​You are not alone. God is with you!

10 Jacob set out from Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and decided to spend the night there, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones from that place, put it under his head, and lay down to sleep in that place. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. There were angels of God ascending and descending on it. 13 There at the top stood the Lord, who said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you are lying, I give to you and to your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south. In you and in your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed. 15 Now, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back again into this land. Indeed, I will not leave you, until I have done what I have promised to you.” 16 Jacob woke up from his sleep, and he said, “Certainly the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and he said, “How awe-inspiring is this place! This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate to heaven.”
To Jacob, the place where he stopped for the night may have seemed just a random spot to camp for the night.  But the LORD had chosen this spot very carefully.  You see, this was the same spot at which his grandpa Abraham, many years earlier, had built an altar to the LORD when God had given him the promise that from one of his descendants all the world would be blessed.  Jacob found a rock against which he could lean and sleep for the night.  Perhaps it might even have been one of the very stones that Abraham had used to build his altar to the Lord on that spot so many years earlier. 
 
During that night the LORD gave Jacob a promise in the form of a dream. The LORD promised Jacob, alone and afraid and on the run,, that he was not alone.  His God was there with him.  The vision could not have brought him more cheer, could it?  God showed him a wide stairway that led to the throne room of heaven itself.  Up and down that stairway angels were traveling to God with the prayers and the needs of Jacob and God’s people, and then returning to carry out God’s instructions.
 
What do you think it said to Jacob - guilty, alone, afraid Jacob – that God appeared to him and promised him that he would have a great family and that God had not changed his mind, neither about sending a Savior nor that that Savior would come from Jacob’s own descendants?  It said: grace! - God was giving Jacob the opposite of what he deserved!  This dream announced faithful grace! – God would keep his promise to send a Savior even though Jacob had acted in ways that should have disqualified him for such an honor.  And Jacob was NOT alone!  The angels of God were involved in his journey, protecting him along the way.  And though he had neither wife nor children yet, he would eventually find a wife and he would have twelve sons who would become the forefathers of the twelve tribes of Israel!  But at this point in our text, it was a matter of faith for Jacob.  He did not yet see what would be, but only heard what God said would be.  But what cheerful and cheering promises God spoke to him that night!
 
What does it say about our LORD and us, that he treated Jacob this way?  It tells us that even in those moments when we may feel most alone and afraid, our LORD is with us.  Isn’t that what he promised us? “Surely I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).  And even if we put ourselves in hard places because of our own sins, still, when we call out to the LORD, he is near!  His very name says that he is and it explains why he can be with sinful you and sinful me just as he was with sinful Jacob:  “The LORD, the LORD, compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”  (Exodus 34:6-7)  God is near with grace and forgiveness that has been bought and paid for and established at the cross of Jesus.  That’s very same cross before which we gather today, to which we look for God’s forgiving and forgetting of our sins, and at which God made us God’s own redeemed people. 
 
Jacob’s vision of the stairway still stands!  It stands in the promise God also gives you and me in Psalm 91:  “he will give a command to his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.”  It is there in the promise God give you and me in Hebrews 12:  “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent out to serve for the benefit of those who are going to inherit salvation?”
 
So, for all those times you and I have disrespected our earthly parents or our heavenly Father, for all those times we have cheated our brothers or sisters or neighbors out of the love we owe them, God has not turned away!  He has not abandoned us on our journey through life!   He is still the LORD, the God of free and faithful and forgiving grace!  As David teaches us in the 23rd Psalm:  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”  Do you remember what Paul said in our Scripture lessons today from Romans chapter 5? -The reconciling death of Jesus Christ was what healed the relationship broken by our sin and inseparably connects us to God’s love!
 
How it must have cheered Jacob to know that his God was with him on his journey!  How it must have cheered Jacob to know that God would not break his promises even though Jacob had broken God’s law!  But there is more here for Jacob and for you and me.  God was also with Jacob directing him along the way by his hand.
 
When Jacob stopped to camp for the night in that place, he still had most of the 500 mile journey ahead of him.  And he still had a brother who wanted to kill him behind him.  Danger behind and a dangerous journey ahead.  What’s was more, he had a fractured family behind him and only his father’s wish that at the end of his journey he would find a wife from among the believers in his mother Rebekah’s extended family in Haran.  But he knew no one there, either.  And even if he was able to start fresh with a family of his own, would he ever be able to see his father and mother, Isaac and Rebekah, again?  And what of his relationship with his brother Esau?  Could that ever be reconciled?
 
God was answering all those questions and concerns, wasn’t he?  Jacob would indeed find a wife.  He would be the father of a great family.  And he would come home again.  And he would see his mother and father again.  And the day would even come when he would be reunited with his brother, Esau.  Genesis 33:4 records their meeting this way, “Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.”  The specifics of all of that Jacob did not know and God did not explain.  But here’s what Jacob did know – because God promised him:  “Now, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back again into this land. Indeed, I will not leave you, until I have done what I have promised to you.”  Between this night in our text and that day, so much lay ahead for Jacob.  He would reach Haran safely.  He would meet and fall deeply in love with a woman named Rachel.  Rachel’s father would trick him into marrying his other daughter Leah, and it would be seven more years before Jacob could fulfill his promise to Rachel.  But God would indeed watch over Jacob.  And the day would come when God would tell Jacob to settle his large and prosperous family in Bethel – the very place where I camped that night.  There God would come to him again, and say:  “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.... I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants.12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.”
 
And, of course, every word God spoke came to be.  And the greatest king to come from Jacob’s descendants was the one who was hung on a cross with a sign over his head announcing him, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”  That sign was hung in mockery and ignorance, but that sign announced the fulfillment of all that God promised Jacob.  In that king, every sinner from every nation in every age and in every place has redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation with God.
 
I don’t know what lies ahead on my journey, and certainly not on yours.  Yes, we have our plans all laid out in our heads.  But some of us have lived along enough to know that there’s a big difference between what we plan and the way things work out. Isn’t it a good thing that our God does not change? – that he still says to you and me what he said to Jacob? - 15Now, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back again into this land. Indeed, I will not leave you, until I have done what I have promised to you.”  And so he invites us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”  (Proverbs 3:5-6)  I am so happy to be able to tell you this morning that whatever lies ahead for you, God will be with you.  And as long as we trust him, he will lead us through all that lies ahead and bring us safely home to heaven. 
 
Jacob did not know all that life held in store for him.  But when he woke up in the morning he knew a very important thing.  Listen:  16Jacob woke up from his sleep, and he said, “Certainly the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. ... How awe-inspiring is this place! This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate to heaven.”  You are this morning where he was that morning.  No, not at all the same place geographically.  But exactly the same place spiritually.  The same God is with us who was with Jacob there.  The same promises have been given to us as were given to Jacob.  You have forgiveness just as Jacob did.  The angels are ascending and descending between heaven where you are to serve God and you, just as they did in that place for Jacob.  God speaks to us in his Word, just as he spoke to Jacob there.  No, we are not at the journey’s end in heaven yet, but this is the perfect place from which to take our next step!  “Certainly the Lord is in this place ... How awe-inspiring is this place! This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate to heaven.”  Travel on in confidence, my friends.  God’s promises and direction are yours! Amen.