Consecrate Yourselves

Genesis 35:1-7
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, January 01, 2023
Copyright © 2023, Gregory Broderick

We wish you all a happy new year, and we have a word for you to begin the new year.  In fact, God has a word for you to begin the new year, and that word is consecrate yourselves.  Ask, what do you want from 2023?  It is a good question to ask on the first day of the year.  Do I want more money?  Do I want more pleasure of sin?  Do I want more “progress” in my life, or more stuff?  Or maybe I want more of the same.  My life is going pretty well, so let’s just continue that program for one more year.  Essentially, ask God to leave me alone because I have everything under control.  Or do I want more of God in 2023?  Do you want to experience Him in a more powerful and personal way in the next year?  If you want something different, if you want more God, then you must do something differently.  You must prepare to receive more of God, to make room for more of God in your heart.  You must get rid of all idols.  You must consecrate yourselves and be holy.

Now, way back in the ancient time of December 31, 1998, Pastor Mathew preached a sermon from our text this morning, Genesis 35, and it was called, “Preparing to Go to Bethel.”  The theme of that sermon was consecration, and I will borrow from that sermon heavily this morning.  In fact, this is largely a repackaging of that sermon.  We had planned to begin the year with Joseph, chapter 37 and continuing of Genesis.  But several weeks ago or a month ago, we happened to read this sermon in the office and it is the word for the beginning of the new year, just as it was the word for the beginning of the new year of 1999.

I. What Is Bethel?

Let’s look this morning first at what is Bethel.  Bethel literally means “house of God.”  In verse 1 of Genesis 35, God tells 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.”  Bethel stands for the kingdom of God, the presence of God, the center of God’s will, the place that God has for us.

In Bethel, you must live according to God’s will and God’s word.  In Bethel, you must live coram Deo, before the face of God.  In Bethel, you must live with and among the people of God.  In Bethel, you must build the altar and worship God exclusively and according to His way.  In this New Year’s Eve 1998 sermon, Pastor Mathew said that living in Bethel is a close encounter with the serious presence of God.

In our day, Bethel is not so much a physical place as a way of life, a holy and a serious life of progressive sanctification.  Not settling for “good enough,” not settling for a mediocre Christian life or even “better,” but rather striving to be conformed more and more to the likeness of Christ (Rom. 8:29).  That is God’s purpose for us, after all: to be conformed more and more to the likeness of Christ.  It is God’s purpose for all whom He has chosen.

Like Jacob, many people in our day decide that Bethel life is a little bit too much—too much light, too much heat, too much struggle.  What we really mean by that is too much God. Too much holiness—not a little bit of room for my sins.  So we do like Jacob does: we pitch the tent a little bit away from Bethel.  We go over in Shechem.  Oh, I am still in the Promised Land.  I am still in the kingdom.  But I don’t have to go all the way to Bethel, the place that God has.  I am still there.  I am only thirty miles away from Bethel; that is pretty close.  We are no longer living way over in Haran, like Jacob’s family did for so many years.  So I have made an improvement.  I have come a long way, if you think about it, getting all the way back to Shechem.  I am not living in Edom, like the ungodly Esau.  So, you see, I have made somewhat of a compromise.  There is nothing wrong with it per se.  God said to live in the land.  That is where He wants His people to live.  I am living in the land, so I am within God’s permissive will.  This is the approach that a lot of people take to Christian life today.  I don’t have to go all the way to where God wants me to go.  I don’t have to strive for the holiness that God calls me to.  As long as I am doing better, as long as I am doing “good enough,” then that will be good enough.

It didn’t work for Jacob and it won’t work for us.  The first thing wrong is that Jacob is supposed to be in Bethel.  When he fled from Esau way back in Genesis 28, Jacob slept in Bethel and God appeared to him there in a dream.  God made good promises to Jacob there.  He told Jacob, “Your offspring will be like the sand on the sea and the stars in the sky, and this land will be yours and all of that good stuff.”  He was brought directly into the covenant promise at that time.

Not only did God make good promises to Jacob at that time, but Jacob made good promises to God at that time.  Recall, he was desperate, he was alone, he was afraid.  So he said, “If I return, the Lord will be my God and this stone [the stone that he slept on] will be God’s house.”  All right.  Jacob returned from Haran where he went to visit, but he did not go back to Bethel, even though God more than kept up His end of the bargain.  Instead, Jacob went to Shechem and in fact he bought some land there (Gen. 33:18–19), indicating that he is not only in Shechem but also that he intends to settle there, to stick around.

