The Lord is in this Place!

Good morning everyone! My name is Matt Martinez and I am the pastor here at Renovation Church Shoreview. Happy 4th of July to all of you! Happy 250th Birthday!

My wife grew up going to her family's cabin in Garrison, MN every summer. If you get her talking about it, she'll tell story after story. By the way she describes it, you'd think this place was the Taj Mahal or Buckingham Palace.

So I remember the first time I got to visit. And...it was just a cabin. A nice cabin! Don't get me wrong. But the cabin itself wasn't what made it special. It was the memories. It was the stories. It was everything that had happened there over the years.

Some of the most important things God has ever done happened in places nobody would have picked out ahead of time.

God can meet you in the places in your life where you least expect, but need the most.

We will learn about how this happens in our passage today. Please open up your Bibles to Genesis 28:10-22. If you are using the Renovation Church Bibles under your chair, our passage will be on page 19-20.

For the last few weeks, we have been in a teaching series on the Life of Jacob.

Years before our passage today, God had promised Jacob's grandfather Abraham, "I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make you into a great nation. Through your family all the nations of the earth will be blessed."

That promise was meant to pass from generation to generation, and God had already said it would belong to Jacob. The problem is Jacob didn't trust God's timing. Instead of waiting on the Lord, he took matters into his own hands. He manipulated and lied and now everything has caught up with him. Jacob is leaving home because his brother Esau wants him dead.

This is what I love about the Bible. It doesn't hide people's failures. Jacob is dysfunctional. His family is dysfunctional. And yet God doesn't walk away from him.

Let's read together beginning in verse 10.

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 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.”

18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

There's one phrase in verse 16 that Jacob says after this encounter with that becomes the heartbeat of the whole passage.

Surely the Lord is in this place.

You may find yourselves in great places in life, extremely difficult places in your life. Or the places in between good and bad. Jacob's story reminds us that God's presence isn't determined by our circumstances. In fact, sometimes He is doing His greatest work in the places we would least expect.

So the first lesson we can take from this passage today is…

God is in this place even when life is a mess.

As Jacob sets out on this journey in verses 10–11, remember where he is. He's left behind his parents, his home, and everything familiar. He's spent years trying to do life his own way, and now he's living with a mess of consequences.

Have you heard people refer to life as a quilt? On one side, all you see are knots, loose threads, and a tangled mess. Flip it over, and you discover there was a beautiful pattern being woven all along.

Right now, we can only see the messy side of Jacob’s life. A rock for a pillow. No family. No home.

We don't know what Jacob was thinking that night. But we do know what God was doing.

While Jacob sleeps, God gives him a dream. A stairway reaches from earth to heaven, and God says,

"I am with you." "I will watch over you." "I will bring you back." "I will never leave you."

Every promise God makes speaks directly into one of Jacob's fears.

When Jacob could only see the mess, God could already see the bigger picture.

God was weaving together a story of grace that Jacob couldn't see yet.

Maybe that's where you are today.

Your life feels messy. You can't see what God is doing.

But if God still speaks words of promise into the middle of Jacob’s mess.

And He can do the same for you. Pause and remember, God is in your mess.

We also do this well at Renovation Church in so many ways. Get connected!

Jacob is starting to come to a realization about God for the first time, check out his response in verse 16.

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.'”

God is in this place even when we are not aware.

Did you catch what Jacob doesn't say?

He doesn't wake up and say, "God finally showed up."

He says, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it."

The only thing that changed was Jacob's awareness.

It's like buying a new car. Suddenly you notice that same make and model or your new car on the road everywhere. It's not that everyone suddenly bought the same car. You just started paying attention.

Notice verse 17: "How awesome is this place!" Jacob isn't talking about the scenery. The rocks are still rocks. The dirt is still dirt. The wilderness hasn't changed. Jacob has.

The next morning, he takes the very stone that had been under his head, stands it up, pours oil over it, and names the place Bethel—"House of God." Yesterday it was just another stop along the road. Today it's Bethel because Jacob finally recognizes what had been true all along. (We have a lot of Bethel and Northwestern University students at this church. Take notice—Jacob does not call the holy place where God met him Northwestern.)

God is in this place even when we are not aware of Him.

