And he ends up in bondage and he ends up in exile and he ends up wrecking his life. and it climaxed here in the lowest point last time as the events of chapter 34 played out. The next words are, Jacob, come to me. Do you feel it? Come to the God who appeared to you. God's children. And you see it here. Come to a point when they're finally able to receive that. You don't realize how many times in the course of of ministry that ministers have stood up and said this to you i mean you know this is my job right my job is to say come my job is to say come to the lord return to the lord and over and over and over ministers have said that have said to you come and how many times have you heard that or maybe have not even heard and you thought well that's not really for me that's for the that's for the bad sinners I was talking about earlier. That's for the bad ones. The ones who are out at the clubs. It's fascinating when Christ said come. He said come to me, you who are what? Weary. And heavy laden. And I'll give you rest. You don't come if you're not weary. You don't come if you're not heavy laden. You don't come if something has not greatly burdened your heart. And the reality was, Jacob was weary at this point. It's been a long life. He's in the sunset years. We've been studying his life for some time. He's been a traveler and a pilgrim whose life has been, he will say, at the very end when he's standing in front of Pharaoh, few and evil have been the days of my life. I know what I've done. I know the choices that I've made. I know that I wrecked my life many points along the way. And finally, in Genesis chapter 35, God comes and He says, come to me at Bethel. And I'm taken by this because nothing has been quick about it. I'm not challenging that at some point somebody's justified once and for all. But turning to the Lord, nothing has been quick. And how many of you have had sons and daughters and we expect, we expect sometimes, and this is because of the Christianity today where we want the whiz, bang, bam results right then and there. We want it all quick. We want to supersize it today. Nothing's been quick. God has been so patient with this man. I'm overwhelmed by it. I'm puzzled by it. Because which one of us would ever be this patient with somebody else? the reality is jacob is weary and what i love about it is god is inviting jacob to consider what he experienced along the way this is this is where the passage really begins to to strike hard god is inviting jacob to experience to reflect upon what he's experienced over these 30 years when he stood at bethel 30 years ago god made a promise to him remember it behold Jacob I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised which is meaning he's never leaving he's going to fulfill he's going to bring him back through a life of falls and backslidings here we are years later what's the next destination for jacob bethel jacob there come there now what do you think's going through the mind of jacob here's where verse 3 is one of the most powerful verses in the text itself i want everyone to look at verse 3. Jacob says, then let us arise and go up to Bethel so that I may make an altar there to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone. As he comes to his sunset years, as he begins to reflect and he looks back over his life, he begins to ponder this promise of God. He begins to think about the promise of God. God said years ago, I will be with you. And what has finally wooed him? What has finally won him? He looks at his family and he finally says now, let's go to Bethel. I need to worship. Why? Because he's been with me all these years, as he said. He kept his promise. He fulfilled his promise. And I believe this is a very big moment in the life of Jacob. A very big moment in the life of Jacob. Realizing something about the Lord. We all have this natural sense that our lives are out of harmony with God. We all go through life and we have this sense. Some people just don't care. Some people care and they hope that they're doing enough. As I said earlier, that God will accept them. Some are really burdened by it. But you'll never really come. This is the point. You'll never really come until you know God this way. What do I mean? God has not just been with me the whole way, he says. But notice what happened along the way when we reflect upon it. Everything God turned into blessing. He plundered Laban. He flourished and blessed Jacob. You're going to see what he did even after this event in Genesis 34. And Jacob is able now finally to turn around and look back over the course of life and realize as he's standing there, there are 12 sons right here. Through all that. And he comes out of that bondage full and rich. And the only reason is, every step of the way, he's now reflecting, the Lord has carried me. I've got to go back. I need to get back. God's gracious descent upon him from start to finish, from start when he started to run, and then from finish when he's right at Bethel, God had descended both times. God had preserved him the whole way. And this is our lives as Christians. do you pause and think about where you've been in life? If you look back and you think about your choices and where it could have gone, and then you start to reflect upon where it is today, what do you see? What do you see looking back? Do you see his presence? Do you see his blessing? Has God failed at any point along the way? It's such an important question. Because this is what begets faith. When we stand up and say, I want you to think, when you stood