Faithful Then, Faithful Now | A Picture of Sin's Ugliness - Genesis 29(Apr 30) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you guys have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, you can open them up to Genesis chapter 29.

Genesis 29 · chapter mention

I was driving from Toronto across the 401 to my home in Oshawa last uh yesterday, and the Lord in the traffic, talk about suffering, okay?

In the traffic, God gave me maybe an illustration of what he wants to accomplish in us this morning.

Um I was driving, and you know on the 401 there's the collectors and the express, and you have to kind of play a game when there's traffic, don't you?

You have to choose which one is gonna be faster.

And so I actually have an app that I've spoken about many times that I love called Waze that actually tells you which one's gonna be faster.

And so I pretty much adhere to this 100% of the time.

I will not deviate from what Waze tells me to do.

If it tells me to drive in someone's backyard, I will tear the fence down and go through their backyard.

And so I was following Waze and we were in the collectors, and my daughter, it's it's it's kind of one of those interesting seasons in her life where she's noticing things that like she's never noticed before.

But she looked over to the express and she said, Dad, I wish we were in that on that road.

And I said, Listen, okay, listen.

You don't know your dad well enough yet because I never get this wrong.

I have this app that a whole bunch of other people have taken the wrong road and they've ended up waiting because of it.

They'd ended up stuck in traffic because they don't know what I know.

They don't know that in about 30 seconds, which it was about a minute that this happened, this road is gonna clear and we're gonna be flying through past all these losers, okay?

And it was a learning moment for my daughter.

It really wasn't.

She's gonna forget it, she probably already has.

But it was a learning moment for it that we can learn from the mistakes of other people.

And I'm so glad that I have this app that shows me that.

And what we're gonna do this morning is just that on a much more significant level.

As we look, continue to journey with Jacob through the work that God is doing in his midst, what we are gonna find this morning is that Jacob's sin, the scoundrel that Jacob is, it is gonna catch up with him.

You could title this passage of scripture, maybe this sermon, aptly by calling it what goes around comes around.

And Jacob, as he seeks to find a wife, he is gonna meet Jacob 2.0.

As much as Jacob has deceived, he will be deceived in return.

And there's a proverb in Proverbs 21, 11.

The writer of this proverb says this when a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise.

When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise.

In other words, what God says is that if you're wise, if you have biblical wisdom, what's gonna happen in your life is you're gonna look at people who are being disciplined and look at their life, and you're gonna say, I'm gonna learn from that.

I'm not gonna follow their path.

You're gonna see the picture of punishment that's coming on their life because of the way that they've lived, and you're gonna learn from it and live in a way that doesn't lead down that path.

Now, Jacob's life up until this point has been an absolute train wreck.

And in chapter 29, what we're gonna see is that this train wreck is coming to an explosion.

Jacob will experience the destructive power of his ways.

He will experience the damage of his sin.

And as we see this picture of the damage that Jacob experiences because of his sin, each of us right now, in this moment, we need to commit to biblical wisdom.

We need to say, I see what's happening in Jacob's life, and I'm gonna divert my way.

I'm gonna see the picture of ruin and sin and destruction that Jacob has funneled into his life because of the way that he has been living over these last few chapters.

And I'm gonna go the opposite way.

See, as we work through this passage, we're gonna find that Jacob is a scoundrel, that Jacob has invited destruction into his life, and yet God will not give up on him.

And we'll see the ugly picture of sin, and God wants us to see this: that sin is never worth its destruction.

The sin in your life is never worth it.

It only ever invites destruction, it only ever invites damage.

The way that I thought of it was like was like this.

You know, Instagram, you go on Instagram, you take a picture, and you can apply all these different filters on it.

Well, what sin does in your life is it puts a filter over your life, and the filter is destruction, the filter is damage.

The picture that sin creates in your life is an ugly picture.

And so we want to look at it this morning, the ugly picture of sin in Genesis chapter 29.

Genesis 29 · chapter mention

You're gonna work through this passage together this morning.

Now, I want to give you some context.

Jacob's on the run.

He's running for his life, really.

Jacob had spent really his life up until this point.

From his very birth, he had spent deceiving his brother.

This was the ultimate brother versus brother relationship.

