The Pillow & The Promise
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Hey, this is Stephen Furtick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. I hope this inspires you. I hope it builds your faith. I hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. This week I'm working from Genesis 28, verses 10 through 22. I want to visit Jacob, and I want to visit him from this perspective. I want to talk about the gate of purpose, and we'll look at it together. Did you come to help me preach today?

Believe this is something that we do together These sermons do go out all over the world and it's the chemistry that we have together as the Word of God goes forth from heaven and released into the earth that makes a difference and so I want to thank you for your active participation for your giving for your service for your prayers and For bringing people to church with you. It makes a difference touch somebody say it matters

It matters. It matters how you engage with the message. It matters if you lean in. It matters that you're here, and we are so grateful for your presence today. Genesis 28, verse 10. Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, God can bless you anywhere. A certain place. Where is it? It doesn't matter. God can bless you anywhere. Amen.

"Anytime, anyone, anywhere, when he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set, taking one of the stones there, put it under his head, and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on earth, with its top reaching

to heaven. There's a lady that's sure all that glitters is gold, and she's… No, that's another thing. That's not the Bible. And the angels of God were ascending and descending on this stairway. There above it stood the Lord. He's always above it. He's always above the affairs of human men.

He's always above the plots and schemes and dreams and dictates of humanity. There above it stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. In other words, this did not start with you. This is a continuation, a progressive revelation of who God is, and I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.

Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. What God is about to do is so big that you cannot contain it. Not with your mind, not geographically, not demographically. It will not be contained. All the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. See what God can do through you. Jacob is seeing a vision while he's sleeping on the ground.

in the midst of a very difficult season and an uncertain time. So he said, "I'm going to bless the earth through you and your offspring, and I am with you," here comes the promise, "and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." So if it's not done, it's not over.

If it's not good, God's not finished yet. Give it some time. It will play out. And I will not leave you until I have accomplished that which I have spoken concerning you. Now, when Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, Surely the Lord is in this place. And I was not aware of it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven."

This is the gate of heaven. Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. Bethel means house of God.

Okay, like Bethlehem house of bread Bethel house of God El Elion El Shaddai Elohim El God Beth El house of God. Okay. Okay. We got that Then Jacob made a vow saying if God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house Then the Lord will be my God and this stone

that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me, I will give you a tenth." Now, listen closely, Raquel, because my focus is on the following verses. Verse 17: "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it So it's an unusual title, but I want to speak to you about the pillow and the promise the pillow and the promise and I think this is one you'll never forget you know

When you're about to get married, you start having certain conversations. You start trying to figure out, are we on the same page? Like, how many kids do you want to have? And I just want to suggest, have the first one and kind of see how it goes before you go set in a number. You know, sample the product a little bit. You know, like to walk around Costco. Eat a little bit of the sausage before you buy the whole... How many kids? Here's another one. How many years do we want to be married?

as just human beings before we become indentured servants and Uber drivers? How many years do we want to be married just before we start having kids? But here's one you never think of, and you need to, if you're a man, you need to put this in the conversation when you're getting ready to bring that to me, Jonathan. You need to ask, how many, he knows, how many of these are we going to put on the bed that we are not allowed to sleep on

Because God forbid we sleep on a pillow. We are we are an eight throw pillow family Just in case you were wondering eight I counted them is eight bro eight eight of these Ten-minute routines for me to go through every night before I get in my bed. I'm serious It took me how long we've been married 15 years. It took me 14 and a half years to come to terms with

with the idea that there are pillows on my bed for the sole purpose of taking them off before I get in it. I can't lie to you now. I'm kind of into it now. Now, sometimes when Holly's gone, don't tell her, I don't put them on or take them off. Wild and crazy when she leaves town. But now I got it down. I know where every pillow goes. I got it. I know the configuration. I have been taught. I have been taught.

I know which pillows to karate chop. You ever chopped a pillow? You will. It was just hard for me to realize that the purpose of the pillow was not for my head. I just couldn't understand. It's decorative. It's a throw pillow. I got an idea. Let's throw it away. Now, I bring it up. Obviously, I'm going to get in a little trouble in my marriage because of this, but I think it'll help me illustrate my point.