We are not told expressly why Jacob went to Shechem, but the answer seems reasonably clear from our text.  Living in Bethel in the presence of God was simply too much.  There was sin in the camp.  There was sin in Jacob’s household, especially foreign gods, idols, and they did not want to deal with it.  To live in Bethel would take great effort and great struggle for Jacob.  He must order his household aright, get rid of those foreign gods, and stay on top of those wily wives and bickering children.  He must rule in holiness for God.  That is a difficult life.  So the life in Shechem seems a little bit easier, at least in the short term.

It all sounds reasonable enough.  The big problem with this approach is God.  God remembers the old vow that you made way back—ten, twenty, thirty years ago—maybe even longer—when you were desperate, when you were alone in Bethel, sleeping on the stone.  God remembers.  Oh, the years have come and the years have gone.  Everything in your life is different than what it was before.  Remember, he went as a single sort of a vagabond leaving the Promised Land and going to Haran.  But now he comes back with this huge household—all kinds of wives, all kinds of children, all kinds of droves of flocks and herds and wealth.  Everything is different in my life now.  It was a long time ago.  I was really a different person back then.  True enough.  But God remembers the old vow that you made.  You said, “You will worship me at Bethel, the house of God.”  You said, “I will be your God” and so on.

So God comes along in His good time and says, “Jacob, keep your vow.”  Genesis 35:1 says, “Go up to Bethel and settle there.  Build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”  Maybe you forgot your vows, but God did not.  Maybe you thought, “Everything has changed, so I don’t have to keep the old vow.”  God says, “No.”  Maybe you said, “All my circumstances are different now.”  God is not fooled by such things.  Maybe you said, “Shechem is close enough; it is only thirty miles.”  God is not satisfied with half measures.  God is not satisfied with “close enough.”  God does not negotiate on the terms of your vow.  You vowed and you must keep the vow.

God is very serious about vows.  I preached a whole sermon about it (see Num. 30:2, Eccl. 5:4; Matt. 5:33; James 5).  God is serious about vows.  In fact, we are told in our time, “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’” Now, foolish people take that and say therefore a vow doesn’t mean anything.  No, no, no.  What God is saying is that whenever you speak that you are going to do something or not do something, you are making a vow.  You have to do what you said you would do before the Lord.

Bethel, the house of God, means living for God.  It means holy life.  For us, it means the 1 Corinthians 10:31 life: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  Pick the person you marry for the glory of God; how many children you have for the glory of God; how you raise them for the glory of God; all the way down to what you eat for breakfast for the glory of God.

Bethel life means no compromise, no room in your heart for sin.  We are pursuing absolute holiness.  We are pursuing purity.  We are pursuing perfection.  We recognize that we are limited people.  We are not going to get all the way to perfection in our life.  God says, “Don’t worry about that.  You pursue perfection.  Don’t make room in your heart for sin.”

Bethel life means no giving up, no settling along the way, no relaxing and saying, “I have done enough for God.  This far and no farther.”  No, no, no.  God says, “Keep fighting.”  Fight and keep fighting daily, putting on the full armor of God daily, crucifying the old sin nature daily.  It is a lifelong commitment to live the Bethel life.

It is hard work to live that Bethel life.  It is tough work to live that Bethel life.  As I said, it is a lifelong battle to live the Bethel life.  And for sure, it is the best life that there is.  But I don’t want to defraud you; it is not the easiest life that there is, at least not at any given time.  I think on the whole it is the easier life.  The way of the sinner is hard.  But at any given moment, it always seems easier just to stay in Shechem for a little while.  So it is the best life, but it is not the easiest life.  And yet we are called to that life as God’s people, to live in Bethel.  So that is the Bethel life.

II. How to Go to Bethel

We are all called to go to Bethel as God’s people, to live in His house.  But we cannot go as we are, There are some things we must do before we show up in Bethel.  In Jacob’s case, he sets them out for his family in verse 2 of our text.