And it had boiled to a point in which Jacob had both stolen Esau's, his brother's birthright, and he had stolen his blessing.

And now Esau is after Jacob.

He's out for blood, and Jacob's on the run.

He was told by his mother and father to leave, to run.

Now, in Genesis 28, what we saw last week was that God had a plan for Jacob.

Despite Jacob's sinfulness, despite his weakness, despite the fact that Jacob is a deceiver, God has a plan for him.

He's going to transform him.

And yet, what we find in Jacob is that he is but a child in the faith.

There is much transformation to happen.

So that even though he has had this encounter with God, even though God has said to Jacob, I'm going to be with you, I'm going to accomplish all these things in your life in Genesis 28.

Jacob still does not believe.

And there's little growth in his life.

And my hope, my prayer this morning is that as we see the little growth in Jacob's life, my prayer is that no one here is comfortable with little growth in their life.

My prayer is that this morning we leave this place, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, each of us look at our lives, and there's kind of like this this holy dissatisfaction, this holy discontentment with where we are and where we know we could be because the Holy Spirit's presence among us.

So we want to see this picture of sin, the ugly picture of sin in Genesis 29.

Well, if you're taking notes, I want you to write down this.

We see the danger of the wrong response.

Now, one of the uh sweetest things that I've been learning as I've been walking through the book of Genesis is the profound parallelism that goes through the entire book.

All throughout the book, Moses, as he's writing this, is drawing parallels in our mind so that when we read of one character, we think of another.

Think about Esau and Ishmael.

There's all sorts of carryover.

As you compare these two men, there's all sorts of carryover in their lives.

Consider Rachel and Rebekah, or Abraham and Isaac.

Well, here in this passage in Genesis 29, as Jacob goes on a journey to find a wife for himself, what we'll find is that this isn't the first time in Genesis that someone has gone on a long journey in order to find a wife for someone.

You'll remember that Abraham had sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac.

And the servant of Abraham went in the place of Abraham, really as a substitute for Abraham, to the exact same place that we find Jacob going, and he was successful in his mission in finding a wife.

And so we read in Genesis 29, verse 1, it says, Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.

Genesis 29:1

And in this moment, our mind needs to go right back to the servant of Abraham who went to the very same place, to the very same person looking for a wife for Isaac.

The question for us, it's really been a question throughout all of Genesis, is this Is Jacob going to learn from the previous encounter that the Abraham servant had with Laban?

See, this servant of Abraham, he was successful in his mission.

He depended like no one else in Genesis has.

This servant, this unnamed servant, depended on God, and because of that, he was successful.

So the question for Jacob then is: are you gonna look at that story?

Are you gonna look at the success that that servant had and just model him?

Jacob, God had just told you in Genesis 28, he will be with you, he will keep you.

So you know what?

All you have to do is stay close to God.

God's the one who's gonna fight for Jacob.

So the question for Jacob is, is he gonna learn from Scripture?

Is he gonna be successful on this mission because he's looking to Scripture to find out how to live, to find out what he should do?

Now, most of you likely know that the answer is no.

But this brings up a profound point for us of application.

See, the point for us is this.

Are you going to learn from Scripture?

Are you gonna learn from Scripture?

God has revealed to us in this book everything.

He says everything that you need to know in order that you might be equipped for a life of godliness.

You have been given everything that you need to know in order to live a life of pure holiness and devotion to Him.

And yet, so many of us, what we find is that we find like scripture is not relevant for us.

And the reason we find that is because we're looking for like God's specific will for our lives.

We're opening up scripture and we're saying, well, you know, I'm wondering if I need a new job.

God, would you tell me that if I need this new job?

I'm wondering if I should marry this person.

God, would you tell me if I should marry this person?

You know, what we find in scripture is that this isn't like a direction book that's gonna tell you every specific way to go.

In fact, instead, what God's desire for you is that you know how to live.

That you know what it look a life looks like that brings glory to him.

This is why in 1 Thessalonians Paul says this.

He says, the will of God is this, and all our ears should perk up.

Anytime someone says the will of God for your life is this, our ears should perk up and we should say, What is it?

What do you want me to do?

Because if God tells me to do something, I'm gonna do it.

And you know what God says?

The will of God for your life is this your sanctification, your sanctification, your holiness, your devotion.