because I was intrigued that Jacob was sleeping on something that he wasn't supposed to sleep on. Now in his case, Jacob, 77 years old, has to sleep and spend the night on a rock, but it's the closest thing he has to a pillow. And I thought about calling this message "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," but I thought you would think that was corny. You give me that polite little preacher laughter that you give when your preacher is trying to be humorous. I thought about saying that Jacob has made his bed

and now he has to lie in it. And certainly the cliche applies here because he has manipulated his way into a blessing from his father that has caused him to have to hide from his brother. And 60 miles into his journey, which probably would have taken a few days from Beersheba to the place formerly known as Luz and now known as Bethel after this stunning revelation, which is

the source of much theological speculation and we cannot cover appropriately in the time we have allotted here today, but what he sees is spectacular and yet I think the context is significant because it is not at his destination that God appears, but it is along the way. It's 60 miles outside of Beersheba. He has not yet to Laban's house where arrangements have been made for his safety and provision.

where he will ultimately meet Rachel and Leah, and he loves Rachel, but he has to go through Leah to get to Rachel. All of that is yet to happen, but God shows up. One time I preached a sermon called When God Shows Up in the Middle of Nowhere, but I was playing with it because I took the word nowhere, and then I moved the W over and spaced it, and it was then now here.

When nowhere became now here, you remember, and we talked about when God shows up in the middle of nowhere and he's laying on the cold ground and the sun is set, the Bible points out it's no longer safe for him to travel and sometimes God will arrange the conditions of your life so that you have to stop. Some revelation cannot be given while you are on the run, only when you have stopped running for long enough. And it is significant

Jacob sees the activity of God not in his manipulation, but in his sleep. In his sleep, he sees something that would have been very familiar in Mesopotamian culture because their gods were said to have come down the staircases to the earth and back up and back down and back up. Jacob's dream is a little different because, if you'll notice, this is just a little thing. It's not really going to be on the final exam, but they were ascending and descending.

The order is important because it didn't start in heaven, it started on earth. They went up and then they went down. And they went up and then they went down. And so when we pray, "Let your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," often God is awaiting initiative on earth to release what heaven has in store.

These messengers that ascended and descended the stairs were going back and forth. And they were working in the course of human history. God is always on the move. The messengers, the angels were going up.

And Jacob saw it in his sleep. Not when he was stealing his brother Esau's blessing. He didn't see it then because he was trying to make it happen. Not when he was taking his birthright. He didn't see it then because he was in a mental space of trying to figure out how am I gonna get the blessing. Now notice this: Isaac gave Jacob a blessing, but God made Jacob a promise.

People can give blessings, but only God can make promises. And the promise is this: God is illustrating through Jacob what Proverbs 19 will later record: "Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will prevail." This is a living demonstration of how, no matter how Jacob schemed and dreamed, God met him in an unusual place

and showed him how determined God is to fulfill his purpose on the earth. Purpose is determined. God has made up his mind what he wants to do and who he wants to do it through. And purpose is determined. If you have a strong-willed child, just wave your hand at me. I know we're in the same club.

Purpose is more determined than your most strong-willed child. And when the purpose of God makes up its mind to accomplish something in the earth, you almost can't mess it up. You almost can't send it back. There is no return to cinder, for as the rains fall from the heaven and water the earth, so shall be his word that proceeds from his mouth. I'm getting a little excited a little early.

It's determined. The gifts of God are without repentance. So something that you did when you were 17 cannot reverse what God planned while you were still in your mother's womb.

Purpose is determined. Nobody can break up with you and cause the purpose of God for your life to be interrupted. Nobody can fire you and interrupt the purpose of God. There is no stopping what God has started until it is complete. He will see it through. He doesn't change his mind when Jacob blows it. He tracks him down and meets with him in his sleep, determined.

determined. The purpose of God is determined. A theological term would be predestined.

Yeah, all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew, he also predestined that we might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he called, he also justified. And those he justified, he also glorified. And those he glorified, he glorified to the end that his purpose might prevail in the earth. To break it down into real simple language, all I'm trying to say is God is still working

God was working in the things you did wrong, the things you did right. The activity of God cannot be stopped by human decision or mistakes. In fact, some of your greatest mistakes will be the seed of your greatest miracles. It's called purpose, and it always prevails. God is so determined that he meets with Jacob in a certain place when the sun is set, because he made up his mind, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jacob. But when we say that purpose is determined, I think it's important to make a distinction. The purpose is not only determined by God, but it is also determined by us. The way I would put it is this. This is point number two. Purpose is determined before it is discovered. I'll explain that from the text.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, surely the Lord is in this place. And I was not aware of it. Now, God did not show up when Jacob woke up. Jacob woke up to the fact that God was there all along. Can I get you to hit your neighbor and tell him, wake up? Wake up. Woke is not a new term. Jacob was woke. But God did not

