Dirty Gold Part 1

Introduction

Please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

Genesis 29:1–14 NKJV

So Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the East. And he looked, and saw a well in the field; and behold, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks. A large stone was on the well’s mouth. Now all the flocks would be gathered there; and they would roll the stone from the well’s mouth, water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place on the well’s mouth.

And Jacob said to them, “My brethren, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.” Then he said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” And they said, “We know him.” So he said to them, “Is he well?” And they said, “He is well. And look, his daughter Rachel is coming with the sheep.”

Then he said, “Look, it is still high day; it is not time for the cattle to be gathered together. Water the sheep, and go and feed them.” But they said, “We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together, and they have rolled the stone from the well’s mouth; then we water the sheep.”

Now while he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, that Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s relative and that he was Rebekah’s son. So she ran and told her father.

Then it came to pass, when Laban heard the report about Jacob his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. So he told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him for a month.

This is the Word of the Lord, Amen?
You may be seated

•     How do we describe Jacob at this point in his life?

•     Do we describe him a great man of faith, or a man of great failures?

•     He has spent most of his life preparing to carry the call and the promises of his birthright, the covenant of God that was first given to his grandfather Abraham. He has been theologically and eternity minded… but he has also been very faithless, scheming and plotting and manipulating his way into the birthright that was rightfully his all along.

•     Instead of trusting God to be true to His word, the prophecy that God gave his mother while he and his brother where in the womb… instead of trusting that God could give him the blessing, the birthright, the covenant in a righteous and holy way… instead of trusting God to do what God always does… Jacob instead takes matters into his own hands, lying to and deceiving his father, and really dishonoring his brother in the process as well.

•     So on one hand we have this guy who really wants the things of God, but on the other hand we have this man who doesn’t trust God to give him the things promised.

•     So Jacob tricks his father, enrages his brother, and then runs for his life… faithless and afraid… yet even then God comes to him, and shows him this amazing vision of this ladder. And God restates this covenant and these promises… No matter how many times Jacob fails, God remains faithful…

•     And really those were our last two sermon series, right? Faithless Religion, when God’s patriarchal family does some eternally important religious things, but they do so without faith… up until finally Isaac has the faith to say “indeed Jacob will be blessed” and then of course we had the series When Heaven Meets earth talking about Jacob’s ladder, angles, and Jesus being our connection between heaven and earth.

•     So now the story continues… Jacob continues his flight towards his uncle Laban’s house, and again I ask “How do we describe Jacob at this point in his life?”  And my answer to that question is the Title to this 3 part series on the first half of Genesis 29… I think Jacob is “Dirty Gold”.

•     So much of Jacob is gold… he cares so much about the things of God, the covenant that was passed down by his grandfather and father… he doesn’t care too much about the things of this world, hunting and eating… he cares far more about the things of God.

•     And even when running for his life, he still has a desire to carry on with the plan God has for him and the plan God has for mankind through him. Jacob knows this is bigger than himself and he is excited, desperate even, to play the part that God has for him in eternity.

•     But that gold is not pure, there is a lot of dirt in Jacob’s life. Lies, tricks, faithlessness, fear… So what I want to talk about for the next three week as we go through the first half of Genesis 29 is this: What does God do with dirty gold? And what I love about this sermon series is that I get to start off with an encouraging sermon… I have two points this morning, both positive… Point one: There is Gold in You… and Point Two: God Protects His Gold.

•     Now, lest you think this is some mamby-pamby sugary preaching church, let me assure you… we will get to the FIRE… (How do you think you get the dirt out of the gold?) but that message will come in a week or two, before we talk about the fire we need to establish some truths and tear down some lies…

•     So, let’s start with point one: There is gold in you.

Point One – There is Gold in You

Genesis 1:27 NKJV

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

•     Now I am going to get back to the story of Jacob in Laban in the second point,  as I show you God’s beautiful working in Jacob’s life, and how that relates to God’s working in our life… but for now there is a point of doctrine, a point of theology that I believe God want’s me to address.