1. Get Rid of Foreign Gods

First, get rid of the foreign gods you have with you.  The number one thing in Bethel is that you cannot take your idols with you to the house of God.  God is the only true and living God (Isa. 45:5).  So by definition, all idols are false.  They are creations of our own minds, which are twisted by sin (Isa. 44:16–19).  These idols are a delusion and an insult to almighty God.  The idols by definition declare that God is not.  The idols declare that God is not sovereign, that He has competitors.  Sometimes they win and sometimes He wins.  The idols declare that God alone is not independent and self-existent as He claims.  The idols declare that God is not alone worthy to be praised, that there are others worthy to be praised, who are just as good.  The idols declare that God is, in fact, a liar and a fraud when He says about Himself that He is God Almighty.  The idols say God is not holy, not just, not good, not true, but actually a puffed-up fraud.  It is very insulting to God.  He is all the things that He says that He is.  And when we declare that He is not, by worshiping idols, by putting something before Him, it is very insulting to God.  Therefore, God rightly refuses to tolerate any idol.  Deuteronomy 7:26 says that you shall not bring detestable idols into your home.  In Exodus 20, the first and second commandments say, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “Do not make any idols.  I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”

We cannot seek to dwell in the house of God in Bethel and yet go with the attitude that God is not really who He says He is, that God is not really as He says He is.  So we must get rid of those idols.  Get rid of them.  Get rid of all of them.

In Jacob’s case, they have had them for a long time—probably all the way back to Haran and perhaps all throughout their time in Haran.  In Genesis 31, you will recall when they were fleeing from Haran back to the Promised Land, Rachel hid the household gods, the idols, in the camel’s saddlebag, and Jacob knew all about these household idols.  It is probably one of the main reasons he did not go back to Bethel.  He knew they had idols in the household.  Now, it doesn’t say Jacob worshiped those idols, but he knew that that they had those idols in the household.  He didn’t want to deal with it, and he didn’t want to go back to Bethel, so he stopped at Shechem on the way.  An argument that Jacob knew all about it is that we are not told that God revealed to Jacob the presence of these idols.  If you read it, God does not say, “Come to Bethel but first get rid of those idols.”  God just gives him the command, “Come to Bethel.”  Jacob goes to his family and says, “Get rid of the foreign gods that you have among you.”  So the indication is that he knew all about it.

When God says, “Go,” the idols have to go.  So Jacob gets up and gets rid of them, and he gets rid of them permanently.  It is a clear departure.  Verse 4: “They took all the idols and the rings out of their ears and buried them.”  Burying means a permanent parting with those idols.  Get rid of them and stay rid of them.  A once for all ridding.  This is true of repentance.  Proverbs 28:13 tells us to confess and renounce our sins.  “He who conceals his sins will never prosper, but he who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”  We could translate, “He who buries his sins finds mercy.”  It is a clear break and a clear moving on.  There is no compromise with the idols.  Well, we will put them in the luggage but we won’t get them out.  Or we will put them in whatever their version of the attic is, maybe bury them in the tent, so they are kind of around.  No!  Bury them in Shechem and leave them behind in Shechem forever.  Get rid of all of them, not just some of them.  Collect all the household gods.  Collect all the rings from the ears.  There is some indication that those are related.  Bury them and leave them behind and never go back that way again.  The idea is, over and done with those things, and going forward to the place that God has for us to go, going forward in the way God has for us to go, in the way of holiness, in the way of wholehearted and exclusive obedience to God.  So that is the first thing we must do: get rid of all idols.

2. Purify Yourselves and Wash

Genesis 35:2 says, “Purify yourselves and wash your clothes.”  The idea here is to be washed clean of your sin so that you are in a fit state to dwell with God.  In Jacob’s time, under the Old Testament system, this involved ceremonial washing and changing of clothes.  Later they would add specific animal sacrifices and so on.  These were the outward actions showing the inward reality: I have repented of my sin, I have renounced my sin, and I am going to leave it behind.  I am going to be washed clean so that I can go and dwell with God.

We are not under that system anymore, but the same principles apply.  We are to be purified by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.  That Old Testament system, in fact, just pointed forward to Christ.  But He came and He fulfilled it.  So we don’t need those kinds of symbols anymore.  No, our sin is atoned for in Jesus Christ.  He took all our sin on Himself on the cross, suffering God’s full wrath in our place so that God could justly forgive us, so that we would be qualified to go and dwell in the presence of God, so that we would be washed clean, so that we would have new garments—white, shining, clean garments—to wear in the presence of God.  He took all our sin on Himself, and He put all His righteousness onto us (2 Cor. 5:21).  This is the blessed double transaction.