God did not show up when Jacob saw him. He was waiting to be seen in something very common. And I believe that it's good to pray for God to be with us. But I think it's better to pray that we could see where he has already been because he's been there all along. When you pray God be with us, it's kind of redundant. Tell you why. He said, I will not leave you

Surely I will be with you even to the end of the age. Now, if it's not over, God is still here. So I don't have to ask him to do what he already promised to do. All I have to do is wake up to the reality that he's been working all... Now, calm down. By the time you see it, by the time you see it,

It's already been happening. By the time you see it, "You got to church today? We had already done so much!" What, you think we started when you got here? At some of our locations that meet in high schools and theaters and we don't own the building, they're portable locations. They're portable because as soon as we're done, we have to take everything out. They're portable because during the week there's something else.

But when we show up in there, guess what it becomes? A church. It's not a church because we put a steeple on it. It's not a church because it says church on the sign. In fact, when you say, I'm going to church, you're not exactly correct. You are bringing the church to a building because that's what you are. You are a carrier of the presence of Almighty God. Jacob is so funny to me. God is here, and I didn't know it.

How can you miss God? God being the actual place! And you didn't see it. But he could only see it when he was asleep. And then he woke up to see what God was doing all along. That purpose is determined before it is discovered. He wakes up. Okay, because remember we got a rock and Jacob makes it a pillow. So he is repurposing the rock to make it a pillow. It's not exactly a Tempur-Pedic, but it will work. Sometimes you can't be picky.

Sometimes you have to take whatever you have. It's not my favorite song, but I'm going to worship to it anyway, because I don't need my favorite song to worship God. It'll work. It's not a lot of money, but I'm going to make it work. My husband is an exact… Anyway, we're going to skip that part. He says, "This will work." When he lays down… I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to demonstrate this for you. Not many preachers would go to this extent to bring the point across, but if I have to lay down on this monitor…

to show you what Jacob did and the situation he was in. I will lay down on this monitor. That's not even comfortable, but it'll work. He sees something while he sleeps, and he wakes up. He goes, "Well, that was awesome. That was amazing. This is the house of God." Well, first, the Bible says he was afraid, because fear is the flip side of faith.

Fear is what you feel that enables you to open yourself to faith. Fear is the sensation that leads you to something greater than yourself that causes you to have faith that God is greater. So first he was afraid, then he was excited, and he said, "This is awesome. Awesome. Wow. This is lit." He would have said it. That's what Moses said at the burning bush.

This is the house of God. Remember now, he took some oil, rubbed it on the rock, and said, this is the house of God, pointing at the rock. God doesn't live in a rock. Except that one verse that says that if we don't praise him, the rocks will cry out. See, God can show up anywhere.

That's the point. The point is he took some oil. Oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit. It's symbolic of the joy of the Lord. But it's also when something special was being consecrated, like a king or a priest, they would pour oil on it. It was a part of the consecration. And the rock is something common. And so Jacob consecrates something that is common and says, this is the house of God, pointing at a rock. This is where God lives. No, he doesn't. God doesn't live in a rock, but he can. He can. He can.

Notice this: when Jacob says, "This is the gate of heaven," he didn't say that because God said it. God didn't say, "This is the gate of heaven." Jacob said, "This is the gate of heaven." So apparently, I have the ability to be in a common situation, you hear me? An uncertain situation, and put some oil on it, and put some Holy Ghost on it, and put some purpose on it, and if I say it's a gate, it'll be a gate.

And if I say it's a blessing, it'll be a blessing. And if I say God is in it, God is in it. And if I say it's a church, it'll be a church. And if I say it's a setup, it is a setup. And if I say it's an opportunity, it is an opportunity. Try it out. Somebody shout, this is the gate.

This is the gate. He wakes up, he goes, "This is great. This is awesome. This is awesome. This is awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. I gotta do something. I gotta do something." So he takes the rock that he made the pillow, and he takes the pillow and makes it a pillar. The rock became the pillow. The pillow became the pillar. It is what you make of it. If you say it's a gate, it will be a gate.

If you point to your pain and say, "This pain is a portal to the glory of God, and something that is going to come through this pain is going to bring me deeper joy," it will bring the joy of the Lord into your situation. So point to your pain and say, "This is the gate."

I can look at something that seems so ordinary, a moment that seems so trivial. A job that I hate can become the gate. And anoint it. God didn't call it the gate. Jacob did. And it became what he called it. This is the gate. This is the gate. Shout it out. This is the gate.

