Moving On
===
Lucas: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Living for His Glory podcast. I'm your host, Lucas Barrett. As a college student studying pastoral ministry, spreading the word and making disciples of all nations. Is my one true mission. Sometimes I talk about scriptures and theologies on my own, but other times I bring in a guest from my vast network of people Who will share their life experiences and the things that they're passionate about that may help you with your own spiritual journey Whether you're a new christian a growing christian or someone who may not even believe in god.
This podcast is for you Let's get started
Hello everybody. We're back with another exciting episode of the Living For His Glory podcast, and today we're coming from Genesis 35. Now, it's important to provide context for this story. Today, we are going to witness,~ um,~ this story of Jacob and,~ uh,~ his beloved wife, [00:01:00] Rachel. He has two wives, Leah and Rachel.
They're sisters. Plot twist for those who don't know, they are sisters. ~Um, ~and their dad married them to Jacob. Now, Jacob's intention was always to marry Rachel,~ uh,~ not Leah. But, on the wedding night, I guess Jacob had a little bit too much to drink and didn't realize that dear old dad in law,~ that dear old father in law~ switched up Leah and Rachel.
Jacob married Leah and eventually he did marry Rachel ~again,~ but now he's got these two wives and Rachel's the one he truly loves. Leah's the one that had most of his kids, but here we see,~ uh,~ the death of Rachel. Here his beloved wife is dying. ~Uh, ~we're starting off in Genesis 35 ~. It says, so Rachel,~ it says, so Rachel died and she was buried on the way to Ephrath.
That is Bethlehem. And Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb that's there to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent [00:02:00] beyond the tower of Eder. Now, there's so much just powerful stuff in that. And I love the way that the Old Testament writes. I love how the way that the Old Testament is written.
~There's so much power, there's so many powerful,~ there's so much powerful language used here. So much interesting ways to write, interesting language being used here to signify so many different ways. ~Uh, ~excuse me if I sound a little nerdy right now, but it's very, very interesting. So we see Rachel's death.
So Rachel's dead, she's gone, ~she's,~ she is gone from the earth. Jacob is left without his beloved wife, Rachel. She's gone forever and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is now later called Bethlehem. ~Very,~ very interesting right there, on the way to Bethlehem. Funny, on the way to Bethlehem is when Rachel died.
On the way to Bethlehem, the guy whose [00:03:00] kingdom, whose God's own kingdom was named after his beloved wife died going to the same place where God's own son was in the womb, it was in Mary's womb, about to be born. It's very amazing. Jesus was in Mary's womb, about to be born, going to Bethlehem. While, the founder of it, who God used to found Israel, his wife died on that, on the way to the same place.
That has a very, very little interesting connection there. So it says Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. Is he remembering his wife, Rachel, that the tomb is being redone. ~The tomb is being redone. ~It's set up, remembering Rachel, making sure she has a proper burial. It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day.
It's still there, according to scripture. It's there to this day. That's in verse 20. Here comes the dead thing. It's being remembered. It's going to proper burial. [00:04:00] It's dead. It's gone. It has no, has no more meaning, almost. It has no more, no more life in it. No more ~super meaningful, meaningful conceit. ~Super meaningful significance.
It's just dead. It's just gone.~ It's, it's,~ it's something to remember briefly and then move on from. This is where we really get to our point. It says in 21, Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder. Now, you may be thinking, why did I tell that story? What was the point? It's like, look, all right, dude's wife died.
He loved his wife. There's beloved wife died. He buried her and then he moved on. And I want you to, I want you to pay attention to some very, very special wording within here. It says in verse 20, and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. And it's the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. 21 says, Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of [00:05:00] Eder.
~Now I mentioned that ~Jacob was the guy who wrestled with God~ earlier.~ So Jacob wrestled with God and in the process of wrestling God, God renamed him Israel, which means wrestled with God. So ~what this I,~ this identity of Israel versus Jacob. So Jacob, this guy, if you don't know who Jacob is, I'd very, I'd encourage you to, to read about him.