The reality which was symbolized by these people in Jacob’s household by washing and changing their clothes and putting away sin, we now wash in the blood of Jesus, putting on the righteousness of Jesus as our new clothes, our new garments.  We are fit now to dwell in the house of the Lord, fit now, in fact, to dwell with God.

This entire process here is speaking of consecration.  Purify yourselves and get rid of idols.  As God’s people, we are to be set apart, consecrated to Him, different from the world around us.  That is what they were really doing here in Genesis 35.  God had called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob out of the world to be different, to be His special people, to dwell with Him.  But somewhere along the way, somewhere back in Haran, Jacob’s family lost its way.  Instead of being like God, they became like Haran around them, with the foreign gods and so on.  They became backslidden.  They became corrupt.  And the same thing has happened to the church world in our age; and let’s be real, in almost every age before.  Even when there is a great revival, even when God greatly moves, the vast majority of the church world backslides over time.  They had been backslidden and corrupted by idols, by sin, by disorder, by lack of true worship of God.

Here in Genesis 35, God graciously calls them home.  God graciously intervenes and says, “Don’t stay in Shechem.  Don’t stay in your backslidden condition.  Don’t stay in your corrupted condition.  Leave your worldly ways behind and come and dwell with me in Bethel.”

To experience life with God we must be consecrated to Him.  It is the vow that we have all made.  All of us who have confessed Christ have made a vow of consecration to Him.  When we say, “Jesus Lord,” we are saying, “He is my Lord, and I am His obedient subject.”  We are not saying anything different than what Jacob said: “You will be my God, and I will build an altar and worship you.”  The form has changed somewhat, but the basic principle is the same: You are my God, and I will worship you.  I will be your joyful bondslave.  I will live my whole life for Him who died for me.  I am consecrated to God in all that I am and all that I do, and He directs my steps.  That is the vow we make when we confess, “Jesus Lord,” and when we are baptized.

Consecration is not merely for pastors or elders or “super-Christians,” whatever that is.  It is for all of us who are in Christ.  In Leviticus 20:7, speaking to the people, the Lord says, “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God.”  In other words, you are set apart for the Lord.  It is the precondition for real fellowship with God.  You see, God only dwells with those who have consecrated themselves to Him.

God has long operated this way and He still does.  Remember Exodus 19.  There is Moses at Mount Sinai with all the people.  God has been with them, leading them along the way.  They had been out of Egypt for about three months by that time.  They are in the desert.  They are about to embark on the next big step of their journey.  God is about to come and to give them the Ten Commandments and to lead them into the Promised Land.  And before He does it, God says to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow” (Exod. 19:10).  Not consecrate Moses, not consecrate Aaron, not consecrate the leaders.  No, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow.  Have them wash their clothes and be ready [clean], because on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all [His] people.”  The idea is, get ready.  Clean up.  God is coming in a way that is more personal and more powerful.  Holiness.  Consecration.  These are the conditions to meet with God in a more personal and more powerful way.

Look at Joshua 3.  This is the end of that long journey, the wilderness years.  They are about to enter the Promised Land.  They are waiting just on the other side of the Jordan to cross over.  They are waiting to go to their Promised Land, their Bethel.  And what happens?  General Joshua, the night before, addresses the people: “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you” (Josh. 3:5).  God is about to come down and part the Jordan River at flood stage.  You are going to see miraculous things.  But first, get ready.  Consecrate yourselves.  Clean up yourselves.  Clean up the camp.  Get ready.  God is coming in a new and more powerful way.  You are about to experience God in a different and personal way, so get ready and consecrate yourselves.

What else did they do there?  In Joshua 5 they were told, “Circumcise yourselves.”  We are about to go on God’s special mission to conquer the Promised Land.  Make sure that we have obeyed God in doing all that He told us to do.  For them, it was the sign of circumcision.  Set yourselves apart.  Put God’s special sign upon you—for that time, it was circumcision of the flesh—to show that you are consecrated to the Lord.  Consecrate yourselves to God, and you will see amazing things, He tells them.  Waters will part.  Walls will fall.  You will see the Lord leading you to victory.  The Lord Himself will come and fight for you.  But first, consecrate yourselves to God.  Recommit to God and show it by your obedience.

Look at Exodus 4.  God sent Moses to Egypt to lead the people out.  Moses was to be the mouthpiece of God.  He was going to perform great miracles for God.  But first, consecrate yourself, Moses.  There was no circumcision in Moses’ house.  Something happened.  God comes to him and says, “You cannot do my work.  You cannot lead my people if you are living in disobedience to me, in rebellion against my commands.  So, Moses, consecrate yourself.”