This is the moment. This is the time. This is the season. This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. If the enemy had his way, I'd be so focused on tomorrow and what it holds that I would miss the provision of the strength that God wants to bring while I am in Bethel. But this is the gate. I'm sorry, y'all. I just thought something made me laugh. I pictured you going to work, and I pictured the person that annoys you so much coming up to you.

And I picture you not saying it out loud, but just smirk a little bit and say to yourself, this is the gate. Because God is going to use the people that I can't stand to make me patient. You've been praying for patience. It's going to come through the gate of Pete. You know, Pete at work, Pete with the bad breath, Pete who takes all the credit. Pete is the gate. He missed the whole point, too.

He missed the whole point. This is the gate. I'm gonna come back here. God, if you bless me, if you give me a car, and if you watch over me, he's trying to negotiate something God already told him he was gonna do anyway. One time, Pastor Mickey took me to visit a businessman, and I was asking him for money because I wanted to bring in some preachers for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for our high school.

And he taught me something as a 17 year old because Eugene Oliver started writing the check and I had only said three words We're trying to and he said how much the first thing I didn't know is put a few more zeros on it if somebody asked that question because I asked him for $500 I wish I could go back but while he was writing the check I kept talking we're gonna take the money and we're gonna use it and pastor Mickey puts hand on my leg and squeezed me He looked at me. He didn't say anything till we got out of there He said

I'm going to teach you something right now. When he's writing the check, "Shut up. Shut." I don't know, but maybe you could look at your neighbor and say, "Shut up. It's already done. It's already done." I'm trying to strike a bargain with God who already said he'd be with you. "Well, if you will, then I will." God is not an if-then guy. The promises of God are yes and amen. It's already done. That's what he saw sleeping on that rock. This is the gate. So it means I can go into any situation.

Even the uncomfortable ones. Isn't it crazy that God used the place of Jacob's discomfort to give him his greatest revelation? Don't you think that 77-year-old man woke up with a sore neck after sleeping on a rock, but he said, "It's awesome. Not because of how it felt, but because of what I saw. Not because of what I felt, but because of who I know. This is awesome. This place. How awesome is this place?" You know you can say that anywhere? Not just in Hawaii.

Not just in church. This is the gate. And it's the gate because I gave it a purpose. Purpose is what allows you to see, let me say it like this, in every place there is a purpose. In every place there is a purpose. But before it is discovered, it must be determined and God will allow you to determine the purpose of the place you're in. So you can simply survive it or you can be strengthened by it. You can resent it

Or you can be like John, who on the island of Patmos wrote the book of Revelation. You decide the purpose for the place. Is this going to be the place where you become bitter and lay down and die from your disappointment? Or is this going to be the place that you discover a deeper source to drink from? All the good grass is in the valley.

You can only get strength from certain places. This is something that Jacob could not get anywhere else but here in this place. The Lord is in this place. Remember, he's still got 490 miles to go before he gets to his destination, but the Lord is in this place. It means that he is with me on the way. He's with me on the way.

And anytime I want to, I can open a gate to the revelation of his goodness. This is the gate. Difficult time with your teenagers? I get it. This is the gate. This is the gate. It got quiet on that one. I must have hit a nerve. Just walk around pointing to stuff, winking at stuff. This is the gate. Make it a gate. Make it a gate. Make it a gate. This season, this is the gate. I'm not waiting. This is the gate.

I'm not waiting for a relationship before I feel significant. This is the gate. I'm made in the image of God all by myself. This is the gate. This is the season. This is the time. This is the year. Not when I'm 45. Not when I get the debt paid down. This is the day I will rejoice and enter his gates with thanksgiving. You hear this word God gave me?

This is the gate. This is the gate. And it is determined before it is discovered. So Jacob decides, I guess this rock is as good as any. I'll make it a monument. It was a very common practice. He said, I'll set this up to remember how God met with me here. After he was sleeping on something that he wasn't supposed to sleep on. After he was sleeping on something that he wasn't supposed to be sleeping on.

After he was sleeping on something. I'm gonna sleep on this thing. After he was sleeping. After he was... Wait a minute. Jesus did this. This is not just a Jacob thing. Let me see if I can find it. Mark 4, 35. I found it. When Jesus was sleeping in something that he wasn't supposed to be sleeping in. And there's a commonality. There's a common thread. I wonder, do you see it in verse 35? It says that when evening came,

Jacob rested on the rock when the sun went down. Jesus is on a boat as evening approaches. And he said to his disciples, let's go over to the other side. Next verse. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There are also other boats with him. A furious squall, not a word we often use, just a raging storm, came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly destroyed.

