Genesis 35:1-29: The Dynamics of True Worship

Genesis 35:1-29: The Dynamics of True Worship

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Genesis, and today the next passage we come to is Genesis 35:1-29, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. It says,

1 God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. 3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. 5 And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. 6 And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, 7 and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother…. 9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. 11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” 13 Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. 14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15 So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel. 16 Then they journeyed from Bethel. When they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel went into labor, and she had hard labor. 17 And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for you have another son.” 18 And as her soul was departing (for she was dying), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. 19 So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), 20 and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day. 21 Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder…. 27 And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. 28 Now the days of Isaac were 180 years. 29 And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. 

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, what a privilege it is to open and study your word. We understand that these words come from your very mouth. They’re God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. So help us, by your Holy Spirit, to be thoroughly equipped for each of those things and ultimately to come to a deeper knowledge, a deeper love, and a deeper relationship with you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

One of the most basic desires people have is for their lives to be significant. People want their lives to count for something and to have some sort of transcendent meaning. And they often try to find that meaning in all sorts of different ways. Just to give one example, I’ve noticed that many of those who are more secularly minded in our country tend to be extremely passionate about certain political and social causes—to the point that, in some cases, it would seem those causes are the central focus of their lives and the central way in which these secularly minded individuals seek to infuse meaning into an otherwise meaningless existence. Of course, as secularists, they don’t believe in God. So, they have to figure out a way for their lives to be meaningful. And very often, the best they can do when it comes to having a transcendent meaning or purpose for their lives is to devote themselves to various political and social causes. Political and social causes are, in a sense, their religion. 

So, when it comes to something like Pride Month, let’s say, their zeal for everything that month stands for really can be described quite accurately as a religious zeal. Pride Month is every bit as much of a holy month for many secularists as Ramadan is for Muslims. And that’s because, again, they need something to live for. They long for their lives to count for something. And that’s a desire all of us have. It’s universal. People crave purpose. And I mentioned the LGBT movement as one example, but there are plenty of other examples as well. All around us, in our increasingly secular society, people are desperately searching for a way for their lives to be meaningful and significant. 

Yet the Bible teaches us that people—whether they realize it or not—have been created in the image of God. That’s what it says in Genesis 1:26. And part of what that means is that we were created to know God and to enjoy God and ultimately to worship God. Just as a bird was created to fly, we were created to worship God. And since that’s what we were created for, it makes sense for that to be the only thing that can truly satisfy us. Going back to the bird again, if a bird was created to fly but can’t fly for whatever reason—maybe it has an injured wing or something like that—I can’t imagine that bird being very happy. I think it’s reasonable to assume that since birds were created to fly, they won’t be happy unless they’re able to do that. Similarly, you and I were created to worship God and therefore won’t be satisfied unless we’re doing that. It’s ultimately the worship of God that gives sufficient meaning and purpose to our lives. 

Now, as you can see, I’ve entitled the sermon “The Dynamics of True Worship.” That’s what we see in Genesis 35 and therefore what we’ll spend our time today exploring. The main idea of this chapter is very simple: Jacob worships God at Bethel. Jacob worships God at Bethel. 

By the way, it might be helpful to define worship right here at the outset. When I speak of worship, I’m simply talking about giving God glory for who he is and what he’s done. That’s the simplest definition I could come up with. Giving God glory for who he is and what he’s done. And as we go through this chapter, we’ll see four principles related to worship. I’ll identify those as we get to them. 

We first read this in verse 1: God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So, the reason God tells Jacob to go to Bethel is because that’s where God had first appeared to Jacob way back in Genesis 28. God had come to Jacob in a dream and made the same promises to him that he had originally made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham—extravagant promises about inheriting the land of Canaan, having offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth, and being an instrument of blessing to the entire world. 

We then read about Jacob’s response to that initial encounter with God in Genesis 28:18-22: 18 So early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.” So, Jacob had committed to one day return to Bethel and build some type of structure to be used for the worship of God. 

And going back to our main passage, that’s why God tells Jacob to go to Bethel and build an altar. We then read in verses 2-4, 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. 3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. 