I'd encourage you to listen to some sermons about him. He's a very well talked figure in the Bible. He's, he's the grandson of Abraham, who God first called. ~Uh, into his kingdom~ to start his kingdom. It's who God first called into the promised land. So Jacob's his grandson of Abraham. His dad is Isaac, his brother's Esau.
There's a famous story about Jacob and Esau about how, because Jacob was the youngest, they were twins, but Jacob came out grabbing Esau's heel. And so he was therefore born second and he doesn't get the birthright. Back in that culture, ~you were born first.~ If you're the first born son, you got that birthright.
Esau born first, Jacob [00:06:00] came half a second after him, still born second. So Jacob doesn't have his inheritance. He wants his inheritance. ~He makes a scheme with his mom, Rachel. Mom wasn't Rachel, it was his wife. ~He makes a scheme with his mom, and he and his mom conspire against,~ uh,~ Isaac, who is, Nearly blind.
They put, ~you know, sheep over~ sheep skin or fur over his arms, ~and they tricked es~ and they tricked Isaac into, into giving Jacob the birthright instead of Esau. So now Jacob just tricked Esau out of his birthright. It's where ~this,~ this term, Jacob, that name it starts to mean deceiver, the one who deceives.
Right? Because Jacob deceived his dad and stole his brother Esau's Birthright. The story for another time, this is this is who Jacob is. So in his entire life, Jacob is kinda scheming. ~He~ he's done things to advance himself. ~He He's very,~ he's a deceitful person, and he has done these different things, including going and wrestling with God himself.
~He's,~ he is wrestling with God. Like, he's not being obedient to God in this moment. He's not saying, God, your will be [00:07:00] done over mine. Like, right? He's not saying, God, I want you, your will to be done before my will is being done. He's literally fighting God. He's wrestling with God ~in this story. ~But now what we see with Israel, his new name, after he wrestles with God, He named Israel.
And what we see with Israel and who Israel is, Israel is this new person. When you changed your name, your name in that culture, it was like an identity of its own. It was its own identity, just like we talked about a couple weeks ago. Great. That was a great episode. If you haven't listened to it, I very much encourage you to listen to it.
So we're talking about identity. Jacob, his new identity has now become Israel. So he's gone from ~this,~ this person of deception. He's gone from this person of going behind your back of not being trustworthy. And now, yes, Israel means to wrestle with God or wrestles with God. But ~Jacob is this, or~ Israel is this new identity [00:08:00] of ~I.~
My name is to be used to reference God's people. God's people are, ~are viewed as~ the Israelites and the 12 tribes of Israel are named after his sons, his 12 sons. That's what becomes the tribes of Israel. So what we see now with Jacob and or Israel, what we see with Israel is this is the good side of Israel.
This is the side that, this is, imagine Jacob would be your sinful side, everything that you're ashamed of, everything that you've done wrong, everything that you want to hide. But Israel is that part of you where you're like, man, I want people to see this. This goes on your Instagram post. This goes on your Insta story.
This goes on your TikTok and your Snapchat, and ~you,~ you want people to know about this. You go around, you talk about this. Maybe you did a service project. Maybe you,~ uh,~ helped somebody out with something. ~Whatever,~ whatever the case, maybe you got this big promotion at work. Whatever the case, Israel is that part that you [00:09:00] want everybody to see, that you want everybody to know.
It's the famous part of you. It's that good part of you. It's that part of you that's done some really good stuff. But Jacob's the bad part. And so we see with this transition, it's almost a baptismism. So it's almost a rebirth. of its own. ~Jacob died. She was buried.~ Jacob sets up that pillar over the tomb.
