because I have born him six sons. So she named him Zebulim. Sometime later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel.
He listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant, gave birth to a son, and said God has taken away my disgrace. She named him Joseph and said, may the Lord add to me another son. Father, we pause before you because we recognize that in your word, we find a story that surprises us.
And yet we relate sometimes so well to the way life seems to truly be. We pray that she would enable us to recognize that which are the things in which you have prescribed for us, and to distinguish between the things that we have tended to add to the dimensions of your beautiful and precious plan for life. Help us Lord to not only recognize how that sometimes our thoughts get in the way of your plan and purpose, we pray that we would recognize what's important is to find our faith and trust in you. Teach us Lord in Jesus name, amen.
Jacob was born with a grasp upon his brother's heel, and he grew up as a grabber most of his life. He was one that sometimes could not quite distinguish between when it was his desire to grab something, and when his desire as well was to trust God, and reach or grab the things that really matter in life. He even stole his brother's birthright, he deceived him by obtaining the family blessing, and now Jacob has begun to reap what he says. His uncle, Laban, had deceived him in by giving Jacob the wrong daughter on his wedding night, and now Leah and Rachel are constantly grabbing at each other's lives in a way that demonstrates jealousy and lots and lots of family drama.
It's interesting when you look at this, that we can kind of chuckle about it, thinking this is absolutely amazing. We have 12 children born, and each one of them is named out of a statement against the other one. Each one was in a sense of competition. Each one was in this drama of two sisters fighting for the love of one man.
At the other hand, we kind of cringe thinking, how does this work in life? How are some of our interpretations of life, or maybe even our thoughts of what God has blessed, we get confused sometimes because we don't always know the difference between the results of our own grabbing, and our ability to trust God that he indeed is truly sovereign? To begin to appreciate these scriptures, we must honestly receive them as words of wisdom that come from God, but we must at the same time recognize there are a few sacred principles in interpreting the word that God has preserved for us. The first thing that I think is somewhat evident when you get to know a little bit about Jacob's background, and you look at the life of Rachel and Leah, and the more you learn about them, you realize that some things in life, we have inherited because we are a certain character, or a personality that God has to deal with us by, in essence, giving us what we truly are really like.
Jacob being a grabber, he was one that believed that the way you attain in life is you control the process. And so we find that he kind of inherits two wives that seemingly are demonstrating the same kind of battles. It's difficult sometimes for us to understand that when God is moving in and through our lives, as much as we may have come to certain points of some kind of change in life, you and I must understand a principle in life is that God doesn't always simply answer us the way we want, but he involves himself in a way that is ultimately good for us. The sewing and reaping principle works sometimes for us, and sometimes it works against us.
We're taught in scriptures, for example, the principle of giving generously to the things that are of God, and he will reward us proportionately, that is a kind of a positive sewing and reaping, but there's also the time that when you and I have learned to maybe do some things in a manipulative way in getting ahold of God and getting him to give us what we want, sometimes he matches that with a blessing that later on you'll say, oh, that one was a little costly. And so we've learned in the story of here. So here are two wives that are constantly competing at each other, and it's all over this love thing, and I'm not sure quite how that operates, and I'm not so sure it was certainly God's plan that he ended up with these two wives. But one thing is Jacob wasn't quitting until he got all that he wanted, and now, as you look at this portion of the 29th chapter and 30th, you wonder if he started to say, you know what, God, I am really, really sorry.
21 years, working to attain, and seven more years, trying to figure out how to get away. And so 21 years of his life, he has had to deal with this family of origin that has begun to be an interesting complexity in his life. The second thing we must humbly consider pertaining to the wisdom that God can teach us, particularly out of stories like these, is that God's heavy hand of discipline is not to bring harm to his people or to put us in place, but God's discipline is always motivated by the power of his love. It's important to know that even though Jacob, in essence, inherited a little bit of his own kind of manipulative concepts, and he began to experience the turmoil of reaping what he sows, but you and I must understand when God ultimately steps him, it's not because he's gonna get even, or prove some kind of point, it's the discipline of love.
Turn with me to the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, and we need to humbly consider this. What we see in the story there in Genesis is both of the sisters not only looked at life and experienced children or the fruit of their own little drama going on, but they named each of their children in the basis of the way they perceived things work. And it's interesting that they credit God as being involved in this mess. Now God obviously is involved in the drama that you and I find ourselves involved.
We ultimately know that children are a gift from God, but sometimes through the drama that life creates, we find ourselves reaping some of the consequences that really wasn't God's perfect plan and will for life, they become what is called the permissive will of God. You could imagine when you look at life and you realize the currents and trends of people, the way they think, some of the things that you and I have been involved in, it might have a tendency to assume that, well, of course, it happened, therefore, it's God's plan or will. On the other hand, you and I realize that the direction of our own nation, sometimes the direction of our own families, is not always God's perfect plan and will. We have added to the complication of life's challenges.
