Got my coffee, got my glasses. All right, I hope you're
surviving the storm. Well, we have a lot of snow
here. I I didn't have a regular capo,
so I went out to my car and just probably a foot of snow in the
car, I'll bet. So I'll be curious how much
we've gotten, but that if you're home and say you can see several
of you are seeing we're still on.
Just watch it again. Let's see here.
Just want to make sure that we're still happening.
We should. I think this is this.
It's going. Oh, yeah.
Look, we're live. It says it right up there.
Yeah. All right, there we are.
OK. All.
Right here we go, wherever you are, let's join our hearts
together. And open with prayer.
Sure, I'll pray. OK Lord, thank you so much.
That church is your people. So we're so grateful for the
building that we have that we get to gather in and fellowship
in. But God, we know that no matter
where we go, your Holy Spirit is with us.
And Lord, this morning we just thank you that the church is
gathering. Church is never cancelled.
Amen. Church is never cancelled.
God and Lord, we are so grateful to be part of your body.
So we just prayed this morning for everybody watching.
Lord, would you please meet us in our living rooms, in our
kitchens and our homes and our cars and see lifts if people are
watching. And God, let your presents be
with us this morning. Come and reveal your heart to us
this morning. Inspire us, encourage us, heal
us. Lord, lead us to repentance this
morning. God help us, God to encounter
you no matter where we are in our journeys.
We love you Lord. In Jesus name we pray and
everybody say Amen. Amen, guys.
So let's jump into our teaching for the storm.
I should probably leave you for this one because you know me.
I'm going to be jumping in where I don't even.
Jumping in, but it's and maybe you can respond to some people.
People are making comments I can't.
Because my phone is very cool. You can on my phone.
OK, here you go. Steve is on.
Just go to Facebook. All right.
Well, this morning compared a message that I'm excited to
bring to you and it's somewhat of a continuation and from last
week when we're taking a pause from our Holy Spirit series
because we want to jump back into that when we're all
together. OK, so this morning I'm gonna
talk about making the most of the moments that make us.
And this is kind of a continuation.
In the last week, I kind of shared some of these ideas.
When we found on it last week it was like 3 minute version 5
minute version and this week have added some additional
passages to build on study. But we, our churches, brought
our young people, our wildlife group down to Grand Rapids to
the res life for the One Heart Conference and was just a really
just a really profound deep time with our students, OK.
And I was grateful to be there with the team and Alex was
leading us there with the students.
So grateful for Alex and Taylor leadership just growing and
cycling our students. OK.
So as we can mention something that views, but again I'm an
uncapped in much greater depth. So this is Genesis chapter 28
versus 10:50 where it says Jacob left Beersheba and went towards
Heron and he and he came to a certain place and he stayed
there that night because the sun had set.
Taking one of these stones of the place, he put it under his
head and lay down in that place to sleep.
And this is Genesis 28. If you have your Bibles, you
could turn Genesis 28. We're going to kind of unpatch
several of the verses here. So this is Jacob.
He I've been to bear Steven interesting enough when I was in
Israel 15 years ago, so I can remember where this was.
And so Jacob let me ask this question first, who is Jacob?
Well, Jacob is is in again the book of Genesis.
He's the grandson of Abraham. Maybe you've heard about father
Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham and
maybe you sang this in church. Many sons have father Abraham
and I am one of them. So are you.
So let's just praise the Lord. So you have Abraham who begat
Isaac and then Isaac begat Jacob and Esau.
He had two sons. They were twins and Esau was
born first, but Jacob was named his name man like heel grabber
because when he was being born, he was wrestling with his twin
brother Esau to come out of the wounds first because the first
born has better benefits, if you will, especially in the ancient
world. So and he's deceitful.
He deceives numerous times. And this occasion of Genesis 28,
Jacob is running from his brother Esau, who he had and his
father, who he had deceived. And he's by himself.
And he comes to this place and he takes one of the stones of
that place and put under his head, and he's going to sleep
with it as a pillow. OK, So he has this stone big
enough to be a pillow, and he's sleeping with.
Now, what happens after that? We're talking again about making
the most of the moments that make us.