That's a good reminder for us too. Today we're meeting in a school cafeteria instead of our usual gym. Is it any less holy? No. Is a building more holy than our gym. No. God makes a place holy. God can meet us in places we least expect.

Jacob met God in the middle of nowhere—no temple, no priest, no altar. Just a man, a rock, and a faithful God.

And because of Jesus, the same is true for us.

His Spirit is with His people. You don't have to chase His presence or travel somewhere special to find Him.

He's with you on your commute.

At your kitchen table.

In the hospital room.

Rocking your baby to sleep.

Lying awake at night wondering what He's doing.

You may not always be aware of it.

But the Lord is in this place.

Let’s come back to the final verses of our passage today.

20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

There is a little turn here in the passage. Jacob has had a true experience with God, but he isn’t fully transformed after just one night. Jacob is still doing a little bargaining. But there is hope for us even if we don’t change overnight.

God is in this place even when we are not aligned with Him.

If you're reading this story for the first time, you may expect Jacob to finally trust God.

God has pursued him, spoken to him, reaffirmed His promises, and promised to be with him wherever he goes.

Instead, Jacob says,

"If God will be with me... then the Lord will be my God."

Did you catch that?

God keeps saying,

"I will bless you”

"I will be with you.”

"I will provide for you”

“I will. I will. I will.”

Jacob answers,

"If..."

God speaks in promises. Jacob speaks in conditions. He's still trying to negotiate with God.

Before we're too hard on Jacob, don't we do the same?

"God, if You answer this prayer..." "If You heal my loved one..." "If You open this door..." "Then I'll trust You."

We all have a little Jacob in us. We want certainty before surrender. But that's not how grace works. Before Jacob ever made a promise to God, God had already made promises to Jacob. Grace always makes the first move.

Here's what I love about this story. God doesn't walk away because Jacob's faith is still immature. He stays. Over the next many years, God patiently shapes Jacob into the man He promised he would become.

That's encouraging, because there are still places in my own life that aren't fully aligned with the Lord. I still worry. I still try to control outcomes. Maybe you do too.

Here's the good news:

Your spiritual maturity isn't what makes God faithful. His character is.

This isn't ultimately the story of faithful people. It's the story of a faithful God.

So what do we do when we find ourselves in a place like Jacob?

I want to leave you with one simple practice this week...

When you find yourself in a place like Jacob's, you can remind yourself of God's faithfulness in the middle of it. I think it starts with two simple steps: a pause and a breath. Pause — in your mind, put down your phone, stop talking. Then breathe. As you breathe in, say to yourself, "Even when I am alone..." Breathe out: "God is in this place." Breathe in: "Even when I am unaware..." Breathe out: "God is in this place."

Conclusion

Remember the stairway Jacob saw in his dream? Stretching from earth to heaven?

It reminds me of a Nintendo game from my childhood called Jacob's Ladder. It was basically a math game: answer correctly, you climbed up; get one wrong, you slid back down. It was a super disappointing game for a middle schooler who just wanted to play videos games, but got tricked into doing math.

As I have thought about that game since then, I think that's how a lot of people picture their relationship with God. Do enough good, you move a little closer. Mess up, you slide a little farther away. One long spiritual math test.

But that's not Jacob's dream. God is opening the way down to Jacob.

Hundreds of years later, Jesus picks up this exact image. He says,

"You will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Do you hear what Jesus saying? "I'm the ladder." I'm the way to the Father. I'm the fulfillment of every promise God ever made.

Think about what God promised Jacob that night.

"I will be with you."

"I will watch over you."

"I will never leave you."

Every one of those promises finds its fulfillment in Jesus.

Because Jesus lived the perfect life we couldn't, died the death we deserved, and rose again, we never have to wonder whether God will keep His promises.

He already has. The cross is the proof. The empty tomb is the guarantee.

So whether you feel alone or are wondering what God is doing and you faith feels small, Genesis 28 reminds us of something we so easily forget:

The Lord is in this place.

Not because your faith is perfect. Because God is faithful.

Jacob walked into the wilderness believing his future depended on him. He walked away discovering his future rested on the promises of God.

And because of Jesus, we can walk into this week with the same confidence Jacob discovered: "Surely the Lord is in this place."