up years ago and you say, based on the same promises that were made to Jacob, God said He would do this for us. God promised that if we look to His Son, we would be saved. And He promised He would never leave us nor forsake us. I want you to think for a minute, about your profession of faith. I want you to think about it. You stood up and you were responding to promises that were made to you. You stood up and you were responding. But we really didn't know when we stood up here and we made the profession of faith, we really didn't know what his commitment to that would look like. And we really didn't know what our commitment to that would look like. You were somewhat naive when you did it. And it's only when you have some distance from that, when you have some time that's gone forward, and when he blesses us, and you think about the blessing of having life to be able to see these things, that there's some distance and some great moment that you begin to turn around and you say, my, my. He's kept it. He remembered his covenant. His steadfast love, says the psalmist, is from everlasting to everlasting all over the place. The psalmist keeps saying it. Steadfast love. It doesn't go away. It doesn't stop. It's always there. And I see it. Those comments are birthed from years. Those comments are birthed from years of experience in the psalmist. Through all of your choices and everywhere you went, even when you refused to listen to him, he didn't turn. With him, there's no shadow of turning. He didn't abandon. He loved. Do you know this about the Lord? It's not just Jacob's God. He's your God. Come to me. Return to me. Do you feel it? Because there's something else that drove him back. What is it? When you stood up and you responded to the promises of God in profession of faith, when you were promising to the Lord, what specifically did you promise to the Lord? You said something to Him. Young people, you said something to Him. What did you say? You will be my God. You made a solemn promise when you stood up, and that's why profession of faith is so important. You're promising before God that He will be your God. What has been the reality? Jacob makes that profession at Bethel years ago. And for these years, he's been wandering and mulling around. And has that really been true for 30 years? You understand why it's all of grace. Because the last chapter just told us volumes about his spiritual state. And now Bethel, the first time, at Bethel the first time, what did Jacob say when he made the vow to the Lord? When he stood up and he made the vow to the Lord, He said, if you will do all this for me, I didn't like the way that was phrased because it sounded like a bargain, but it was some kind of step. It was some kind of step, remember, and we were happy with that. If you'll do this for me, then the Lord shall be my God. Did you hear it? First commandment. Here's what's on his mind. God's done it. He did it. I mean, the whole way he was with me, the whole way He's protected me, the whole way He flourished me, He's brought me back full. And guess what? I made a vow to Him. I said something to Him. I said He would be my God. I think at this moment, He turned around and He looked at His wives and His children. And He looked at the blessing. And then He looked at something hanging in their ears. You know what was hanging in their ears? idols. The whole time they're wearing amulets of pagans, pagan gods, and they're carrying the teraphim that Rachel had stolen from Laban and put under her saddle, and they're still bowing down to those things. I said he would be my God. I said that. I promised it right here years ago. he would be my God what am I doing you see it I believe incredible conviction fell over this man the first thing he says to his family after God says this and the light went on he says that's it put away the foreign gods did you notice that in the next verses put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments what came over him he has been in idolatry the all of these years and didn't even see it no wonder he didn't come home when people are doing their own wills and pursuing their own pleasures what's the last place they want to be i mean you know this you know this where's the last place they want to be when they're pursuing their own wills here why because there's some measure of light that's poured out and exposes the heart and they don't want to have to deal with that they don't they don't want to have to change they don't want to have to to to stop the immorality They don't want to have to stop the path. And so, you know, God's at a distance. God's at a distance. Oh, sure, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. They know their life's out of accord with the profession. Finally, after a giant backslide, when it hit rock bottom, such a mess in life in chapter 34, the Lord's wooing call comes. Come home. This is enough. come no more i've got to go to him no more and then the imagery that we have in genesis 35 is that jacob goes through a serious period of consecration to the lord it's really beautiful isn't it did you notice verse four change your garments wash yourselves then they gave to Jacob all of his gods that were in their hands and on their ears and in front of them what does Jacob go to he grabs all of them and they have a ceremony if you will and they go to the tree there and they bury them that's the language they bury the gods this was a practice at that time symbolized a lot you know what's chilling is that years ago abraham stood right here and worshiped