Arise, Go Up to Bethel

Please note: This transcript is provided as close to verbatim record of the sermon.

Arise

Genesis 35:1

“One word: arise. And I do not mean it literally. Thank you for those who did that.

I merely wanted to share with you the title of my sharing this morning. It is taken from Genesis 35:1: ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.’”

Introduction: Babel, Bethel, and the Age of AI

In the context of AI, we are living in a time where intelligence is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. AI is no longer a concept of the future. It is here. It is shaping how we think as Christians. It is shaping how we decide, and it is shaping how we live.

Some of the brightest minds in AI are now issuing very sobering warnings that AI may be more dangerous than even nuclear weapons; that we are creating systems we may not fully control; that one day we may not even distinguish between what is human and what is artificial.

And yet, despite these warnings, the world continues to move forward. Every two months, you get a major update on AI development, because deep down, humanity still believes that if we can build these AI systems, we can control them. But this is not a new story.

Let me take you back to Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel. Humanity, united after the flood, declared, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches to the heavens.” This is not just construction. It is ambition without submission. It is humanity saying, “We will go up. We will reach heaven. We will define ourselves and our own identity. We will make a name for ourselves.”

And that is critical. Babel is never about the writer condemning human achievement, nor is it talking about the evil of technology. No. It is about man coming to a point of saying, “I do not need God. I am very self-sufficient, and I will make it.”

So when AI is used by sin, it multiplies evil without the constraints of righteousness, for example.

Notice something critical. These people wanted elevation without relationship with God. They wanted height without holiness—the height of achievement, for example. They wanted to gather everybody together, which is what AI is doing now: unity without obedience.

And God’s response is very sobering as well. He confuses their language, not because building is evil, but because self-exaltation apart from God always collapses under its own pride.

Fast forward to today. We are building again, but this time not with bricks. It is data. In my industry, data has been considered the new oil currency. It is data. It is intelligence. It is not built with mortar, but with algorithms.

Incidentally, the word “algorithm” comes from a founder from the past, and in Arabic, “Al” means God. So today they are not building with towers of stone, but with artificial systems that learn, adapt, and evolve.

And the spirit behind it is not so different from the spirit of Babel: “Let us build. Let us ascend. Let us surpass our limits.”

So the question pressing in is this: Are we building progress, or are we building Babel again with AI?

And here is the deepest question for us to consider this morning: in a world obsessed with AI, have we quietly drifted away from the only true intelligence? I call it the Almighty Intelligence, which is AI as well.

Think about it. Whatever humanity is trying to do with AI systems and apps and projects—even if a whole community of people comes together to harness the entire energy of the earth—that total energy system of the earth is still a small fraction of the sun. Who created the sun? The Almighty Intelligence.

So we are constantly, through our mobile devices, connected—even while we are going through worship and all—but spiritually, and increasingly in this fast-moving world, we are disconnected from God. We are very much informed by algorithms, but no longer listening to God’s prompts. We are surrounded by voices and noises, but we distance ourselves from His voice.

So today, as the world races toward greater and greater intelligence—from AI, to what they are now working on, AGI, artificial general intelligence, and very soon, with quantum computing coming on board, ASI, artificial superintelligence—humans at that point in time will not be able to surpass digital superintelligence. As algorithms and computing power improve, AI will exceed biological intelligence by a large margin. This progression has been framed by AI experts as inevitable.

When we bridge that to our verse today, Genesis 35:1, God is not asking or calling Christians just to keep up. He is calling us to go up.

Genesis 35:1 says, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.” Not go up to Babel. Go up to Bethel.

This is not merely a geographical instruction. This is a spiritual call. Because Babel is human beings trying to reach for God without God. Bethel, on the other hand, is the place where God meets man—in this case, Jacob.

Presently, Jacob is in Shechem. So this is a call to return, a call to reset: leave distraction behind, leave compromise, leave self-reliance, and return to the place where Jacob once encountered God.

There are three main points: arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there.

1. Arise

A Call to Wake Up from Babel Thinking

Jacob had encountered God before. Bethel was not new to him. But unlike humanity at Babel, something shifted between Genesis 28 and Genesis 35. Life happened with Jacob. Success happened. Family happened. Compromise happened. And slowly, subtly, spiritually, he drifted—not away from religion, not away from activity, but away from the presence of God.

Is this not exactly where many of us are today? And I speak for myself as well. Drifting away from the presence of God most of the time because of the pace of the industry, the pace of society.

We are surrounded by intelligence. We are surrounded by systems that promise insight—amazing insights, predictions of what is to happen, control. And the word that happens in our industry is always this: optimization. All these are good words. But at the same time, when we look at ourselves, we could be spiritually asleep.

We wake up in the morning, and very often the maturity of our faith is defined by how we handle the first ten minutes of our mornings. We check our phones. Social media. We scroll for updates. Some of us listen to voices like podcasts, TikToks, even sermons—and I get a lot of fake sermons being forwarded to me. Even AI-generated insights. You do not know whether they are true or fake.

So when God says, “Arise,” He is saying, “Wake up from the Babel instinct in us, the instinct to want to adopt technology, the instinct inside us.” Because we can be surrounded by all this intelligence and still be spiritually asleep.