Or look at the end of the book of Joshua, chapter 24.  The new era is coming.  They have come out of Egypt.  They have wandered through the desert years.  They have gone into the Promised Land.  They have fought the whole campaign and defeated almost all enemies in that Promised Land.  At the end of Joshua 24, Joshua is an old man.  The new era is coming.  Moses is not there anymore to lead them.  Joshua is going soon.  He won’t be there anymore to lead them.  They won’t have Moses and Joshua to keep them in line.  And what does Joshua say to them?  “Throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel” (Josh. 24:23).  In other words, re-consecrate yourselves.  Rededicate yourselves to God.  A new time is coming, a different era, a different mission that God has for us.  Before, we were coming out of Egypt.  Before, we were going into the Promised Land.  We were going to take it over.  Now, we have gotten there.  Now we are going to settle there.  Now we are going to live in this Bethel. Let us consecrate ourselves to God as we do it.

It is the same in our time.  Nothing has changed.  We too are to be totally dedicated to God.  We too are to live for God and by God in all that we do.  It is that 1 Corinthians 10:31 life I spoke of earlier.  Romans 12:1 puts it this way: “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.”  Consecrate yourselves.  And verse 2: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  See the connection.  Consecrate yourselves and experience God in a more personal and powerful way.  Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, and then be transformed by the renewing of your minds—a new and powerful experience of life with God.

Romans 6:19 says, “Offer yourself as a slave to righteousness, which leads to holiness.”  Consecration.  Second Timothy 2:21 says, “If a man cleanses himself .  .  .  he will be an instrument for noble purposes, [set apart as] holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”  Translated: Consecrate yourselves and be useful to God.  Consecrate yourselves and be used by God in a new and powerful way.  That letter of 2 Timothy is not written to a bunch of unbelievers.  That letter is written to Timothy, a believer.  That letter is written to the people in that place, Christian people.  And he is saying, consecrate yourselves, cleanse yourselves, and God will use you in a new and powerful way.  You can experience more of God.  But first, consecrate yourselves.

III.  The Consecrated Life

Let us look at the consecrated life.  We are to live a consecrated life.  Do you want to experience God in a new and powerful way?  Do you want to dwell in the house of the Lord?  Do you want to see those rivers part, those walls come down, the eternally dead made eternally alive?  Then I say with Jacob, with Moses, with Joshua, with Paul, and with Pastor Mathew, consecrate yourselves to God in 2023.

First, make sure you have confessed Jesus as Lord, that you have trusted in Him alone for salvation.  Confess, believe, be baptized, and walk according to His word.  Make your calling and election sure.  Repent of your sin.  Confess it and renounce it.  Without that, you cannot be consecrated to God.  In fact, you can never experience anything of God but His just judgment.  But if you trust in Him, you can have that new life, that life with God, the life of God in the soul of man.

That is first.  But assuming you have done so—as I am preaching mostly to people sitting here and listening at home who have done that already—if you have done so, then the second thing is to get rid of the foreign gods that are among you.  Oh, we don’t have little statues anymore, at least not most of us.  I hope you don’t have any little statues in your home that you worship.  So we think we don’t have idols.  We are very sophisticated Americans, Western people.

We don’t have statues.  But we have just as many or more idols than these people ever had.  “Get rid of the foreign gods among you” speaks of getting rid of the idols of your heart.  An idol can be anyone or anything.  An idol is anything that we put before or beside God.  Calvin is reported to have said that the heart of man is an idol factory.  Money can be an idol.  That is the usual American thing.  Lust can be an idol.  Sexual immorality, position, reputation, family, home—anything can become an idol.  You must examine yourself.  Don’t just look around your house for little statues.  Examine your heart.  Look around your heart.  What is my idol of my heart?  What foreign god am I carrying around in my heart, and get rid of it.  Whatever it is, get rid of it.  Bury it, cast it out, and leave it behind in Shechem.

In some cases, it may involve physical objects that you literally throw out.  “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Matt. 5:30).  These speak to obvious things: pornography, video games that waste our time and become an idol, love of money.  Even your hobby, which in and of itself may not be sinful, can become an idol.  If you find that that is the case, throw it out, bury it, and get rid of it.