This is going to be a moment that defines and makes Jacob one
of the moments. The story continues in verse 12.
Genesis 28 Now in verse 12 says and he dreamed and behold, there
was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to
heaven and behold, the angels of God were sending and descending
on it again. This is the stairway to heaven.
Let Zeppelin didn't come up with it.
This was in Genesis so, and behold, the Lord stood above it.
And he said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and
the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to
you and to your offspring. God says, behold, here I am, I
am the Lord. And then he starts repeating a
promise that he had given to Jacob's grandfather about his
descendants being many. And he says, your offspring and
verse 14 shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall
spread abroad to the West, and to the east, and to the north
and to the South. And in you and your osprey sell
all the families of the earth. Be blessed.
And what does God mean by this? He's meaning that the Messiah,
Jesus, God himself is going to come as man to redeem us and
save us. And it's going to come through
the lineage of Jacob. The whole verse 15.
I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring
you back to this land, but I will not leave you until I've
done what I have promised to you.
OK, so Jacob has this beautiful profound moment of seeing the
stairway that goes into heaven with angels coming and going and
he hears God speak directly to him.
Story continues In verse 16 it says then Jacob awoke from his
sleep and said, watch this. He said surely the Lord is in
this place and I didn't know it. Surely the Lord is in this place
in verse 17 and he was afraid and he said how awesome is this
place? This is none other than the
House of God and this is the gate of heaven.
Now he is in awe at this moment where he's interacting with the
Spirit of God and watch this. In this occasion, he's saying
the Lord is in this place and how awesome is this place?
He's focused on the place, but that's OK.
That's the revelation that he's in now.
He's going to get greater revelation about who's awesome.
We'll see as the story continues.
But he says, surely God the Lord is here.
It's holy ground. Now, there were moments last
week when we were at the One Heart Conference and in your
life, there were probably had been many moments where you
looked around and went, wow, God is here, God is here.
And again, sometimes our friend might calls him God weeks,
right? And so there are moments,
whether it's a sunset or the birth of a child, or maybe there
was a season in your life where you were desperate to hear from
God and the Holy Spirit spoke to you, maybe maybe even audibly,
maybe to a friend, maybe just scripture.
But it was so evident to you, surely the Lord is in this place
wherever you might have been. And so this is a big moment for
Jacob. It's a moment that makes him and
defines him. So Genesis 28 verse 18 and the
story continues. So early in the morning, Jacob
took the stone that he had put under his head and he set it up
for a pillar and he poured oil on the top of it.
He called the name of that place Bethel or Bethel, but the name
of the city was loose at the first OK, so watch this.
He's naming the in the city of Luz eventually will become known
as the city of Bethel Bethel. But in this occasion, he's just
saying that little place that's there in the city of Luz, he's
calling it, which means the Lord is here, OK?
This is the place where God dwells.
It's the House of God. And he called the name of the
place that book, OK. So eventually what is going to
happen if that place is going to become bigger than the city of
us, OK. By the time that the readers
would have been reading this after Moses would have written
it, by then the children of Israel would have known the city
to be be Bethel. That's it.
OK, now he has a pillar. And this this pillar is the rock
that he sleeps with his pillow. And what is this?
It's a it's called a matseva. In Hebrew, it means pillar.
And I have his notes. By the way, if you want to text
me or write me today, I'll send you my notes for this week.
OK, so this is a matseva and it's something stationed, a
column, a physical landmark. OK, so he takes this.
And so it's we got on my seats. Am I saying that?
Right? Matseva.
That's how we would say it.
It is. It's become a metaphor for a
moment in our lives that we want to memorialize, like when God
showed up, OK, Because watch, Jacob is going to use that stone
to memorialize this event where he senses the presence of God
and hears the voice of God. OK.
So from a stone pillow, he makes a sacred memory stone to
remember that he encountered God there.
Now in our lobby at the church, you'll see that we have the
posters, the big white posters that are the three things that
we want to be about as a church. And the number one thing is we
want to get together as a church and we expect to encounter the
presence of God. Church should not be like going
to see a movie just, you know, punching a time clock.