So, in preparation for worshiping God at Bethel, Jacob tells his entire household—which included not only his very large family but also his numerous servants—that they needed to do several things. The first was to “put away the foreign gods that [were] among [them].” Some of these idols had probably come from the 20 years Jacob had spent serving Laban, and others had probably come from the loot Jacob’s household had taken from Shechem. And I have to admit that I find it a bit disappointing that these idols were present in Jacob’s household. We might have hoped that Jacob had been leading his household to be more devoted to the one true God. But it seems as though at least some of them were still holding on to these idols. In addition, Jacob also tells them to “purify” themselves, which would have involved a ritualistic washing of their bodies with water. Then, lastly, he tells them to “change [their] garments,” which is somewhat unique in the Old Testament and appears to be symbolic of a commitment to live as new people. 

And as we consider these instructions Jacob gives to his household in preparation for worshiping God, we discover the first principle for worship, which is that holiness is the great prerequisite for worship. Holiness is the great prerequisite for worship. You can’t be close to God or worship God if you’re knowingly tolerating sin in your life. The prophet Habakkuk says to God in Habakkuk 1:13 (NIV): “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” God has what we might call a “zero tolerance policy” for sin. His holiness is so absolute that this verse says he “cannot” tolerate any sin in his presence. We’re also told in Psalm 24:3-4, 3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. So, what’s the requirement for ascending the hill of the Lord and being in his presence? “Clean hands and a pure heart.”

You know, so often, we imagine that we can have certain sins in our lives and also have God as well—as if the two of them could somehow coexist. Perhaps we think we can dabble in pornography throughout the week and then come and worship God on Sunday as if nothing had happened. Or maybe we think we can habitually spread gossip and still enjoy God’s presence in our lives and have a close and vibrant relationship with God. Yet these verses remind us that that’s just not true. Whenever we become aware of any sin in our lives, we stand at a crossroads. And the thing about a crossroads, of course, is that you can’t choose to go in two different directions at the same time. If you go right, you can’t go left. And if you go left, you can’t go right. You have to choose between two mutually exclusive options. Likewise, whenever the Holy Spirit brings a sin in our lives to our attention, we have a choice to make: sin or God? As Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters.”

So, take a moment and ask yourself, what sins have you been holding on to that you need to forsake even this very day? What idols do you need to smash to pieces? Understand that, as long as you tolerate those sins in your life, you’ll never be able to enjoy God or worship God in a satisfying way—because holiness is the great prerequisite for meaningful worship. 

And ultimately, that holiness in its most absolute sense isn’t something we can achieve for ourselves simply by reforming certain aspects of our lives. Rather, it’s something that has to be given to us by God. Because the Bible’s very clear that our problem isn’t just that we commit sins but that we’re sinful by nature. Isaiah 64:6 states that “we have all become like one who is unclean” and that even our most “righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Think about that: the most righteous things we do are “like a polluted garment.” That’s because they flow out of a heart that’s been corrupted and defiled by sin. And try as we might, there’s nothing we can do to change our sinful heart. 

What we need is for God to cleanse us. And the way he does that is through Jesus. When we were utterly helpless to do anything about our spiritual condition, Jesus came to this earth, lived a perfectly sinless life, and then died on the cross to atone for our sins. That means Jesus suffered the punishment for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to suffer that punishment in hell. And that sacrifice of Jesus on the cross purchased our cleansing. That’s why 1 John 1:7 states that “the blood of Jesus…cleanses us from all sin.” Of course, that cleansing isn’t automatic. The Bible teaches that, in order for us to experience that cleansing, we have to turn from our sinful ways and put our trust in Jesus alone as our only hope of being cleansed of our sin and made right with God. Only then can we know God and worship God as we were meant to do. So that’s the first principle: holiness is the great prerequisite for worship. 

Then, going back to Genesis 35, we also see another principle in these verses—specifically in verse 3. After Jacob tells his household to put away their idols, cleanse themselves, and change their clothes, he says, “Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” So, notice how Jacob speaks of God. He doesn’t just call him “God” but rather “the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” Jacob intends to worship not just some generic god but a God with specific characteristics that have been displayed in specific ways. So, the second principle for worship is that we worship God in light of his abundant grace toward us. We worship God in light of his abundant grace toward us. 

Jacob was going to Bethel in order to worship the God who had shown him remarkable grace in rescuing him from his brother Esau. When Esau had been filled with a murderous rage toward Jacob and had been actively making plans to kill him, God had delivered Jacob from the vengeance of his brother. That’s another reason why Bethel was so significant. God had met Jacob there while Jacob was on the run from Esau and had rescued Jacob from his perilous situation. And Jacob was now returning to Bethel in order to worship God in light of what God had done. 