In other cases, we must put those things after God.  So if you are worried that your children are an idol, do not throw them out or bury them.  But throw out your improper love and idolatry for them and put it in the right place.  Put it after God.  “Seek first the kingdom of God.”  Put after God your children, your job, your 401(k), and even your spouse.  Yes, you are to love your wife as Christ loved the church, but you are not to love your wife above Christ.  Put those things after God, and don’t let those otherwise good things get out of hand.  Whatever that idol of your heart is, put it out and put it out permanently as they did.

Bury it in Shechem and leave it there, six feet under.  Don’t leave your options open.  Don’t carry it along with Shechem, thinking, “But I’ll put it away in a bag or in a locked case.”  No, bury it and leave it there.  Renounce it and put it beyond use and beyond recovery.  Idols are like weeds which must be pulled out by the root or soon they will return and will dominate the area.  So put out, get rid of, the foreign gods that are among you.

The third way to live the Bethel life is to purify yourself, not with ceremonial washing or with changing your clothes.  No, but by confessing your sins and remaining accountable under God.  Proverbs 28:13 says, “Confess and renounce and find mercy.”  The devil will say, “Don’t do it.  You don’t have to confess and you don’t have to renounce.”  Or if you are very spiritual and perhaps you have resisted him, he will say, “Well, you can renounce it, but you don’t have to confess it.  You can handle it on your own.”  Or he may say, “You can confess it, but you don’t have to renounce it.  You don’t have to get rid of all your sin.  After all, nobody is perfect.  There is room for a little bit of sin.  Just try to improve a little bit.  Just try to ‘do better.’”  These are lies of the devil to keep you entangled in your sin.  Cut off the sin completely.  Bury it completely.  Put it out completely.  Confess and renounce and be transparent and remain transparent and remain accountable to God.  First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  You may say, “I am not perfect and I cannot be perfect.”  You may say, “I can’t purify myself.”  What did we just read?  God says that if you confess your sins, He will purify us from all unrighteousness.  We can be purified by God.

The fourth way to live the Bethel life is to go to Bethel.  So consecrate yourself is good, but consecrate yourself is only the preparation.  Imagine that they had gotten rid of the foreign gods, they had consecrated themselves, and then they had sat there in Shechem.  Is that what God said to do?  No!  What was the whole point of the consecration?  It was to go to Bethel to live with God.  So consecration is preparation, but then you have to take the next step.  Having prepared, go.  Get up!  Move out of Shechem and go back to Bethel, and go all the way into Bethel.  If they have a town square, go all the way into the town square.  Don’t just go out on the edge or in sight of Bethel or in the suburb of Bethel.  Go all the way into Bethel, into the center of things, out of the shadows.  Leave all that sin behind you.  Bury it back there in Shechem, but then get up and go and go all the way, not at a safe distance.  Why do you want to be at a “safe distance” from God?  We should go all the way into the center and that light, that heat, will burn away all the sin, all the dross, all the impurities.  But you have to go all the way, right into the bright light of the kingdom of God.

In that New Year’s Eve 1998–1999 sermon, Pastor Mathew recounted a story.  He said, “How many of you have been indulging in a little sin, a little stubbornness, a little rebellion?”  Pastor said, “I was speaking to someone today and asked, ‘How are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I am seeking the will of God.’” This was a very spiritual answer.  And Pastor said, “I told that person, ‘Don’t seek the will of God, please.  You have been told the will of God a hundred times.  Please stop seeking the will of God and start doing the will of God.’ It is not that we don’t know the will of God.  Jacob knew the will of God.  He was told to go to Bethel.  He knew the will of God.  But he said, ‘I want to be pitching my tent at a safe distance away from that bright light to conceal my sin.”  That was spoken twenty-four years ago.  That could have been spoken today.

We all have here, especially in this church, the teaching, training, and counsel available to us.  And even if you are from somewhere else, some other church, some other place, you have the Bible, the full revelation of the word of God, available to you.  Let’s stop pretending that we are confused about what God wants us to do.  Let’s stop pretending that we don’t know, and let’s start doing it.  We usually know the will of God for us, just as Jacob did.  There was no confusion for him: “Go to Bethel.”  He knew.  But as Pastor said in that sermon, the reason we don’t experience that powerful and more personal encounter with God is because we want to carry on in our sins, our stubbornness, and our rebellion, and I could add, our pride.