•     All Christians can agree, well at least orthodox Christians can agree that we are made in God’s image.

•     I am made in God’s image, you are made in God’s image… the child in the womb is made in God’s image.

•     We are all made in the image of God.

•     Now here is a question: Is the image of God good?

•     I think it is, I think the image of God is good. God is beautiful, and holy, and just. He is a miracle worker, a way maker, a light in the darkness. He loves, He cares, He heals. He gives new mercies every morning. His compassion is overwhelming, His peace is beyond understanding. His justice is pure and His grace is unwavering.

•     GOD IS GOOD. He is infinitely good. He is the definition of good. Outside of God there is no good. I think we can all agree on that.

•     And here is another thing that all Christians agree with, at least Christians who believe and teach the Bible…  everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 3:23 NKJV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

•     We have broken God’s law, we have messed it up, we have muddied the waters… we have commited evil and that evil has corrupted us.

•     We were the good image of God, we were the beautiful image of God… but we took that image and we used it for evil… we took that image and ran it through the mud.

•     What was once a good and beautiful and pure image of God is now corrupted, dirty, and depraved….

•     But here church, is where there is division amongst Christian scholars… just how depraved are we? Is there any good left, is there any gold left?

•     Some say that we are totally and completely and utterly depraved, there is nothing left in us.

•     The Westminister Confession of Faith, for example says this about mankind:

“…We are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil…”
-Westminister Confession of Faith 6.4, 1647 A.D.

•     Now does anything about that description describe the image of God? No! Of course not!

•     And yet there are major theologians who teach this… that there is NOTHING good left in man.

•     But if that is true, if man is completely and totally depraved, then church there is no more image of God left. We are not dirty gold at all, we are just… dirt.

•     But I take issue with this… because last I checked it is still wrong to murder people… if people are completely and utterly depraved and I murder someone, well then I am just ridding the world of evil, aren’t I? Yet God says we can’t murder, why does God say we shouldn’t murder? Because we are made in God’s image.

Genesis 9:6 NKJV

“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.

•     God says “You can not take the life of another human because they are made in My image”.

•     God said this well after the fall, in fact He said this directly after the flood… and Noah was certainly not perfect, the very next thing Noah did after God said this was he went and got plastered drunk and passed out naked in his tent…

•     And yet God says “You can’t murder him, or anyone else because they are made in my image”.

•     Clearly God Himself does not think we are so completly and utterly and totally depraved that there is nothing good left in us.

•     in fact the good that He sees in us is worthy of protecting… it is His image, after all, that we are talking about.

•     God looks at mankind, His creation, and He sees gold.

•     Dirty gold, yes, marred and scared, beat up and dragged through the mud… and it is our own sin that has messed us up, that is for sure… but there is still, beneath all the filth, the golden image of God.

•     Church, someone needs to hear this this morning. There is GOLD in you. There is good in you. Without Christ you are not good, that is true… none is good except for God… but there is good in you… the image of God remains in you.

•     Listen maybe you have been made to think you are worthless…

•     Maybe you have been made to think you are not worthy of love…

•     Maybe your family and loved ones have made you feel less than, lower than… maybe you have been made to feel like you have no worth whatsoever and the world would be no worse off if you just crawled into a whole and died…

•     But God disagrees, God sees gold in you, God thinks you are to die for… He was willing to sacrifice His only son to redeem you… to bring you back into that perfect image of God… before the sin, before the lies, before the mistakes…

•     And speaking of sins… maybe it’s not others who have torn you down… maybe you have done a pretty good job of tearing yourself down…

•     Choosing sin after sin… failure after failure… deceit after deceit… you would be in good company with Jacob… and God meet Jacob in a field to show him a vision of heaven meeting earth, to comfort him and remind him of God’s promises…

•     “Well pastor I did a lot worse things than Jacob”… ok, I bet you didn’t do as bad of things as Paul though… Paul was a persecutor of the church, a murderer of Christians… and yet God saw Paul as redeemable… God loved Paul so much as to appear to him on the road as Paul was on the way to arrest more Christians.