Similarly, we worship God in light of his abundant grace toward us—a grace that’s been demonstrated most of all in the death of Jesus on the cross. It was at the cross that God rescued us from our sin. Therefore, the cross is what we might call the citadel of Christian worship. As the great nineteenth century preacher Charles Spurgeon writes, “Beloved, there is a cure for every spiritual disease in the cross. There is food for every spiritual virtue in the Savior. We never go to him too often. He is never a dry well, or a vine from which every cluster has been taken. We do not think enough of him. We are poor because we do not go to the gold country which lieth round the cross. We are often sad because we do not see the bright light that shines from the constellation of the cross. The beams from that constellation would give us instantaneous joy and rest, if we perceived them. If any lover of the souls of men would do for them the best possible service, he would constantly take them near to Christ.” So, we worship God in light of his abundant grace toward us seen chiefly at the cross. 

And, of course, there are plenty of additional aspects of God’s glorious nature that inform and inspire our worship as well. And understanding those truths about God is absolutely essential for meaningful worship. You see, if we want to worship God in a meaningful way, we have to understand that worship is responsive in nature. In worship, we’re responding to substantive truths about God. That involves first understanding those truths and then rejoicing in them. You might say that, in worship, we’re savoring truths about God and the various aspects of his glory. 

By the way, this is why we here at Redeeming Grace decide which songs we’re going to sing in our Worship Gatherings primarily on the basis of the biblical and theological richness of their lyrics. We want to sing songs that have biblically substantive lyrics. Because, again, worship is responsive in nature. So, if we’re going to worship God in a meaningful way in our singing, then we need something substantive to respond to. We need lyrics that remind us of substantive truths about God. 

You know, a few moments ago, I described worship as savoring the various aspects of God’s glory—much like we might savor a really nice steak or something like that. And this might seem kind of obvious, but you can’t savor air. In order for your taste buds to savor something, you need to have something in your mouth besides air. Similarly, if we want to worship God in a meaningful way in our singing, it’s kind of hard to do that if we’re singing songs that are shallow and that lack biblical substance. I forget who said this, but I once heard it said that if a song’s not substantive enough to make it worth praying as a prayer, it’s probably not worth singing as a song. So, that’s the second principle: we worship God in light of his abundant grace toward us. 

Then, moving forward in our main passage of Genesis 35, we read this in verses 5-7: 5 And as they [that is, Jacob and his household] journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. 6 And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him, 7 and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. So, Jacob arrives in Bethel and builds and altar to God. An altar was a structure that was built for the purpose of expressing someone’s devotion to God and usually also for offering sacrifices to God. 

And that brings us to the third principle for worship, which is that true worship manifests itself in outward and visible ways. True worship manifests itself in outward and visible ways. Although worship itself is something that takes place in the heart, it doesn’t stay in the heart. Just as we’ve already said that worship is responsive in nature, it’s also expressive in nature. It’s expressed, of course, in verbal praise to God. And it’s also expressed in various other aspects of our lives as well. True worship on the inside will inevitably manifest itself on the outside in a variety of different ways. It’ll manifest itself, for example, in the form of loving acts toward other people. It’ll also manifest itself in our efforts to share the gospel and help others discover the spiritual riches we’ve discovered in Christ. 

You might compare it to the way you know if a heater’s working or not. How would you typically check to see if a heater’s functioning properly? By placing your hand in front of it and checking to see if it’s putting out heat, right? The chief sign that a heater’s working properly is that it’s putting out heat. And the chief sign that we’re worshiping God on the inside is that there are ways that worship is being manifested on the outside—such as love for others and a visible passion to reach them with the gospel. We might say that our worship of God overflows in the form of our work for God. There’s something deficient about your worship if it’s not being expressed in outward ways. 

Then, moving forward in our main passage, we read in verses 9-15: 9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. 10 And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. 11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” 13 Then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. 14 And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. 15 So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel. 

So, God reaffirms that Jacob’s name will now be Israel and also reaffirms the promises he had previously made to Jacob when Jacob was first at Bethel back in chapter 28. And Jacob responds by setting up a pillar and pouring out a drink offering and oil on that pillar. And, as verse 15 tells us, he also calls the name of that place “Bethel,” which means “house of God.” And it’s interesting to note that Jacob had already named that place “Bethel” on his first visit there back in Genesis 28:19. So, we might wonder, why are we told here that Jacob names the place “Bethel” apparently for a second time? 