It is our refusal to do the will of God that has been revealed to us, he says.  What is this will of God that has been revealed to us?  It is what you have heard us preach a thousand times.  You have read it in the Bible for yourself a thousand times.  “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church.”  “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord in everything.”  “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”  “Slaves, obey your earthly masters and work for them as to the Lord, even when their eye is not upon you.”  “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority, for they watch over you as men who must give an account.”  “Manage your own household well.”  We know the will of God.  Oh, there may be some circumstance here or there where we don’t know it.  But we have enough other things on our to-do list where we know what the will of God is but we are reticent to do it.  We fear because it is hard.  We fear because there may be persecution.  We fear because it may cause unrest in our household, and we are too lazy to do it.

Let us rise up and do the will of God that we know that He wants us to do.  And let’s stop using euphemisms to cover our sin.  How many times, just as Pastor said, “I am seeking the will of God” is often a euphemism to say, “I am delaying doing the will of God”?  Or my personal favorite: “I am struggling with a certain sin.”  I have heard that so many times, and I think in almost every case it just means, “I have been sinning.”  But it sounds a little bit nicer to say, “I am struggling with a certain sin.”  Why don’t you stop ‘struggling’ and just stop sinning, by the power of God?  Or, “I am seeking,” or, “I am praying about.”  It is good to pray about it, it is good to seek, and it is good to struggle.  But most of the time that is not what we are really doing.  We know the will of God and we are dragging our feet in refusing to do it.  When we know what God wants us to do, let us get up and go, and go all the way into Bethel, not stopping at Shechem.  Go all the way to Bethel.  Remain in Bethel.  Remember what God told Jacob: “Settle there.  Build an altar in Bethel, and worship me there.”

So God is telling us too.  “Build an altar to me” means “Worship me in spirit and in truth.”  “Worship me exclusively,” God is saying, “not these other gods.”  Go all the way to Bethel, settle in Bethel, build an altar to God in Bethel, worship God in Bethel, and experience God powerfully and personally in Bethel.

Fifth, lead others into Bethel.  Fathers, especially heads of households, rise up and lead your family into Bethel.  Say to those that God has put under you, “Get rid of the foreign gods among you, the idols of your heart.  Purify yourselves.  Consecrate yourselves.  Wash yourselves in the blood of Christ.  We are going as a family to Bethel.”

It is hard to rise up and to say, “Get rid of those foreign gods and purify yourselves.”  It doesn’t record what their response was, but I am betting that there was some pushback.  But Jacob rose up and said, “Let’s go.”  It’s hard to do it.  It’s hard to do it men, but I promise you, God will help you to do it.  Jacob was probably afraid too.  Remember, his household was out of control: idols, bickering wives, unruly sons going around murdering people and causing all kinds of problems.  Rise up and say, “Get rid of the foreign gods.  We are going to Bethel.”  Don’t compromise.  Don’t settle in Shechem.  Don’t find that comfortable middle ground and say, “This is good enough,” or, “This is better and therefore I can rest here.”  I am glad you got to “better.”  Keep going on until you get to “best,” until you get to the place God has for you.  Don’t find that comfortable middle ground and give up.  Purify yourselves, consecrate yourselves, put your house in order, call your family up, as God has told you to do, and make them do it.  This is your God-given duty as a father, as the head of a household.  Get everyone into shape, into proper condition, and then go up to Bethel.

That is a word especially for fathers and heads of households.  But, really, all believers are called to live this way; not just personally, but to call others to get rid of their foreign gods and to go up to Bethel, to go up to life with God.  I am speaking about evangelism, calling sinners to Bethel life, to put their trust in Jesus Christ, to repent of their sins and to live for God—to live for God but also to live with God, to leave their sin behind and to go to Bethel, to call sinners to Jesus Christ, to life with God.  That is hard also, but it is well worth it.  Oh, it is hard.  Your friends may reject you.  Your own children may reject you.  Your wife or even your husband may reject you.  But you say, “I am going to Bethel, the house of God.  Come with me.”  But if none go with me, still I will follow God all the way to Bethel.