Obligatory no When we go with get together, we should be
encountering the presence of God and that is our expectation
encounters lifelong with the Lord.
And when we encounter God, it's good that we have a monceva that
helps to memorialize, helps us to remember that moment where we
sensed and knew that God was there.
Yeah, so and so now a Monceva is has grown to be a
memorialization of a moment where we sensed and encountered
the presence of God. Now Jacob goes on with his life
and we're going to go jump to Genesis 35.
If you have your Bibles, if you want to go to Genesis 35 between
chapter 28 and 35, a lot happens in his life.
He goes to work for Manny Lehman and he buries twice made her
sisters Rachel and Leah. Rachel is the true love of his
life, but he's tripped by her father into marrying her.
He he marries her thinking that it's Rachel has to have been
work another seven years. So this, the deceitful Jacob has
met someone who's even more deceitful than he is.
Yeah. So the story picks up in Genesis
35. Now he's fleeing again because
God instruction to do so in verse 1.
So God said to Jacob, arise and go up to the foul and dwell
there. Make an altar there to the God
who appeared to you when you fled from your brother.
He saw. God instructs Jacob to go back
to this place where he encountered the presence of God
so greatly. And God is instructing this time
where before he just had one stone, and he said that one
stone up as a memorialization of God's encountering, encountering
God. But now I've got to say go back
and instead this time build an altar and altar was going to be
a place of worship. So now you're going to go back.
You've experienced a lot of heartaches, a lot of times where
you didn't sense the presence of God.
Jacob and he felt very distant from God.
And sometimes if God's like, go back to that place where you
last encountered me in a great way.
So verse 3, then let us arise and go to Bethel.
This is Jacob speaking 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 had gone. He's aware that God has been
with him. But this southern encounter was
even greater. So jumping to verse 6 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 he called the place al Bethel because their God had
revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.
Now it used to be that he called it Bethel, which meant house
with God, the place where God dwells.
Now he's updated the name to El Bezel, which means the God of
the House of God. So where it used to be, he was
focused on the place, now he's become focused on the God of the
place, which is actually deeper understanding.
It's an even deeper encounter. Before again, he was in awe of
the place. Now he's in awe of the God of
the place. God often from these encounters
that we have with them, He will fill us with the sphere and then
he will refill us with the sphere.
And the ideas that our understanding, our theology, our
beliefs, our doctor, they should grow in level of truth.
He starts again in all the place, but now he grows to be in
all of the God of the place. So verse 9, God appeared to
Jacob again when he came to Padama Haram and he blessed him.
Now God is not just revealing himself in Bethel, but other
places. Watch this.
He goes to this other place in there.
Now he's learning that God was not just in that one place, but
even when he's in Haddad Aram, he senses that God is also
greatly blessing. He's encountering God now
wherever he goes. And it's in this occasion when
he's in Haram, Haram that he's encountering God again.
And at this place, God changes his name.
God updates his name, He updates his name from Jacob to Israel
becomes his name. This is a moment that makes him
chapter 35, verses 13 through 15.
Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with
him, and Jacob set up a pillar in a place where he had spoken
with him, a pillar of stone, and he poured out a drink offering
on it and he poured oil on it. Watch what's happening here.
Jacob is getting a rhythm to his life earlier when he's a young
man, 20 years earlier, he encounters God, the stairway to
heaven, and there he builds his pillar, his memorial stone, if
you will. And then he goes back and builds
an altar. But now he goes on the new
places. And when he's there now he's
continuing to memorialize and intentionally set up tools,
these memory stones, to help him remember he is encountering God.
So this is a model for us, okay, when we have these encounters
with God, it's good to maybe maybe make a photo or maybe
highlight your Bible or, you know, maybe there's something
that you can take to just remember.
And when you run across it again, it will be such that it
will aid you in your growth in the lore.
OK. So sometimes I'll hide old
photos or notes in some Bibles that I have and maybe I'll run
across that note. I remember there was a pastor
that used to work four years ago and he was was a note writer.
And I still have some of those notes that he wrote to me.
And I remember those worship times were really profound.
And some songs that I'd written, I wrote some.