Before God tells Jacob to go anywhere, He first tells him to wake up: arise. Because you cannot return, restore, or rebuild until you first arise.

We have just celebrated Easter. I always say this to my Bible study groups over the years, and I say this again. Most of you would have heard it anyway, but I am going to repeat it: if Christ would rise from the dead, surely you and I can rise from our beds.

And that is exactly it. Arise. Wake up.

When was the last time we truly heard God when we woke up? “Arise” is not a suggestion. It is divine interruption. God is saying to Jacob, “You have stayed too long where you are. Wake up.”

At Babel, humanity said, “Let us make a name for ourselves.” But at Bethel, God says, “I will bless you. I will reveal Myself to you. I will be your God.”

Do not click on your phones. Do not check your social media. I am speaking with you. I will be your God.

And that is what it is: arise. Wake up.

2. Go Up to Bethel

A Call to Reorder Our Lives

God does not just say, “Arise.” He says, after waking up, “Go up to Bethel.”

Not all going up is the same in the Bible. Babel is going up without God. Bethel is going up toward God.

On the map, Bethel was higher. But this is not just a physical thing. It is a spiritual perspective. God was calling Jacob to leave what was familiar, comfortable, and compromised—where he was—and move to something holier.

At Babel, man builds upward. And I think in many ways we build our careers, and as we reflect on our paths and our journey, while we build upward outwardly, inwardly as Christians we may be collapsing. At Bethel, God is saying, “Come up,” and inwardly you can be restored.

AI is helping us optimize everything: faster decisions, smarter workflows, better predictions. But optimization is not the same as spiritual transformation. We can improve our lives without ever elevating our souls.

And here is the tension today. AI is teaching us how to go up—up in our careers, faster; up in our knowledge, smarter—but not necessarily to be filled with wisdom. AI can help us and teach us how to go up more effectively and efficiently. AI can also increase our influence, which is why being an influencer on social media is such a big thing, at least among the young ones.

But it cannot teach us how to go up humbly. It cannot teach us how to go up spiritually. It cannot teach us how to go up faithfully. Because you can ascend technologically and still descend spiritually.

So God says to Jacob: before you go up physically, you must go up spiritually. And that requires something: put away the foreign gods.

That is a subject for your CEP discussion later. Because you cannot go up to Bethel while still living in Babel.

In Jacob’s case, as I mentioned earlier, it is Shechem. In Genesis 35, Jacob does something very decisive. He told his household, “Put away the foreign gods. Purify yourselves. Change your garments.” In other words, before they went up, they cleaned house.

Back to us in this level of conversation: what needs to be put away in our lives? Hidden dependencies. What are you depending on? Quiet compromises that nobody knows. Digital distractions that have become devotions.

We cannot go up to Bethel while holding on to the idols of Shechem.

Today, not all idols are statues. Some are screens on our mobile devices. Some are voices—TikTok, YouTube, chatbots. Some are systems that we trust more than God.

So the question is, as we reflect on this simple verse: what needs to be put away? What needs to be surrendered? What needs to be reordered?

3. Dwell There

A Call to Abide in God’s Presence

And finally, the last point: dwell there.

This means leaving the Babel mindset, the technological mindset that thinks self-sufficiency is enough without God, substituting AI and making it the savior of your life. Here, God is asking us to abide in Him.

God does not say, “Come visit Bethel.” God did not say, “Come experience Bethel,” or “Pass through.” He says, “Dwell there.”

And this is the hardest part, because it is easier to visit God than to dwell with Him. Many people attend services, feel moments of spirituality, experience spiritual highs. But God is not calling Jacob to a moment. He is calling him to a dwelling.

Jacob had visited Bethel before, but now God says, “Do not just visit again. Come live here.”

Today, many believers all over the world visit God on Sundays. They visit God during crisis. They visit God when they need answers. But they do not dwell.

Babel is the temporary achievement of men. Bethel is the lasting presence of God. Babel is all about building, striving, achieving, dispersing. Bethel reminds us that it is about abiding. It is about encountering God. It is about surrendering. And it is about staying with God and not being glued to your digital devices.

And here is the danger today. AI is shaping us into Babel people again: always producing, always optimizing, always moving, always upgrading, but never dwelling.

AI gives us instant answers. Ask anything, anytime, and you get an immediate response. And slowly we begin to treat God the same way—as if He were a system. Quick prayers. Occasional check-ins. Transactional faith. And we move on. With God, it becomes like concierge service: ask, receive, prayers answered, move on. It is no longer about dwelling.

But God is not an on-demand system. He is not an algorithm. He is not a tool. He is not a process. He is a dwelling place.

To dwell means you build your life around His presence. God is not looking for visitors. He is looking for dwellers.

Talking about visitors, if you follow the news of big church movements in the West, a lot of them are collapsing for various reasons. One of the main reasons is this: the congregations are visitors, not dwellers. And certainly, based on numerous surveys, they are not disciples. They are there to be entertained.

When faith and services in many of these churches become marketing-led and consumer-driven, they lose their sense of the holy. These churches are shaped not just by what God said, but by what people preferred as a result of their marketing-led services.