See, God's will for your life is more in how you live and not in the specific direction that you go.

And the question for Jacob is this how are you going to live?

While Jacob's journey will not be like the servants, where the servants will will journey was successful in finding Abraham, a wife, and Rebekah, this journey is a failure.

By the end of it, this whole story is completely disastrous.

See, Jacob's sent on this mission, and God has clearly called him on this mission, but the problem is that Jacob responds wrongly to the mission that God had called him to.

Remember in Genesis 28 that it was God who said to Jacob, it was God who said to Jacob, that your offspring will be as numerous as the stars.

Now remember that at that point that God was in the presence of Jacob, and God was saying to Jacob, your offspring will be numerous as the stars.

Jacob was a single man.

And so I'm sure that Jacob had a pretty, you know, preliminary understanding of human biology.

And he understood that if God was going to multiply an offspring through him, well, then he needed a wife.

If God was going to accomplish his promise, if God was going to bring that to fulfillment, God needed to provide him a wife.

And so then God promises Jacob in chapter 28, then I will be with you and I will keep you.

What God's saying to Jacob is, I'm going to do all of the work.

All that you need to do is respond rightly.

God told him he would do everything, and yet here we find Jacob is seeking to do everything himself.

What we're going to find in this story is that response is important.

Jacob had just had an encounter with God.

Jacob had just been in the presence of God.

Jacob had just had the covenant confirmed in the presence of God, and yet he will respond wrongly.

And I can't help to think of so many of our lives.

So many of us hear so much information about God.

We sit under a sermon like this and we hear the word of God proclaimed.

We sing songs that hold theological truth and we proclaim these words ourselves.

We even get our heads into the Bible itself and we read God's revelation and we're taking in so much information, but I'm reminded through the life of Jacob that it doesn't matter what you know if you will not live on the foundation of that information.

See, the most important thing for you is that you respond rightly to God's word.

It is better to know a sentence of God's revelation that you respond rightly to than it is to know all of God's revelation that you do not respond rightly to.

Response is the most important thing.

That's why one of my prayers for this church is that we become a church whose culture is a what are you gonna do about it culture.

You know what I mean by a what are you gonna do about it culture?

What I mean by that is that we constantly ask each other the question, so what?

We constantly ask the question, how is this gonna change your life?

Because we understand that the most important thing about reading God's word is not filling our mind with information, that's important, but the most important thing is application of God's word.

It's our response to God's word.

And so one of the ways that we can best serve other people is by pointing them to the very thing that they need to do.

And so you're with someone who maybe their challenge is just read getting regularly into God's word.

So, you know, I've had a really hard time reading God's word, I just keep getting distracted.

You know what your immediate question is?

So, what are you gonna do about it?

So, what are you gonna do about it?

So what?

How are you going to respond to the truth that you know you need God's word?

I thought about it like this.

Like many of us, many of us know how to live a healthy life, don't we?

Many of us know the foods that we need to eat, many of us know that we need to exercise, we know what we're supposed to do.

The problem is that it's just so hard to do it, isn't it?

See, if you won't respond rightly to the foods that you should eat, if you won't respond rightly to the fact that you need to work out and and exercise, you'll never live a life that is healthy.

And it's true of our spiritual life as well.

Response is the most important thing.

How you respond to God's word.

That's why we we as a church, in our service, we really value response.

Every time we preach God's word, we always sing a song afterwards.

And you might not know this, but that song is handpicked.

Joel and I talk about it.

We work together to pick that song because we want to provide you an opportunity to hear God's word and then respond to God's word.

We want to provide you an opportunity to hear God's word and said, God, and say, God, I'm declaring through singing, this is how I'm gonna live in light of your word.

Because it's the response, that's the most important thing.

Now, Jacob's failure and response comes in multiple ways.

Firstly, I want you to see that it's a it's a failure to depend on God's presence.

Remember that in Genesis 28, Jacob was told, I will be with you and I will keep you.

But look at what happens in Genesis 29.

It says in verse 1 that he came to the people of the east, and then I'm going to read from verse 2 to verse 4.

It says, As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it.

For out of that well the flocks were watered.

The stone on the well, well's mouth was large.

And when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well.