Just a glimpse and in that occasion, I have this card with
the password through with that. And he wrote that he loved this
new song that we had done for the first time called just the
guns. Me remembering, wow, God was
there in that moment. So for me, it can be a note, it
can be a picture, it can be anything that again, that serves
like a memorial stone to help us remember, Wow, we encountered
God in that place. And now because of we're in awe
of the God of the place, the God of that moment.
So Jacob in verse 15, Jacob called the name of the place
where God has spoken with him, Bethel.
OK, so now he's in different places and he's continuing to
say God is here also. So and that's kind of a recap.
What happens to the writer of Genesis.
There's just kind of bookending and to say, OK, this is the
story of Bethel and God has spoken with him there.
Now, what are some Al Bethel moments in your life, some God
of the place moments have you had?
Have you ever set up something to help you remember?
If not, my encouragement to you is to think, where were some
moments where I heard from God in a profound way and to give
yourself a tool to remember those occasions.
I want to show you two more examples that are similar in
nature to the way that Jacob worships in this occasion.
There's a story in Joshua, and Joshua would be hundreds of
years after the story of Jacob. You'll remember Moses is the
great leader who leads the children of Israel out of
slavery in Egypt. Remember from maybe the movies
or cartoons, as you've seen, where the Red Sea opens and
Moses sends his people across. God miraculously leads them.
But you'll remember that the children of Israel end up
wandering in the desert or the wilderness for 40 years because
of their lack of faith and their disobedience to God's prompt
things and leadings. OK, it's long story.
So they wander, they're nomadic for 40 years and eventually
Moses dies and now Joshua becomes the leader and they're
going to enter into the promised land of the Canaan and on this
occasion watch what happens with their memorial stones.
This is Joshua chapter 4 and read verses one through 7.
When all the nation had finished passing over to Jordan, the Lord
said to Joshua, Take 12 men from the people from each tribe, a
man, and command them, saying, Take 12 Stones from here out of
the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests
feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you, and lay them
down in the place where you lodge tonight.
This is in the tradition of Jacob.
Then Joshua called the 12 men from the people of Israel whom
he had appointed a man from each tribe.
And Joshua said to them, Pass on before the ark of the Lord your
God in the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you as stone
upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the
people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you, when your
children ask in time to come, what do these stones mean to
you? Then you shall tell them that
the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the
covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan,
the waters of the Jordan were cut off.
So these stones shall be to the people of Israel memorial
forever. I love this story.
So the Jordan River, I've been to the Jordan River.
I can envision that the God led his children after their four
years and one was to cross over the Jordan River, but he stopped
the river from flowing upstream. And when he did, they were able
to crossover it with all of their belongings in the Ark of
the Covenant. And So what they do is they
memorialize this event with stones, one for every tribe
where Jacob had twelve sons. Twelve sons.
And so there are 12 tribes. And after this miracle been
frosting over, he says, take these stones and make them for
memorial. But watch this.
This is so beautiful to me is that on this occasion, it's not
just so that they will remember, it's so that they're children
will remember that they experienced a miracle.
And to this day, you and I still have the story to remember God
miraculously moving. But in the ancient world, they
would have seen the stones that would have helped them to
remember. They made the most of that
miraculous moment in their life. This was a moment that made the
children of Israel when they entered into the promised land.
And so they don't want to just remember themselves.
The goal is that their children and their children's children
will remember again, I'll just read it to you.
They said, then you shall tell them of verse 6.
When your children ask in time to come, what do these stones
mean to you? Then you shall tell them that
the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the art of the
covenant of the Lord. Now there's one other case.
I want to show you that this is the tradition.
This is, you'll see it. There's many of our Scripture,
but I'm showing you there's a couple of them.
This is the story of Samuel and Samuel also set up set up some
stones that helped him and the people of God remember the
encounter, this miracle that they'll have.
This isn't first Samuel. So if you go forward to your
Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Joshua, Judges, roots and that first Samuel, the youth, first
Samuel, first Samuel Chapter 7, you'll remember that Samuel is
the great prophet. If you just saw the David movie,
the animated David movie, the Samuel Christmas, in that story,
he's the prophet before the 1st king of Israel, who was Saul,
the second king of Israel is David.