I believe the best answer is that Jacob now has a much deeper and more profound understanding of God than he had in his youth. God has been progressively revealing himself to Jacob and teaching him profound lessons through the various ups and downs of Jacob’s life. So, Jacob names the place “Bethel” for a second time and is now able to do so with a much deeper appreciation of the significance of that place as the site of his encounter with God. Essentially, it’s the same name infused with new meaning and significance.

And the principle we see in that—our fourth principle this morning—is that our worship should be getting deeper and more profound as we grow in the Lord. Our worship should be getting deeper and more profound as we grow in the Lord. If we’ve been a Christian for numerous years, we may not necessarily be learning entirely new truths all the time. In fact, we probably won’t be. But we should absolutely be developing a deeper understanding and appreciation of truths we’ve heard before. So, for example, if we’ve just become a Christian recently, we might have a certain understanding of what it means for God to be merciful—and there might not be anything wrong or inaccurate about that understanding. However, after we’ve been a Christian for 10 years, let’s say, hopefully we have a deeper understanding of what it means for God to be merciful. Hopefully we’re aware of new aspects of his mercy that we weren’t aware of at the beginning of our Christian life. Then, after we’ve been a Christian for 30 years, hopefully we have an even greater insight into the mercy of God. It’s the same truth but one that we now understand with greater insight. 

And it’s in this same way that we come to a deeper appreciation of the gospel—that is, the message of Jesus and what he’s done to rescue us from our sin. I love the way a pastor named Bob Thune has illustrated this. You can see toward the left a point in time labeled “conversion,” which is the time when we first put our trust in Jesus and become a Christian. And as we grow spiritually throughout our Christian life, you can see on the top arrow how we gain a progressively deeper knowledge of God’s holiness and on the bottom arrow how we simultaneously gain a progressively deeper knowledge of our sin. And as we gain a deeper knowledge of those twin truths, we develop a deeper appreciation for the magnitude of God’s grace in saving us. As we understand more of how holy God is and, by contrast, how sinful and wretched and undeserving we are, it dawns on us to a progressively greater degree how amazing it is that such a holy God would be gracious to such sinful people. And that’s represented in the illustration by the cross between the two arrows getting bigger and bigger. 

So, if you’re a Christian, this should be happening in your life. If it’s not and if it seems as though you’ve become stagnant and your growth in the Lord has plateaued, hopefully this is a wakeup call for you. As the Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 3:13-14, 13 …But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Are you doing that? Are you “straining forward to what lies ahead”? Are you “press[ing] on…for prize”? Are you growing in your knowledge of God and your love for God and your likeness to God? Or…are you just trying to live off of yesterday’s gains—the prayer life you had a decade ago, the Bible verses you memorized when you were a teenager, the habits of Bible study you had when you were first saved. Are you trying to live off of yesterday’s gains? 

If so, let these words from the nineteenth century theologian J. C. Ryle be a warning to you. He writes, “Believe me, you cannot stand still in the affairs of your souls. Habits of good or evil are daily strengthening in your hearts. Every day you are either getting nearer to God for further off.” In other words, it’s not really possible to be at a spiritual standstill. You’re either actively growing closer to God or you’re passively drifting away from him. So, which state are you in right now? And if you determine that you’re drifting way, what can you do even this very day to get back on track? 

So, those are the four principles for worship we find in Genesis 35: Holiness is the great prerequisite for worship, we worship God in light of his abundant grace toward us, true worship manifests itself in outward and visible ways, and our worship should be getting deeper and more profound as we grow in the Lord.

And let me just encourage you, as we think about worship, to recognize how central worship is to the Christian life. A theologian named A. W. Tozer once wrote that worship is our “whole reason for existence.” He says it’s “why we are born and…why we are born again.” Yet unfortunately, it seems like we often forget that. That’s why Tozer elsewhere refers to worship as the “missing jewel of American evangelicalism.” Think about that. “The missing jewel of American evangelicalism.” It’s like we have the band of the ring and we have the setting of the ring but not the jewel. The jewel is missing. You know, I’m pretty confident that if my wife looked down at the engagement ring I bought her and saw that the main diamond was missing, there’d be no small amount of freaking out—probably from the both of us. Yet Tozer says—and I believe he has a point—that the jewel of worship is missing from our ring. Most evangelical churches have wonderful systems and carefully designed structures and great mission statements and well-written bylaws and all of this other machinery. But do we really go through our week and our daily lives in a worshipful state of mind? Do we really engage in meaningful, rich, daily worship of the One True God?