the lord and here's his grandson years later after some time of rebellion and running coming back to the very same spot and burying the idols don't you love the imagery. Burying the idols. Changing the garments. Building an altar. And then Abraham, right from here, went to Bethel. Jacob, right from here, goes to Bethel. Chilling. Moved by the grace of God, they wash, they purify, they bury the idols, they come up to the Lord and worship. Every time people drew near to the Lord, when there was any kind of sense of who God is in His holiness and an understanding of what this God had been like in fatherly love, do you know this consecration always took place? When Israel was being prepared for God to come down and give the law, do you know the same changing of garments went on? Then the Lord said to Moses, Exodus 19, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. What is this? What are you having described in the Old Testament? Repentance. That's what this is. You say, well, how do I do that? I don't carry around little amulets, do you? Oh, we carry around all sorts of little idols. Maybe not the little figurines. How do I wash? How do I do that? Come to the Lord. Come to the fountain. This is what the announcement is. Come to Christ. He'll wash you. And then from there, when you believe, what follows? It's this life of putting off and putting on. That's the whole language of the New Testament. And I believe that the categories that we have in the New Testament to describe the new life, to describe what a changed life looks like, the apostles looked at these kind of chapters and then they described it under the inspiration of the Spirit. They looked at the Old Testament. They looked at Jacob and they said, there it is. So listen to it. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. In the futility of their minds, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them. Due to the hardness of their heart, they become callous. Notice this. They've given themselves up to sensuality, whatever it feels like, all about feeling. Greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Listen, but that's not the way you learn Christ. Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him the truth as it is in Jesus, that you, here it is. Now this is where I believe Paul is thinking about Jacob. Put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. Do you see it? Put off. Put on. Enough of the paths. You guys have dabbled in that too long. Some of you are carrying around idols right now. You've secretly been carrying them for a long time. Maybe 30 years of your life and you've been in church every Sunday. When you stood up and you made the profession, you said this. I promise that I will love the Lord, that it's my heartfelt desire to serve Him according to His word to forsake the world to mortify that means kill boys and girls to put to death my old nature and I promise to lead a godly life now if you meant that you kind of understand then when somebody stands up a pastor and says come when you've been dabbling in things you shouldn't and when it hits rock bottom that may be just the moment you finally hear it i don't know but you said that to the lord you said you're my god and you see when you can look back over the course of your life and say god has been so faithful can you say that he didn't come and abandon me when i kept kept doing these things what overwhelms me is through all of that he still was with me and he still was so patient with me. The Lord wants you overwhelmed in your shortcomings. He never wavered his promise. You have. Oh, you have. And be thankful. The covenant of grace didn't say, God did his part of the covenant, now you fulfill yours. That's not it. You'd never make it. Jacob would have been cut off. God unilaterally fulfilled it in his son. And I want you to know that. but what does that look like now as the spirit works and as we become his holy people conviction and this is why you get all over the new testament the time is past for doing what the gentiles want to do you're done with that living in sensuality passions drunkenness orgies drinking parties and lawless what idolatry you're done so jacob arises and he comes to the lord i need to worship him i want to be back in his house there's something i never caught before in this passage as i was reflecting on it and i want you to see it another real evidence of change is in verse 7 when he came to bethel he builds an altar there and calls the name of that place el bethel now what strikes you about that when he first went there he built an altar and he says this is Bethel now he says El Bethel what does that mean let me translate it for you the God the God of the house the God of the house of God where's the emphasis the first time Jacob kept saying now listen listen to this God is in this place God is in this place God is here in this place. Now he's saying God is the God of this place. His heart's fixed on him. And that's the deliverance that he's working in us. This is coming full circle here. It's a deliverance not to come back to a place. It's a deliverance to come back to him. And that's what makes worship so special this morning. That's why this is so special for your lives. it's not that this building or the escondido urc is it it's that god is in this house today god has said i love to dwell with my saints on the lord's day and on the sabbath to be with them and spiritually nourish them and you're saying when you want to come up that's where i got to go i don't have to go to church today no you got to go to god today you're going to el bethel today The God, the God of the house. And it's sad when that's our struggle because of sin when this has no importance. This is what we're trying to convince young people about the greatest purpose in life is to know Him and enjoy Him. And that's what makes worship so special. It's because this is where God has chosen to reveal Himself. This is where God has called us. This is why you have in the Psalms my heart thirsts for the living God. When do I get to come and appear before El? O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts for You. My flesh faints for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I've looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and glory. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live. In your name, I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied. All of that is an expression of somebody who's tasted verse three. We got to go up to Bethel and worship there. Why? Because God's always been with me. God's always answered me and he's been with me wherever I've gone. I got to go. That kind of love brings a longing heart. And I love what follows. We'll close with this briefly. God all over the Bible says, return to me, and guess what I'm going to do? Return to you. So God first dropped the ladder. Jacob runs. God says, return to me. Jacob returns, and what do you have? You have the very reality of James. Draw near to God. He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Humble yourselves before God, and he will exalt you. He's going to do that for you. He's going to lift up your heads. And three things happen right now to demonstrate that. What does God do for him? I want you to picture this, boys and girls. Everyone once has Jacob marked. They are ready with Bo to take him out. As Jacob travels to Bethel, going in the will of God, did you notice verse 5? And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were all around them, so they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. I don't know what that was like, but that must have been awesome. No one's touching him. God surrounds him. Whatever the glory that came down that day and surrounded him, it was the same glory that led Israel into the land and to the promised land. That glory was there. It was the same thing. And the Lord is encouraging. And can you imagine the singing that went on that day? I blotted out like a thick cloud your transgressions, Isaiah 44. and like a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I've redeemed you. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, you lower parts of the earth. Break forth into singing, you mountains, O forests, and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel. This is a march. In verse 10, God appears to him. Second thing, what does he do? Your name is Jacob. Not anymore. He already did that. Why is he saying it now? To encourage him after this mess. I have not changed. You are my Israel. Your name is no longer Jacob. It's Israel. That's how I cover you. And you need to think of yourself that way. In the land, you need to think of yourself that way. And then, in closing, he does what? He reaffirms the whole promise of Abraham. He states it. I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and company of nations shall proceed from you and kings shall come from your body. The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, I give to you. And your descendants after you, I give this land. Then God went up from there. It's all yours. I give you everything that I promised to Abraham. There is no place in this life better to be than with the God, the God of Bethel. and the Lord wants you to understand that today. If he called you from the beginning, and you know that, then today I want you, when you go home, to turn around and I want you to look at the course of your lives and testify. Has God been faithful? Has he been with you the whole way? Has he sanctified you in your deepest distress and sanctified it all? It takes an open heart to see that. That he's loved you and he's been kind to you and he's turned all your messes and promised to work them for good and never did it hinge on your own faithfulness because you've wrecked it over and over and that realization after some amount of time says, I'm done, I'm going back to Bethel. The Lord extends his hands to you today and he says, come, come you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Put off those old garments and put on new. Those old sins, those old perverse sins, those old sexual sins. Be done. I am your God. And you're my creature. And I'll strengthen you for the journey. I'll put a terror around you so that no one can touch you. Today, he's confirmed before us. Whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ has this promise. It's for you too. The promises have always been the forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life. And that is yours. Amen. Heavenly Father, we bow the head this morning in praise and thanksgiving to the God of all grace. We're astonished at how you treat us. We don't deserve it. And surely we know what our sins deserve, your wrath. If there's any who are dabbling in sin and refuse to come, convict them greatly. lest they are not a child. But may all of your children come to you and believe your gospel promises and turn around in the course of their lives and say, our God has been faithful. And if that's the case, the Lord is my God. I will worship Him. May that be in our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.