God really has his hands full by choosing to call us as people and it's important to know that we're going to gain wisdom from the Bible. We need to be careful to assume or to pre-assume that somehow everything Leah said in this story or interpretation or Rachel said is what God truly said. It's simply reporting their thoughts, their values, their principles, and out of their drama, they have allowed God's thoughts to be communicated in the story. And so that's what you and I need to understand about the scriptures and the discernment about them is that not necessarily God's plan because he ultimately has 12 kids to do it.
It's because you and I need to realize that we can create some real challenges in life. What's important is that we understand, if you and I have a tendency to try to get ahead of God and we try to force God or to twist God's armor, to create God's history for him, you and I are going to reap some of those consequences. And the way God often begins to do that is sometimes he says, if that's what you want, you can have it. So Jacob now is thinking, ooh, this is going to be interesting.
It doesn't say much about Jacob and all that little drama. You notice that? That's like I find it somewhat humorous because I'm not stuck in his issues at this particular time, but I can't imagine two wives constantly in that kind of competition. Imagine being Solomon.
Hebrews chapter 12 verses five through 11. We need to understand when God ultimately intervenes in life and he begins to formulate his purpose and plan is we might reap a little bit of what we have sown, but the same time when God gets involved in turning up the heat a little bit, it's really because he loves us. Hebrews chapter 12 verses five and six. And then we'll read a couple more here.
And you have forgotten that the word of encouragement that addresses you as sons, my son do not make light to the Lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines those he loves. And he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Now you can read on later on in Hebrews 12 and discover a little bit more, but it's important to know that God is not in the sense going to beat us into submission. He's going to love us by a heavy hand in life.
And so it's books like, or chapters like Genesis 29 and 30 that constantly remind us to put our faith in trust and God is a good thing to do. And to try to manipulate and allow drama in our lives to enter in, to try to force things to happen is not what's pleasing to God. And God will deal with that. He doesn't reject us, he doesn't throw us out, he doesn't say I'm finished with you, fortunately.
But he works through those circumstances to bring about a change of art. So that ultimately when Jacob goes back to the promised land, he begins to find himself looking up to God. Now I think one of the real clinchers is that Rachel's son, Joseph, the one born, when she ultimately receives this, becomes the real breaking point in Jacob's life. His son is sold to Egypt.
In other words, he wreaks what he says. It's a hard life to miss some of the wisdom that God wants to give. And even in that hardness and that heaviness of life, and in the grieving and breaking things that would go through the challenges of life, ultimately God can bring us to a place where we become beautiful and humble and tender in his sight. And this becomes the fabric of the people of God, the beginning stages where God ultimately works.
The third thing we often need to consider when we look at scriptures, particularly the ones that don't neatly fit the way we might have a tendency to look at life, is that if by chance we find a way to manipulate or force circumstances to get our way, it does not mean that this is always the will of God. If we go back to Genesis 29 and 30, we need to, in essence, trust. Somehow that God has worked all things together for his good. But that does not mean God's plan was all things that have happened in your life and mine.
You and I are well aware that we have a freedom in life. You and I can make choices on our own. We can decide things. We can create destinies for some people, and we can make life interesting for others.
That doesn't necessarily mean it was God's plan. It just means that God is able to redeem even the ignorance or foolishness of our own drama. So we look in verses three through eight, for example, in Genesis chapter 30, we'll go back there. Notice Rachel is, then Rachel said, in chapter 30, verse three, here is Billha, my maid servant, sleep with her so that she can bear children from me, and that through her, I too can build a family.
So he gave him her servant Billha as a wife, Jacob slept with her, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Then Rachel said, God has vindicated me. He has listened to my police because of this, she named him Dan, and later on she has another one. In verse eight, then Rachel said, I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.
You realize that if you were to simply take those verses completely out of context, you could have a lot of fun or create a lot of nightmares for yourself. And that's the point that we must consider when we look at scripture is the principles of scripture do not really mean that God supports everything that is written in there. That's not the way you win by having drama with your sister and creating and setting up circumstances. We need to try to understand that when we look at the wisdom of God, we will come up with the wise answers.
But some of the stories simply report that this is what is sowing and reaping all about. If we create ideas and thought patterns that are taken out of the context of scripture, you and I could prove or endorse anything we want, but it does not mean God is going to bless those things. God is able to redeem even our fullness and craziness of life. God can bring us through all kinds of circumstances, but Jacob had to learn the hard way, and so does Rachel.
Look here at chapter 30 and verse 24. Genesis chapter 30 verses verse 24. She named him Joseph and then said, may the Lord add to me another son. Now if we look at Genesis 29 and verse, no wait, I lost my train of thought.
What? We're gonna have to skip it. Later on we find that Benjamin is born that she dies in giving birth. That is her next son.