Now Moses is giving us a little hint here about what's going on in the passage, and he's doing that by using the word place in verse 4.

If you are a student of Genesis 28, then the word place is kind of like a swear word to you.

Like you hear that word and you're like, oh, Jacob's messing up again.

Because you'll remember from last week that Jacob was like too obsessed with the place.

Jacob had met with God.

And God had said to Jacob, I'm gonna be with you.

And then Jacob wakes up and he can't stop talking about the place.

And it's like God wants to shake him and say, it's not about the place, it's about the person.

But Jacob's obsessed with the place.

And what we find here still is that Jacob's obsessed with this well.

Jacob is still obsessed with the place.

Nothing has changed in Jacob's life.

He's not depending on God's presence.

When God said that the most important thing for him is that he understands that God is with him, Jacob is still looking for a place.

He's missed the point.

Now, contrast this with what you'll remember from the servant of Abraham.

When the servant of Abraham goes on this long journey and he finds a well, do you know what he does immediately?

He prays.

He prays.

He seeks the presence of God.

See, Jacob's failure is in thinking that his success is primarily dependent on doing the right things rather than dependent on having the presence of God.

Let me say that again, because this is so important in your life that you understand this.

Jacob's failure is in thinking that his success was primarily dependent on doing the right things rather than being dependent on having the presence of God.

Now you need to understand how I apply this to my life as a pastor.

See, as I seek along with the elders to lead this church, I understand that the most important feature of this church, the most important truth of this church, is that the presence of God is here.

It's the most important thing.

And yet it is so easy to get caught up with the things that we're doing.

There are whole church conferences built on this idea that the most important thing for your church is that you just do the right things.

And if you just do the right things, then God is gonna grow you and multiply you.

And I understand that you can do some, like you can make some really easy changes to church to get a lot of people in a room.

In many ways, it's kind of easy just to like fill a room with thousands and thousands of people.

You just say what they want to hear.

You start preaching about what people want to hear, you start cutting out parts of God's word so that there's nothing difficult.

You make it easy in a world that is all about comfort and consumerism, you just make the message easy.

But the most important thing, the most important thing is not that the church just does the right things.

The most important thing is that the church is filled with the presence of God.

And Jacob, rather than doing the right things, sorry, rather than seeking the help of God, he's seeking the place again.

And his failure is a failure to depend on God's presence.

Secondly, I want I want you to see this about Jacob's failure in his response.

It's really a failure to act on God's word.

See, Jacob's mission was guaranteed success, wasn't it?

It was guaranteed success because God had promised it.

In Genesis 2028, God had said, I'm gonna do this work in your midst.

I'm gonna be the one who leads you to the land, I'm gonna be the one who causes your people to be a blessing to the nations, I'm gonna be the one who multiplies your offspring, I'm gonna be this one because I will be with you and I will keep you.

But then Jacob here comes, and he's still being his entrepreneurial self.

He's still being his, I'm gonna do it my own way self.

And so look at what he says in verse 4.

It says, Jacob said to them, My brothers, where do you come from?

Now listen, let's do a little rubric, okay?

We're all teachers here and we're grading Jacob.

How good is Jacob as a brother?

It's pretty easy, isn't it?

F.

Anyone in here want to Be Jacob's brother?

Absolutely not.

This man was named after the word cheat.

Okay?

So if we do a baby dedication and we always talk about the baby's names, and one of the babies, their name is Cheat, well, what are you gonna be doing with your kids before the service?

You're gonna be telling them, hey, listen, okay, don't talk to cheat, alright?

Well, that's Jacob's name.

Jacob is not a brother.

If Jacob comes to you and says, Hey, brother, you want to run the other direction.

You do not want to be Jacob's brother.

And here Jacob comes, and that's kind of ironic.

He says, My brothers, where do you come from?

And it's ironic because Jacob's actually about to be treated like the brother that he treats Esau like.

Jacob's gonna be the brother in this story.

So he initiates this conversation with the men.

Again, understand the contrast here.

Where the servant of Abraham comes and he gets on his knees, he's talking with God, Jacob comes, he doesn't get on his knees, and he starts talking with the men.

And it's very interesting that both the servant of Abraham and Jacob, they are provided the very thing they need in the middle of a conversation.

So Jacob says to them in verse 5, Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?