OK, so so he's a spiritual leader and he is also
encouraging and serving as counsel to Saul and to Saul
becomes arrogant and misses out on God's best.
But watch this story in Chapter 7 as Samuel was offering up the
burnt offering. This is first single seven and
I'm reading in verse 10, as Samuel was offering up the burnt
offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel.
But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against
the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were
defeated before Israel. This is a miraculous encounter
with God in verse 11. And the men of Israel went out
from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and struck them as
far as below that car. And then verse 12, then Samuel
took a stone and he set it up between this spot and Stan and
he called it it's name Ebenezer. For he said till now the Lord
has helped us. Ebenezer that's what it means.
The Lord is helping us. The Lord has been faithful.
So what does he do? He sets up a stone again, just
like Jacob, he sets up a stone to remember this event that God
miraculously moves. They set up and cause the names
of stone Ebenezer. And I'm reminded that reminded
there's a really wonderful old song.
It's an old hymn and I love this song.
It's been I haven't even practiced it.
I thought I was just singing about the Public Music.
And this song written by it's called Come now Found.
And it's it was written by Robert Robinson in 1758, right
Come thou found in the second verse it says come thou found.
This is the first verse. Very blessing to my heart to
sing thy strings of mercy never ceasing.
And here's where the songwriter gets Ebenezer in the eyes of the
song. Maybe for the sun never knew
what it meant. The Ebenezer is a stone that
Samuel set up to remember when God defeated the Philistines out
there to have, it says. And I woke by thy good place
safely to go on my bed. Jesus saw me where a stranger
punching from the fold of clouds.
So just thinking of I raised my Ebenezer.
In other words, the songwriter 1758 is saying find your
memorial stone, your Ebenezer like Samuel would have had and
use it to remember the goodness. The encounters of God have
encounters with God that you have like long.
So some application. I encourage you to go and think
what happens the moment in your life that made you where God
showed up and maybe you haven't thought of it in a long time.
Maybe it was a youth camp event or maybe it was a when you gave
your life to Christ. Maybe, maybe it's a miracle with
with your house or your job or your children.
Whatever it is, go back and cherish those moments where God
showed up. There's some in my life the
summer before my my senior year, the summer after my senior of
high school, I went to a youth camp near Waco, TX and it was
just a very profound time in my life that event.
And then I our I went to a wonderful college, wonderful
school called Christ for the Nation's Institute.
And years later our daughter went there and I would go back
to CF and I through the years and sang on recordings that they
did. And then our daughter had been
several years since I've been there and we were there because
our daughter was going to go to school.
This was 10 years ago almost. And I just remember coming out
of that campus and just, it just always overcome the memories of
God me and count in the presence of God when I was a student
there. And it just reminded me, Oh
yeah. And I thought, you know, I need
to remember better those moments where God showed up in my life
in profound ways. And I will encourage you to
think of those. And then I will encourage you to
find a way to remember those events often, set up some type
of tool to assist you and remember when God was there.
And a profound way. We saw it in Jacob's life.
We saw it with Joshua when they crossed the dirt river.
And then we saw it in Samuel saying his life when they had
defeated the Philistines because of the power and presence of
God. Let me pray for us, kind of you.
Thank you for this hour that we've been able to be together.
And whether we're watching now or sometime in the near future,
thank you for your presence in our lives.
And help us to remember and to memorialize and to set up
memorial stones that aid us in continuing to be grateful for
your faithfulness and for your presence in our lives.
We pray this in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.
Let me just say blessing over you.
Thanks for being here and now. May the Lord bless you and keep
you and may he make his face to shine upon you.
And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of the
Lord, may the bound to you. And may the peace of God that
passes all understanding, may it surprise you in the midst of all
of the challenges that life brings.
And then we have mercies of the Lord.
In other words, the forgiveness of God that's new every morning
may be especially new to you now and your mornings to come.
And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind. You are salt and you are light.
Go now and be salt and light into the world like Blizzard
wise like go like tomorrow or where the roads are there, and
be blessed in your salt and you are light.
We'll look forward to seeing you next Sunday.
But.