Swamp now we're gonna see a contrast between what Jesus did and what the disciples did Because Jesus in the middle of a life-threatening storm where the survival of the mission was at stake was in the stern Sleeping in the storm. Jesus found a pillow somewhere in that boat He found a pillow and he laid his head down and went to sleep and the disciples woke him the disciples were awakened by their fear and Jesus was asleep and

his purpose. I'll show you. "And they said to him, 'Don't you care if we drown? What's wrong with you? Don't you care?'" The only way for us to understand the meaning of this passage is to contrast what they thought with what he knew. But first, watch what he did. He got up, rebuked the wind for disturbing his rim cycles, and said to the waves, "Shut up! Be still!"

I think you need to say that sometimes to your thoughts. Hello? To your monkey mind, to your amygdala. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can say is shut up. And the wind died down. It was completely calm. He said to his disciples, why are you so afraid? You still have no faith? And they were terrified, like Jacob, because the flip side of faith is always fear. And they were terrified and asked each other, who is this? Oh, I thought you knew. No, it took an uncomfortable situation.

to show them the revelation of who was with them all along and they were not aware. Do you see it? Even the wind and the waves obey him. Who is this? Now, what started as a storm turned into a sermon and Jesus preached who he was not by what he said but by what he did. He took a pillow and laid his head down because he knew something that they did not know. That in every purpose there is a promise.

In every purpose there is a promise. I will not leave you until I have accomplished everything that I have created you for. In every purpose there is a promise. In every place there is a purpose, but in every purpose there is a promise. Because this is Mark chapter 4. And in Mark chapter 5, Jesus is going to meet a man who is possessed with so many demons that he simply calls himself Legion, which means many. So overcome by issues and oppressions.

that he doesn't even know his identity anymore. And he'll meet the man and free the man and cast the demons out of the man and send the man back into the Decapolis. And when the man goes back into the Decapolis to tell the people, Mark 5:20, how much the Lord has done for him, the gospel enters a whole new region and the mission is born that was pronounced in Genesis when God told Jacob, "I'm going to bless the whole earth through you." That happened in Mark chapter 5.

So what Jesus knew was, "I can't drown in Mark chapter 4." So I'm going to get a pillow because I have a promise. You hear me, church? I might be lying down, but that doesn't mean I'm not preaching hard. When you have a promise from God… Let me tell you what to do. When God gives you a promise… How many of you have a promise from God and you really believe it, that he will be with you?

How many of you have a promise from God? How many of you have a promise from God that he will not fail you? When you have a promise, let me show you what to do. When you have a promise, sleep on it. Touch the person next to you and tell them, "Sleep on it. I'm not going to stress about it. I'm not going to weep about it. I'm not going to expend any more energy trying to manipulate it. I'm going to do what Jesus did. I'm going to find a pillow, because I have a promise.

I'm about to sleep on it. And while I sleep, God is strategizing. And while I sleep, the angels are coming. And while I sleep, the provision is being made. And while I rest, the promise of God. In my situation, this is the game. Come on. Three, two, one. You got a promise? It's your pillow. What good is the promise if you're not going to believe it? When you got a promise from God...

You can rest your soul and rest your head and rest assured that in every purpose there is a promise. And he said in Mark 4:35, "Let us go to the other side." It was the proof that we cannot die in the storm because there is a purpose on the other side.

How I make it through this season and this storm in this valley is that I know there's something the other side Every valley is between there is something the other side sleep on it Cast your cares upon him. He cares for you sleep on it. I feel so awkward up here Showing you how Jesus was the promise pillow and the promise

Hey, you know what? I just realized something. He wasn't sleeping on a pillow. He was sleeping on purpose. He knew that no matter what storm I go through, no matter what season I'm in, the purpose of God will prevail. Sleep on it. Sleep on it. Therefore, since we have this promise of entering into his rest, let us take heed that we do not fall short of it. There is a purpose that produces rest, and there is a promise that produces rest.

Sleep on it. It was a rock became a pillow. It was a pillow It became a pillar and what you're going through right now is going to be the foundation of the revelation of who really? And I'll give you the ground you're lying on and I will not leave you nor forsake you until I have done everything I promised you I can lay my head on that I can bake my life on that I can trust my children to God knowing that the Lord is in this place

The storm, the valley, the wilderness, this place. We all have those places in our lives where we're passing through and we wonder, what is the purpose of this? But faith declares what Jacob declared. Surely the Lord is in this place. I was not aware, but now I am. I see it now.

Thanks again for listening. God bless you.