•     You see the truth of the matter is that every person, no matter how dirty, has some gold… every person remains made in the image of God. Now on our own, that is not worth much… but when we become Christ’s… when we give our lives to Him, when He redeems us, saves us, cleanses us from all unrighteousness… well then that gold begins to shine.

1 John 1:9 NKJV

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Psalm 51:2 NKJV

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.

Ezekiel 36:25 NKJV

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

Titus 3:5 NKJV

not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

•     When we give our lives to Christ, when we become His, he washes us and cleanses us… now if we had not good in us then what would there be to wash?

•     If I have a chunk of dirt and there is gold in the center then I can wash the dirt off and be left with gold…

•     But if I have a chunk of dirt that is completely and totally dirt, nothing but dirt… then I can wash that dirt all day and all I will be left with is a handful of mud.

•     This is why it is so important to know that YOU HAVE VAULE. God really does WANT YOU. Not as you are, but as you can be with His washing. No mistake is too great, no dirt is so heavy that it is not worth cleansing to reveal the Gold.

•     Now I am preaching to the choir for many of you, but some of you need to know that God really does love you and wants you to be a part of His family, God really can cleanse you and make that gold shine…

•     But here is the best part of today’s message… God protects His gold. Once you become His, and we will talk about how to do that at the end of this message… once you become His, He protects you… God protects His gold.

Point Two – God Protects His Gold

Genesis 29:1–6 NKJV

So Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the East. And he looked, and saw a well in the field; and behold, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks. A large stone was on the well’s mouth. Now all the flocks would be gathered there; and they would roll the stone from the well’s mouth, water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place on the well’s mouth.

And Jacob said to them, “My brethren, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.” Then he said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” And they said, “We know him.” So he said to them, “Is he well?” And they said, “He is well. And look, his daughter Rachel is coming with the sheep.”

•     God protects His Gold.

•     The second year of the church we were meeting in a couple of old elementary school classrooms. It was Easter Sunday and all was well, we took up the offering like we always do and back then, we were small back then, back then I would take the offering and put it in the pulpit for us to take the bank after service.

•     That particular Sunday a trouble young man noticed me place the offering in the pulpit and during fellowship time he stole it and ran off. And this was a BIG Easter offering!

•     We ended up chasing him down and getting the money back… but then I had to own up to the elders…

•     How could this happen? Why was the money not secured?! One elder told me “This happened because of your lackadaisical leadership pastor Christian!”

•     And honestly he was kind of right, money has value, it ought to be protected. So that week I went out and bought a safe to put the offering in, and we still use that safe today… we protect what is valuable.

•     God is the same way, God protects His Gold.

•     But understand my meaning here. This is a little different than a few sermons ago when I talked about God being our keep.

•     Yes, of course God is our keep, He is our mighty fortress. he defends us from attacks physical, emotional and spiritual.

•     But He also protects us in a different way, and this is what I want to talk about this morning… God protects us in a way to make sure we are still VALUABLE to Him.

•     Jacob was a screw-up. He was a usurper, a back stabber, a liar, a cheat. He was faithless and he was fearful. But He is God’s gold… God chose Jacob, God called Jacob, God blessed Jacob, God made promises to Jacob… So even though Jacob is a screw up… even though he is filthy dirty gold… he is still gold, and he still belongs to God… and God wants to protect the value of His gold.

•     Notice what happens here in Scripture. Jacob is running for his life… he has nothing with him… he is just heading in the direction of his uncle Laban’s land… and he just happens to turn up at a well, at watering time, as the sheep were gathering…

•     And not only does he come across a well at watering time but the people gathering at the well just so happen to know Laban…

•     And not only do they just so happen to know Laban, but they say “LOOK! Here is Laban’s daughter, Rachel, coming to water the sheep right now.

•     Talk about being at the right place at the right time… Isaac was running for his life… and he just so happens to run into his future wife? I don’t think that was happenstance, I don’t think that was coincidence… I think that was God’s divine providence. It was God’s doing.