I lost the scripture. It's important to know that Rachel was of a much stronger personality even than Jacob in trying to break them and they touched her life and they quickly said her own type of text and reeled that particular story, and the name or explicate. We'll assume that God's seen thing the way it actually in scripture. It doesn't mean that God is in, or so just that these are the ways that are communicated, the thoughts and the leah.
So let's move on to recognize how do we need wisdom and how do we find wisdom or how do we use this? We can get into a problem. A problem. A problem that God has to stop us from.
Rachel particularly in this case, in drama, realize is that you and I potentially can come up with a lot of foolish thoughts all by ourselves. No matter how long you've been talking to scripture, there is no place that you can go. There is no place where you can sit down, take a long breath and not worry about life. Everyone is regardless of who we are or how long we've been following the money for a second.
And because of that, it's because of the fact that on a relationship that's active and vibrant and consistent and day by day, you and I, how much hardly always understand that we need to learn how to continually be taught all the way through life. It'd be nice to look at the stories of these great individuals of faith and say they have reached a place that we can all step into. We can follow in the footsteps of this place where we were students. Let me just tell them chapter 25.
Talk about it. Talk about it. They're sharing to people they know that end up in trouble and end up with serious problems. And some of these people say, well, I don't know about it because they're pastors.
And so every time there's a new shock wave that comes and another individual falls for some kind of deceptive trick of the enemy or someone else, I'm going to tell you this whole time. I'm talking about it in life times because deception has whispered in to the ear of someone who is not careful about their heart and not careful about the direction of their life. Somehow deception has gotten the best. Some 25 of verses four and five are, I trust would be something I cherish and humbly consider yourself.
Show them to you. Guide me in your truth and teach me. For you, God my hope is in you all day long. Versus eight to nine.
Good and upright is the Lord. Their sinners in his guide is the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. It's important to be in deceived is always there. And the draw of life.
Now maybe you don't have a sister that's in constant competition. You'll have these voices and all that chatter going on in your life. But no doubt, wherever you live in whatever direction you want your life, there is that kind of drama going on. There's those kinds of influences and those kind of tactics and those kind of thought process.
They come from the left, the right, they come from TV or the internet or wherever it is. There's always these voices that somehow we must learn how to weigh them. We must interpret what to listen continually to and what to shut it off. There's all kinds of influences.
So the drama isn't simply about a story in Genesis 29, but that drama is all around us all the time. It's constantly going on. I was listening to Ravi Zacharias as my wife has gotten me tuned in on him and they say he's coming to the state college soon. And I thought, you know, this guy is so deep and so profound.
I couldn't handle him live. I gotta listen to it about 10 times in a row because he's so profound and so deep, but he's so real. And he's communicating a message that in our generation, we don't typically think anymore. And I thought, well, that's kind of bold and whatever.
But he's trying to help us realize that as Christians, we sort of have a oversimplified view of God and how to follow him and how to walk with him. And we need to once again discover the beauty of death. Now that death cannot simply happen because we tap into God a little bit once in a while is that you and I humbly say, Lord, you teach me and believe in me to be a student of you. If we've gotten to the place where we've lost the search, we've lost the desire to know more about God and to understand his ways, deception will come knocking on your door.
It's easy to find ourselves in trouble. And so we must learn how to be taught by God and constantly taught by God and that influence. The second thing that goes together with that is in chapter 32. I was talking with somebody not too long ago and they had mentioned briefly that I was involved at Pyramid and kind of spending some time ministering to some people that have some drug and alcohol challenges in their life.
And right away, this lady insisted on telling me, well, they really need Jesus. And I said, I think we all do. But it's important to know that somehow deception can creep in and give us the impression that we have arrived. We have Jesus and therefore other people based on our interpretation of what's good, bad, and really ugly is that they really need Jesus.
That reminds me several years ago, handing out flyers in the neighborhood. It was sort of the same comment. We were knocking on doors and giving out flyers, hey, if you got any kids, we got a kids program out here and we're going to have animals and petting zoo and all that kind of stuff. And she says, well, I don't have any children.
But those neighbors down there, they really need Jesus. You need to get the flyer down there. I try to kindly say, watch out, Rachel and Leah, your drama isn't always the best answer or solutions to life. You and I need to realize in Psalm 32 that you're talking about a man who was a man after God's own heart, King David.
Now I myself probably wouldn't receive a whole lot of mercy from my wife if I ended up pulling a David thing. And we don't want to minimize what David has done, but I simply want to say it this way. David was a man after God's own heart. And he found himself in a situation that ought to teach the best of us.
Don't think that stuff can't happen to you. So as important as to constantly learn, you better keep close contact with God in that area of confession and forgiveness. Notice here in Psalm 32, the lesson is, he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against them and whose spirit is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sins to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forget the guilt of my sin. Here's my point. Probably before David ended up in trouble looking across the alley or whatever it might be. He was probably on the internet checking out porn.
