PARADIGM SHIFT (JACOB TO ISRAEL)

We see God’s interventions into Jacob’s journey providing us with a dramatic biblical paradigm of transformation at THREE LEVELS, as he transitted from Jacob to Israel. They were:

Personal transformation: Jacob becomes Israel.  

Community transformation: pagan Luz becomes Bethel (God’s house). 

National transformation: Israel becomes a great nation.  

And world transformation: all people will be blessed through God’s transformed people.

At Bethel – Community Transformation

Jacob came to a certain place (Gen 28:11).  Not a five star hotel,  No internet café,  No mobile phone.  Just one lousy stone for a pillow.

Jacob barely escaped with his life.  Now he’s between a rock and a hard place.  When you come to your certain place, your old bag of tricks is useless.  It’s just you and the rock. Before daylight Jacob was wide awake declaring, this is an "awesome place", the house of God, and the gate of heaven (v. 17). 

What happened?

How did the "certain place" (v. 11) become the "awesome place" (v. 17)?

How did Luz become Bethel (=God’s house, v.19)?

How does a pagan town transform into a gateway to God? In one night! The question is important for us all.  The world is full of certain places that need to become awesome places.  What will it take to birth this kind of transformation?

Presence

First, there is a revelation of God’s presence. (Gen.28:12-17). God’s omnipresence was always at Luz.  But nothing ever changed.  Timeworn traditions and programmed piety will never transform our communities, cities, and nations into gateways to heaven.  We need the manifest presence of God, and nothing less. 

The omnipresence of God may leave us alone in our certain place with our stone pillow, broken relationships, compromised values, and secret vices.  The pagan town remains pagan.  The unreached peoples remain unreached.  Darkness still "seem" to prevail over the land.

But the MANIFEST presence of God changes everything.
This is the undeniable presence of God.
Imagine your community is a gateway to God, where every person gets a clear opportunity to hear and obey the Gospel of Jesus.
Our well-tuned strategies, plans, and programs have their place. But above all these, we need a manifestation of God’s powerful presence, an outpouring of his Holy Spirit upon all flesh. 
We are hungry, thirsty, and longing for just this. 
Why don’t you join?

  

Purpose

Second, a revelation of God’s purpose turns the certain place into the awesome place. (Gen. 28:13-15).  God’s kingdom purpose is bigger than Jacob, bigger than Bethel, larger than Israel, and larger than your church or ministry organization.  It includes the blessing and transformation of “all the peoples of the earth” through Jacob and his offspring. (v.14).  We are included in that offspring through Christ (Gal. 3:29). We don’t replace Israel, but we are grafted into Israel (Rom. 11:17).  As such, we inherit Israel’s covenant promise and responsibility to be a blessing to all peoples.

But are we equally interested in God’s purpose?

When God reveals His presence He also reveals His purpose.  He doesn’t drop in to gossip over tea and cake – fellowship for fellowship’s sake.  When He shows up, He brings a kingdom-wide agenda that will cost us everything.  There’s little point seeking God’s presence if we are not prepared to embrace His kingdom purpose.

  

Others have so reduced ministry to a focus on personal needs that people fail to grasp God’s bigger plan for the world and their part in it.  But look at Jacob.  A fugitive, ravaged by relational conflict, stripped of all comforts and securities of home and family.  A sensitive ear and a shoulder to cry on wouldn’t be asking too much, would it? But all he gets is one hard rock.  Not a word about his personal crisis.  Instead God gives him a dream.  A dream that‘s bigger than life.  That’s it, of course.  That’s how God ministers to Jacob in his hour of need.  The dark night of the soul lights up with hope.  The pain of the past is overcome.  And Jacob says, I’ll take that dream.

A revelation of purpose is what we need, personally, corporately, nationally and globally.  If we can’t see the big picture of what God is doing in our world, we are clueless about our part in his work.  We are lost without a purpose to live and die for.

Purpose is not up for grabs.  Of course, we all have different gifts and unique callings. But everything must serve that one overriding, unchangeable covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to bless all the peoples of the earth with the life-giving, world-changing Gospel (Gen. 28:14; Gal. 3:8; Heb. 6:13-18). A revelation of God’s purpose turns our certain place into awesome place.

  

Passion

A third factor helps turn Luz into Bethel.  There is passionate response for the presence and purpose of God (Gen. 28:18-22). Luz was Luz and it always was until Jacob arrived.  But when this son of the covenant arrived, God arrived and changed everything.  God takes the initiative by revealing His presence and purpose.  Then it’s our move.  We must respond.  Without human partnership the transformation will not occur (1 Cor. 1:21).  Consider Jacob’s proactive response: awakening, announcingand anointing. (Gen.28:16-19).

First, he awakes. Today some are fast asleep in their certain place with no sense of God’s presence or purpose.  No wonder people sleep in church!  Pleasant dreams. But when God arrives and speaks it’s time to wake up and respond.

  

Second, Jacob announces the transformation with a prophetic declaration: This is God’s house! This is the gate of heaven!(v.17).  He’s not a passive spectator, but a proactive participant in the transformation process.

  

And third, he takes that cold stone pillow and anoints it as a pillar in God’s house.  His faith-filled response turned a stumbling stone into a building block.  What will you do with the stone God gives you in your certain place?  You can kick it, curse it, can it, or transform it!

  

Remember our question.  What will it take to turn our Luz into Bethel, a gateway to God for so many persons and peoples?  Do you feel passionately, like Jacob, about your mission and destiny in God’s great purpose to transform our world?  Or can you just take it or leave it?  Scripture makes a frightful contrast between Jacob and Esau.  Esau despised his inheritance (Gen. 25:34; Heb. 12:16).  But from the womb to the tomb, Jacob was always passionate for the covenant blessing (Gen. 25:22).  He was never a nominal patriarch.  Look at his response here in Gen. 28:18-22.  He is not neutral or mediocre about what God promised.  He spends the rest of his life in pursuit of God’s dream.

God is ready to manifest His presence glory among the broken peoples of this world.  But He’s waiting for men and women, sons and daughters of the covenant, to arise with a passion that would make Jacob jealous.  Popular language has compromised the word “passion.”  Mel Gibson has helped redeem it with the movie, The Passion of the Christ.  Jesus gave His all, suffered and died passionately, for the joy that was awaiting Him – thy kingdom come, thy world transformed. (2 Cor. 5:19).

  

An aspiring preacher once asked the riveting speaker, D.L. Moody, what was the secret of his success.  Moody said, “Young man I suggest you go out and set yourself on fire, and people will come just to watch you burn.”  Until we awaken with renewed zeal and fire and lay claim to the promise of God concerning lost, the certain place remains the certain place.  The unreached peoples remain unreached.  The poor and needy remain poor and needy.  Pray that, like Jacob, we will be responsible and obedient to God’s call upon our lives and our churches.  Ask God to make us people of passion for His presence, purpose, and promise of personal, community, national, and global transformation.

-Adapted from 

the book of Transformation: A Unifying Vision of the Church’s Mission