Jacob buries her. Jacob remembers her. Jacob puts everything over her tomb and sets everything up. But Israel journeyed on Israel is the one who moved on Israel is the one who continued going Israel is the one who kept going and kept doing great things and kept staying on the faith and staying on that journey
and what I see with this story of Jacob to Israel and this in this and in this [00:10:00] this story Evolution between verse 20 and 21, where it references Jacob and then to Israel. What I see here is Jacob's dead too. Jacob, it's still referring to him as Jacob. ~Jacob has been buried with Israel. ~Jacob has been buried with Rachel.
Jacob has been buried with the love of his life. With the one he loved, with the one that he had Joseph and Benjamin with, his two most beloved sons. ~This is, he buried her.~ He died with her. He buried himself with her. ~He died with her. ~He's gone too. Because what we see in 21, Israel journeyed on. Israel kept going.
Israel continued his journey to Bethlehem. Israel is how the story continues. ~And that's, and, and, Even in 20 and~ even in verse 22, it still refers them to Israel is it says Israel Israel like this He continues to be Israel, moving forward, even past that verse, even past [00:11:00] this passage. Israel is now moving on.
This, this father of the, this father of this kingdom, this kingdom of God, he is the father of it. He's moving on. This, this good part of us is now moving on ~and that,~ and that dead part is staying with Rachel. It's staying with that whole, that whole history. So guys, and whatever we're here to do, we talked again, we talked about identity back on January 6th.
We talked about New Year's resolutions, January 13th ~with,~ with my good friend, Kyle Plant. We enjoyed that one. ~It was a longer episode is because there's two guys talking. Yes, the episodes tend to be longer. It was still a great episode.~ If you guys want to check it out, what we talked about new year's resolutions, why people fail, why it's a flaw system in the first place.
And so, guys, when we're thinking of moving on, we're thinking of, hey, when Israel moved on, it means he had to leave something behind. Not just himself, not just Jacob, he had to leave his beloved wife [00:12:00] behind. He had to leave Rachel behind. Rachel was left behind, she was dead, and that is how Israel was able to move on.
Israel moved on, that new part of him kept growing, kept moving on, kept going, because he left stuff in his past. Because he left that in the grave, he left that in the tomb. And he moved on. So ~my,~ my question to you guys is what happened last year? What stuff were you dealing with? What were you struggling with?
What was your burdens? What, what chained your ankles? What was your ball and chain that drove you down and stopped you from doing The things that you either wanted to do or the things that you could have done past the things that you just wanted to do. What held you down and how can this year, how can you move on past that?
I'm not saying to change your name. You don't need to do that. You don't need to change your name. But what I'm saying is. What do we leave behind? What [00:13:00] do we leave dead? What do we leave in the tomb to now continue moving on in that good part of us? How do we continue to move on in the good? How do we continue to move on and do everything that we're supposed to do, do everything that we set out to do, do everything that we are meant to do and accomplish ~Who, what,~ and accomplish the plan that God has for our lives.
How do we do that?
And if we can figure that out, if we can figure out what we have to leave behind to become that new version of us, to become that good version of us, to become that version of us that follows God's plan, that we fulfill God's plan and what he has for our lives. If we do that, ladies and gentlemen, we will have success.
We will have. Fulfillment beyond anything me and you have ever imagined. So ~my question to you guys, my,~ my challenge to you guys this week, as we continue to find ways to live for his glory is what do you need to [00:14:00] leave in 2024? What do you need to leave in your past? What identity do you need to leave behind?
What beloved things that you need to leave behind so that you can grow and move forward? And become everything that ~you,~ God wanted you to be, everything that you were meant to be. What, how can you leave this stuff behind to move forward with God's plan for your life and uncover that new identity of who God wants you to be.
~Thank you guys. I love you and I hope you have a great day. ~
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Living for His Glory podcast. I hope you gained some terrific insights and knowledge about God's character and how we can live for his glory. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you can get every new episode as we continue to make deep dives as to how to live for his glory, thank you, and I hope you have an amazing day.