Next, live the Bethel life.  We want all this focus on going to Bethel.  But all that focus has a purpose: it is to live the Bethel life, to experience God—infinite God, eternal God, almighty God, holy God, perfect God, awesome God—to experience God in a more personal and powerful way.  It is available to us.  We don’t have to wait until we go to heaven.  Oh, that experience will be fuller.  That experience will be without sin.  But we don’t have to wait until then to experience more of God.  We can experience more of God now, today, in this life.  Experience God in a more personal and powerful way.  We can be full of the Holy Spirit.  What is the Holy Spirit?  Infinite God.  We can walk according to the Spirit’s direction.  Pastor Mathew was saying this morning that the Holy Spirit is the resident Boss of our lives.  We can live with the resident Boss, listening to His direction and going, “This is the way; walk in it.”  We can do that now.  We can do amazing things for God now.  We can see amazing things that He will do in us now.  We can see amazing things that He will do through us now.  We can see amazing things that He will do for us now.

Those people saw amazing things.  We read it: The fear of them fell upon the other nations and they went to Bethel.  Remember, they were in big trouble.  They had killed a bunch of guys, so they were worried that they were going to get wiped out.  The fear of the Lord came upon them.  In the Book of Joshua, when they consecrated the people on the other side of the Jordan, they saw amazing things.  Moses—when they consecrated the people at Sinai—saw God come down in some form and gave them His written commands.  When He led them through the desert, they saw God as the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud among them.  These are real things that happened in real life.

We have seen it in our history in this church, real things God has done, moving in an amazing revival way, moving in amazing ways in early days.  It is not unattainable.  It is attainable.  We can have a more personal and powerful experience with God.

What does that Bethel life look like today?  Well, it is not some place, although surely the place where you are matters.  You have to be in the place where God wants you to be.  But mostly Bethel life is this: John 14:23: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.”  He will consecrate himself.  He will walk in holiness.  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”  Bethel life—God with you, God in you, God moving in you all the time.  Oh, that is Bethel life, and that is some life to live.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—triune God—dwelling within you.  Not just around you; that would be amazing enough.  But in you to move you.  Life in maximum communion with God that we can have in this life.  That is Bethel life.  It is the closest to heaven that we can get on this earth.  What is heaven?  It is life with God minus the presence and power of sin.  We can’t get all the way there, but we can get part of the way there.  Life with God.  We can have it in this life.

It is not a misery or drudgery life.  It is not a less-than Shechem life.  You are not missing out on the great things.  What does Shechem have to offer anyway?  Rape and murder.  No, Bethel life is the great life, the best life.  Pastor Mathew said in the December 31, 1998, sermon, it is infinite God coming to me.  It should satisfy me.  It should fill me with overflowing.  Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.”  It is the most satisfying life when God in His power, His mercy, His love, and His holiness comes to be with us.  That is Bethel life.  That is the life that is available to us.  Consecrate yourselves and live that life with God.  That is the life that is joy unspeakable and full of glory.  It is the exciting life.  It is the miraculous life.  It is the fulfilling life.  Remember what Augustine said: “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in God.”  You don’t have to live the life of anxiety, the life of restlessness.  You can have rest with God in this life.

You have ask yourself: If Bethel is not good enough for me, what am I looking for outside of Bethel?  You will not find happiness there.  Life outside of Bethel, life in Shechem, is frustration and misery.  Life in Haran is frustration and misery.  It is a life of fraud.  It is a life on the run from your brother who you ripped off and from your father-in-law who you ripped off all the way living in your own understanding, all the way saying, “I know a better way than God.”  Frustration, frustration, frustration; misery, misery, misery.  Bickering wives, fighting kids, murder, rape, loss.  Everything is difficult.  Idolatry.  What does Shechem have to offer you but that?  What does Haran have to offer you but that?  Why do you want to live in those places?  It is no good.

Look at what happened to them in Shechem: Daughter Dinah was raped.  The sons murder in vengeance.  They are living under a cloud, under threat that they are going to be wiped out by the surrounding nations.  They are living by sight and not by faith.  They are leaning on their own understanding, and they made a mess.  It didn’t work for them.  It never worked for anybody, and it won’t work for us.  We don’t have to live that way.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I say, consecrate yourselves.  Put off the idols.  Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you.  Bury them and leave them behind.  Purify yourselves, repenting of sin, confessing and renouncing, washed clean in the blood of Jesus, putting on new garments of righteousness, putting on the righteousness of Christ.

And having consecrated yourselves, then get up and go do what God would have you to do.  Mostly, you know what He wants you to do.  Go to your Bethel, whatever that is.  Love God and keep His commands.  Then live that John 14:23 life: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and with you.  Experience God in a personal and powerful way in 2023 and rejoice.  Amen.