Back to Bethel, Part 1

Genesis 35v1-5a

30^th September 2022

We've been looking at the story of Jacob. Last time, we reached the point where he was on his way home, but wanted to be reconciled to his brother Esau first. He spent a night alone on the north bank of the River Jabbok. God met him and wrestled with him until daybreak. God dislocated Jacob's hip but Jacob carried on fighting. As morning broke, God said "let me go" but Jacob said "I will not let you go until you bless me". God asked him his name, and he had to reply, "I'm Jacob – I'm grasper, cheat, twister" and God said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel." Israel means "He wrestles with God".

Perhaps you became a Christian years ago. Perhaps you never fully cast off the ungodly attitudes that you grew up with, never fully repented. Sooner or later, God will wrestle with you. He may injure you, as God injured Jacob's hip, perhaps in your body or perhaps in your emotions or your relationships, until all you want is God's blessing. And when what you really want most is God's blessing, He'll give you a new name. Jacob limped away from that place, broken but with a new identity as a man of God. The two generally go together.

The first thing he saw was Esau and his four hundred men. But God gave Jacob favour in Esau's sight, and the two brothers were reconciled.

Jacob was now free to return to Beersheba, but first he moved to the town of Succoth, just East of the Jordan, with his family, and lived there for a time. He then crossed the Jordan back into Canaan, and lived just outside the town of Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim. He built an altar there and called it "El Elohe Israel", which means either "God is the God of Israel" or "Mighty is the God of Israel". He included his own God-given name in the name of the altar where he worshipped God. Make of that what you will. But he knew his God was mighty.

Things didn't work out in Shechem. Genesis Chapter 34 contains the unedifying story of the rape of Jacob's daughter Dinah, and the reprisals meted out to the town by two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, who killed every man in the town. For the third time, Jacob had to run for his life.

Genesis 35v1
Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau."

The first time Jacob met God, when had the dream of Jacob's ladder, he named that place Bethel, which means "House of God". He then spent twenty years in a foreign land. We have no record of him worshipping God in those years. It seems, there was no any significant change in his character. Now God told him to return to Bethel.

I think this is a picture, a parable, for us. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10v6, "These things occurred as examples for us".

Like Jacob, we can all drift away from God. We can forget to put Him first, and live our lives more-or-less like our non-Christian neighbours. We can fall out of the habit of worshipping God regularly. We can neglect the house of God, which is the church, our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can go our own way. We can do what seems good to us. But the day comes when God says, "Go up to the house of God and settle there, and build an altar there to God". We have a choice, whether to continue to live our compromised, semi-Christian lives, doing what suits us, pursuing money, career, family and pleasure. Or we can return to the house of God, taking our Christianity, our discipleship, seriously.

God told Jacob to do three things:

1. Firstly, Go to the house of God. For us this means, actually come to church. Turn up on Sunday mornings.
2. Secondly, Settle there. Live as part of God's church. Make your home, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, within the church, within God's people. Live in the fellowship of believers. Be committed to your brothers and sisters in Christ. Serve them and pray for them.
3. Thirdly, Build an altar to God. Worship. Don't just observe others worshipping. Don't just get involved in some sort or practical ministry (good though that is). Worship God wholeheartedly.

When Jacob was with his uncle Laban in Paddan Aram, we never read that he prayed or worshipped or built an altar. Now, he was on his way back to Bethel, from worldliness to worship. Jacob was now ready to enter into his inheritance. He was ready to live as the patriarch of God's people. To enter our inheritance as people of God is to come to the church, to settle here, and to worship our Lord and Saviour.

Maybe you're at this point in your life. You were born again years ago, but you've drifted, and now you sense God is calling you back to a life of worship and service. For you this is the time to take up your inheritance as a child of God, to know the love, joy, peace and power of your heavenly Father. No matter how far you've drifted, no matter what you've done, God welcomes you back to His house.

Genesis 35v2-3
Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone."

This is a little mysterious for us. We don't know what Jacob meant by purification, because the laws of Moses had not yet been given, and we don't know why they needed to change their clothes. Perhaps their old clothes had pagan symbols on them, or perhaps they were unsuitable for some other reason. But the spiritual lesson for us is quite clear. We are to get rid of all foreign gods, to stop worshipping our idols – anything that we treat as if they were just as important as God. Some Christians treat money, career, family or pleasure as being as important as worship and service and obedience to God. They're idols. We must purify ourselves on the inside by repenting of any bad attitudes or ungodly thought patterns, and we must purify ourselves on the outside, and behave as Christians should. I hope that when you go to work on Monday morning you look like a Christian.

Romans 13v14
Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Two out of three won't do. It's no good throwing away all our idols and changing our attitudes, if we continue to act like non-Christians. It's no good discarding our idols and mending our behaviour if our hearts remain unchanged. It's no good changing our attitudes and our behaviour but continuing in idolatry.

Jacob told his household to do these things, and they did them. There is no point God sending us pastors, teachers and prophets to teach us how to live, if we don't listen, and change.

As James 1v22
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Something had happened to Jacob. He'd been a man who had God's call on his life, who'd had God's favour, who'd had some experiences of meeting with God and with angels, but who was still fundamentally selfish and dishonest. Now he was different – a man who wouldn't think of worshipping God without purifying himself and all he owned. Jacob knew that when he was in a foreign land living a less-than-godly life, God had been faithful to him, and stuck by him. Now he was ready to be faithful to God, to take his relationship with God seriously and reverently.

I believe what changed him was the wrestling match by the River Jabbok, when God gave him a new name. God lifted off Jacob all the negativity that his parents had laid on him, and the poor self-image they'd given him, and God gave him a new self-image. No longer was he "Grasper". Now he was "He wrestles with God". It's a wonderfully liberating thing when we come to understand what God says about us. Believe what God says about you.

If you're a Christian, if you've been born again, then you're justified by faith. That means that, whatever anybody else says about you, God says you're fine. God says you're holy in His sight. God says you're His child. God's love for you is unequivocal and eternal.

God has been with you, as he was with Jacob, from the moment you were converted, saved. You His a child, and the father never stops loving the prodigal son. He longs for him to return. He calls you back to a real, serious, deep relationship with Him. Are you ready to come back to Bethel?

Rachel, Jacob's favourite wife, had stolen her father's idols and brought them with her. Others, too, had idols and idolatrous items in Jacob's household. The revulsion we feel when we read this should be reflected in our own lives. I like to think nobody here has any idols of wood or stone in his house. If you have, smash them as soon as you get home, and apologise to God for breaking the second commandment. But many of us have some other sort of idol in our life. An idol isn't just a trinket you bought in an ungodly shop somewhere; an idol is anything that you worship alongside God, anything you wouldn't give up if God told you to.

Genesis 35v4
So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.

It seems that their earrings had some idolatrous purpose. Perhaps they were charms. Anyway, Jacob buried all the idolatrous items under the oak tree there, where God had appeared to Abraham in Genesis Chapter 12, and promised to give the land to Abraham's descendants. Of course, Jacob was in direct descent from Abraham. He was responding to God's promises with an act of repentance, finally ridding himself and his household of all idolatry. Purity is important in God's people.

Genesis 35v5a
Then they set out...

Having removed their idols, repented of their impurities and changed their clothes, Jacob and his followers were ready to return to the house of God. Are you ready?

We'll see what happened when they arrived at Bethel next time.