It's important to know that his thought life probably was gone before he ended up doing what he's done. And so you and I need to realize sin is not so much the measure of the big ones. Sin is often the secret place that no one knows about unless I'm dealing with those little areas of life, the big one isn't gonna be a match for Satan. What often gets people in trouble isn't so much.
The large temptation, it's often the little subtle things that creep in life. You and I need to realize what keeps us close and allows the wisdom of God to begin to work in life is number one, I'm constantly asking God to be my teacher. And therefore I'm humbling myself to say that I need to be taught. But the second thing is that in the concept of compassion, I'm beginning to understand the importance of confessing all the little attitudes and the thoughts and the motives and the compromises that go on before the sin hits the big top 10.
And as you and I are well aware of, we live in a world that well I didn't commit the big ones. Well, be careful. A third thing we need to consider how to have life and look at life in a wise fashion is to consider the blessing of Godly counsel. Turn with me to Proverbs 13.
Proverbs 13. As I was preparing for this, this is what really caused me to stop and think, how do I go about processing this in my own life? I kind of, as some of you know, I kind of live a rather isolated life in my commitment to God. I like the idea of being along with God, I like the idea of listening to God on my own.
I really am not too keen on this council that can come from others, but Jerry has constantly reminded me you know what, we all need to be accountable. So I appreciate that. Look at Proverbs 13 of verses 14, verse 14 and then 20. The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.
And verse 20, he walks with the wise, grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. I was just reading a book on the founders of what's called cross trainers. I don't know if anybody's heard of that. It's a powerful ministry, it's sort of similar to the concept of the older promise keepers, a men's group where they were getting together in larger groups and talking about the real challenges that men face and finding a group of people and say, how are we doing?
It's such important to know that wisdom can be something that God can give us as long as we're teachable, God is a great teacher, and as long as I'm willing to be humble enough to confess that the sin word tendencies and direction of my life, God can restore, we know that. But sometimes even like in my own case is I'm scared to death to lay everything out before everybody. I mean, some of you might actually like me, or you might, you know, whatever my thoughts might be, but none of us likes to get completely vulnerable in front of other people, right? But at some point wisdom is help.
Keep the Jackson balances. So what the book is suggesting is not so much to go for the group that has 25 people and try to be vulnerable in front of 25, this is to open yourself, but pray to God that God would give someone else that you can completely confide in. You and I need a wisdom that comes and bounces off of others. As much as we might believe we're hearing from God about what God has to say and we might be listening to God saying we're truly teachable sometimes, even in the settings of learning, we don't always get it.
There's someone that must evaluate or help you say, you know what, I know that you believe that this is what God wants you to do, or I know that the direction of your life seems to be one that you feel very comfortable with, but somehow there's some missing pieces, okay? There really wasn't a whole lot of opportunities, I guess I believe during Jacob's day. I don't know how the one wife is jealous with the other one. She said, well here take my maid sermon.
I mean, this guy isn't very bright. I mean, now he's really got a complicated mess. He's got a drama, four of them instead of two of them. And it goes on and on and on.
But you know, and then you get to Solomon. I mean, these guys are really brilliant. I mean, but somehow they come up with this. I do believe we've got an advantage though when we follow Jesus Christ, because Jesus not only came and was able to give truth in more of a personal way, but he blessed us with the Holy Spirit that is enabling us to experience conviction that comes directly from God.
So we don't want to simply assume that everything resources that God has given us today are necessarily equivalent to all the resources back then, but you and I need to realize the primary point to the message is if we do not have a helper teaching us, whether it is God directly or a brother that loves me enough tell me like it is. You and I can easily make decisions and convince ourselves it's really God. If we don't have that kind of a spiritual foundation working in our lives, it's easy to end up in trouble. And the scriptures encourage us to join together and to fellowship with one another and to continue to help each other in the process.
And that is why God has gifted us with so many different unique gifts that come from him and wisdom that he gives us in life to help us get to know the Lord together as a unit. Let's pray. Father, we are humbled by the reality that some of the greatest individuals in the Bible have really made a lot of problems. And we pray, God, that you would not allow that to be some kind of an excuse for us to be careless, help us to realize the consequences of some of these mistakes will simply destroy our lives.
Yet we pray, God, that you would redeem the time that we have and the strength that we still yet can apply. And we pray that you would protect us, you would lead us and you would bless us, forgive us for the times that we simply assume because we found a verse that seemingly sounds good to us, forgive us for using it in places that really doesn't belong. We thank you Lord, that you didn't quit with Jacob and you're not gonna quit with us. We pray that you would continue to do a work in his life to bring about a quality that we can understand can take place in our own, in Jesus name, amen.
God bless you, have a great day.