•     Matthew Henry has this to say about the providence of God bringing Jacob to the well at that very moment:

We should recognize God’s providence in all the small details that make a journey or any undertaking smooth and successful. When we’re unsure of what to do and suddenly meet someone who can guide us, or when trouble hits and help shows up right when we need it, we shouldn’t chalk it up to luck or coincidence. It’s God’s hand at work. Our path becomes far more pleasant when we continually acknowledge Him in everything.
-Matthew Henry’s commentary on Genesis 29:1-6 (Modernized).

•     I think God uses small nudges, little circumstances, to protect His gold… to make sure His gold is of the utmost value to His kingdom.

•     in other words, I think if you belong to God, and you desire to stay in His will… then God is going to bring you to places, and bring you into situations, that further His plan and His glory.

•     For Example, Deacon Dan and Heather on a Wednesday night some five years ago had a hankering for Mexican food… I think that was God’s doing… because as I left church (we meet next to a Mexican restaurant) I met Dan and his family heading into El pariso and invited him to church.  Now I didn’t know the circumstances of Dan’s life, that he was going to need a church to belong to and a family to love him… and he didn’t know about our church, nor was he looking for it, he was just trying to get some food… But God was working it out to protect Dan and his family and continue to use the Hazelwood’s for His glory. And praise God for that!

•     At that same church building God prompted Deacon Shana and Pastor Moses to greet visitors at the door one Sunday morning… they were just greeting people, they did not know that David Jaramillo had just prayed “God if this is the church for me give me the sign of Moses”. But when the first people who David met were Shana and Moses, David knew this was going to be his church. Shana and Moses had no idea the things we would go through with the Jaramillo’s, but God did… and praise God, he was protecting David, He was protecting His gold.

1 Samuel 2:9 NKJV

He will guard the feet of His saints…

2 Timothy 4:18 NKJV

And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!

•     And here is the real encouragement church… NEVER GIVE UP ON BEING A PART OF GOD’S PLAN.

•     Even when you screw-up… don’t give up. Even when the dirt and the muck and the shame of sin covers you… don’t give up. Because if you are determined to live a life glorifying God… then God is going to bring you to the well you need to be at…

•     There is a well for you, and God is going to bring you there.

•     You know your pastor used to be a screw-up… probably still am sometimes, everybody grows… but before I met Amanda I was into some deep sin. I was screwing up my life by chasing after sin left and right… I did just about everything wrong… but the one thing I did right, with God’s help and God’s grace… I never turned my back on God.

Luke 9:62 NKJV

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

•     I had put my hand to the plow, I had begun to work in God’s kingdom… but I was so close to looking back… I was so close to turning my back on God… but I never did… and even through all my sin, God protected me, and guided me… and brought me to my wife, and my calling, and ultimately here…

•     Now don’t get me wrong, I still had to repent, and I still had to reap what I sowed… we will talk more about reaping and sowing in the coming weeks… this is not an encouragement to sin… IT WILL SCREW YOUR LIFE UP… but it is an encouragement that no matter what, DON’T GIVE UP ON FOLLOWING JESUS.

•     Stay in your Word, stay in Prayer, stay in your church… continue walking with God… turn back to God if you need too… BUT DON’T GIVE Up.

•     I can tell you as a pastor I have seen people do some REALLY stupid stuff, really mess up their lives bad… but they stuck it out with God and God protected their value, even through the muck…

•     And I have seen others walk away from God over the stupidest things, and I have watched their lives completely implode.

•     God will not force you to stay a part of the kingdom, and if you turn away… man, I don’t want to be you… but if you stay, like Jacob stayed… even through the muck of his own poor decisions… God will continue to guide you, protect you, and make you useful and valuable to His kingdom. God protects His gold.

Conclusion

•     I want to end this sermon by reading you the words of Jesus when He shared the Parable, or the story of the lost silver coin…

Luke 15:8–10 NKJV

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Gospel Call