So the language begins to change. Sermons become messages. Sanctuaries become auditoriums. Congregations become audiences, because they do not want to use archaic terms associated with boring old analog intelligence, as people might say.

Worship shifts. Practically all hymns are replaced by projected lyrics on screen. We do not see organs anymore. Organs are replaced by bands. Liturgy is replaced by flow.

More importantly, entertainment architecture—physical architecture—in many churches in the West, and even in Europe, has changed. Crosses are reduced. Stained glass is removed. Spaces are redesigned for comfort and accessibility. Atmospheres are created like venues that the next generation would want to come to.

The intention was good. It was outreach. But the unintended consequence was this: when everything is designed for comfort, nothing feels sacred anymore. And when nothing feels sacred, worship slowly becomes entertainment.

Bethel reminds us that Jacob did not meet God in a comfortable auditorium. He met God at a place of awe, fear, promise, and covenantal conversation.

Jacob responded when he met God there. He said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Bethel restores. The house of God restores reverence. It is about us returning to reverence.

In Genesis 28, with which you are familiar, let me just read to you how Bethel came about. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 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.”

Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head—fairly uncomfortable—and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel.

And that is how it came about. So we should return to Bethel, a place of reverence.

It is not just about cheap styles adopted by churches. It is deeper. Sometimes, as we examine ourselves, it is about a very slow drift—from encounter to digital experiences, from altar of worship to platforms like Instagram and Facebook, from presence to performance in church, from disciples to consumers of content.

And when the drift continues long enough, something breaks. People may still attend, but they stop encountering God. And that is a real loss. People begin to ask, “What are we really here for?” This is what happens when purpose is defined externally, marketing-led instead of spiritually.

And this is exactly why Bethel matters. Because Bethel is where identity is formed. It is where Jacob learned who God is, who he is as Jacob, and what covenant means. And God says, “Go back there,” not because Jacob forgot the geography, but because he needed to rediscover his identity before God.

At Babel, man reaches upward but loses God. At Bethel, we return upward and find God.

Now imagine a future not too far from now, where AI becomes so advanced, so responsive, so personal, that it knows exactly what to say to you. It comforts you. It guides you in parenting. It advises you.

Sometimes it is not entertainment we are seeking, but companionship. WhatsApp forwards, YouTube devotionals and stories, late-night scrolling—it becomes your companion.

These platforms, these digital spaces, are incredibly effective at what they do. They are always accessible. They never go dark. They offer continuous engagement. They connect through stories—real, unfiltered, relatable life stories. They speak to emotions: self-doubt, pressure, identity, belonging. And because of that, people see themselves in those spaces.

I have a friend who is autistic. He went to one of these sites and told me, “Uncle Boon Yew, I did not realize these chatbots know me better than my parents.” It is scary, right?

They feel understood. They feel accompanied. Over time, engagement becomes attachment. Attachment becomes emotional connection. And emotional connection becomes formation of the character of the person.

In other words, when we return repeatedly to something, what we return to begins to shape us. We are not just consuming content. We are being formed by what we dwell in.

And this is why the language of Scripture matters so deeply. God calls His people not just to visit Him, but to dwell with Him. Because whatever we dwell in will shape our inner being, our soul.

For the younger audience here, those leaning into questions of identity—which is a very big thing—and the pressure of the world and relatability: suicides are up, because once they get cancelled, dropped, or unfriended on social media sites in the West at least, suicide rates are going up.

So the young ones are not wrong for wanting something real, something honest, something that understands them. But we must pivot. The deepest understanding of your life is still found with the God who created you, not in those digital spaces. The One who knows you fully, who knows all of us fully, is inviting us to go back.

And perhaps the greatest danger today is not that AI becomes God, but that we repeat Babel in a new form: intelligence without humility, progress without the presence of God, and power without God.

And one day, without realizing it, you no longer seek God because something else is always speaking. But here is the strategy: the voice may be intelligent, it may be helpful, it may even feel comforting, but it is not holy. It is not sovereign. And it is not God.

And into that world, God speaks: “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.” Not Babel. Bethel.

Conclusion

So today, the question is not how advanced AI will become, or how super-intelligent humanity will build. The question is this: Will we keep building Babel, or will we return to Bethel?

The base question is: How anchored are you in God?

God’s invitation is very simple this morning:

Arise — wake up from Babel thinking. Wake up from drift.
Go up — return to God-centered living. Reorder our lives.
Dwell there — abide in His presence.

Do not build towers of intelligence and, in the process, forget God.

So if you sense distance, if you sense distraction in your life, if you sense drift in your life, hear His voice again: Arise, go up, dwell there.

Prayer

Lord, even as we acknowledge that our hearts are often drawn to many places, and that many voices compete for our attention and affection, today we hear Your call afresh: arise, go up, and dwell with Thee.

Teach us, Lord, to return to You, not out of duty but out of desire. Reorder our affections. Re-anchor our lives. Help us to dwell in Your presence daily and not just visit You occasionally.

And in doing so, form in us a faith that is steadfast, that is deep, and that is whole. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.