They said, We know him.

And he said to them, Is it well with him?

And they said, It is well.

And see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep.

In the middle of this conversation, Rachel walks in.

This is so instructive for us.

See, the servant of Abraham has his eyes on God.

And he's saying, God, I want, I only want to find a woman if it is the woman that you have chosen.

And here Jacob has his eyes on himself.

And he's saying, he's taking God out of the picture, and he's saying, I'll do this my own way.

And so Rachel comes and he says to these men, He says, Behold, it is still a high day.

It's not time for the livestock to be gathered together.

Water the sheep and go, pasture them.

But they said, We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well, then we will water the sheep.

There's something interesting going on here.

Jacob has shown up to this well.

He has not consulted God in the least bit.

And then a whole bunch of shepherds from the area, they come with their sheep to this well.

And then Jacob, without consulting God, without asking God what he should do, without like the servant asking God for a sign, Jacob starts telling these shepherds how to do their job.

Remember, Jacob has no sheep.

And I'm sure that the reaction of these shepherds to Jacob is, what are you talking about?

Like we have a whole system here.

We know how to take care of our sheep.

It would be like the equivalent of me showing up to work, your workplace one day in the middle of this week, and you'd be like, What are you doing here?

And I sit beside you in the desk and I start telling you, listen, okay?

Let me tell you how to do your job.

I know how to do your job.

And you're looking at me like, listen, you're not a banker, you're not a teacher, you don't do my job, okay?

Stay in your lane, all right, Pastor.

And it's silly because it's true.

I don't know how to do your job unless you're a pastor here.

And this is what Jacob is doing.

Instead of consulting God, asking God what he should do, he's telling these people what to do.

And it's in the middle of speaking to these people in verse 9.

They read that Rachel came out to them.

And we contrast with this with the servant whose eyes are on God.

See, instead of trusting God's word, instead of seeking God's way, Jacob trusts his own way.

I think this is really relevant.

Moses is writing Genesis for the people of Israel in the desert, and it's really relevant because the people of Israel are being told that they're going on a long journey in the desert.

And in Exodus 14, 14, they're told these words God will fight for you.

You have only to be silent.

God will fight for you, you have only to be silent.

And you know what the hardest part of the desert is?

The hardest part of the wandering in the desert for Israel is doing that.

God looks at them and says, You just you don't have to do anything.

Just keep your eyes on me.

Just keep your eyes on me.

Just keep your eyes on the flame that's gonna go in front of you.

Keep your eyes on the cloud that's gonna guide you the way to the way to go.

That's all you need to do.

Don't do anything else.

And yet the people of Israel are like they're like little children that start to fidget.

Well, well, maybe if I do it this way, maybe if I just get more mana than I need for the day, then I can provide more for my family.

And God says, no, you can never do it your own way.

That's why the elders of this church are like slogan as elders is from Chronicles, where the leaders of Israel say, we do not know what we're doing, but our eyes are on you.

And can I ask you if that's true of your life?

Like if we're really living the Christian life, it should be this idea of like, I do not know what I'm doing, but God, my eyes are on you because I'm waiting for your word.

I want to live my life your way.

The hardest part of our lives is to give up our ways to God's way, our wills to God's will.

This is what Jacob fails to do, but I want you to see thirdly that this is a failure to walk on God's path.

It's a failure to walk on God's path.

See, Jacob, he's unwilling to consult the Lord and do things his way, where the servant was very willing to wait on God's leading.

And so Jacob, again in verses 9 and 10, without consulting God, he removes the stone.

In verse 10, it says, Now, as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.

Now it's hard, hard to know exactly what's going on here.

There are some people who interpret Jacob removing the stone as though he's like helping the shepherds here.

As though it's like some sort of Herculean effort.

He lifts up this giant stone that no one could remove before.

And yet it seems to me that these shepherds are coming to this well because they this is kind of like a system they have where they come to this well, maybe they remove the stone themselves, they water the sheep according to their own ways, and yet Jacob has come here and he's kind of inserted himself in these people's lives and said, You're gonna do this my way.

Notice again that when the servant, the servant did everything to make sure that the servant of Abraham did everything to make sure that Rebekah was the one for his master, look at what Jacob does.

He removes the well, and this verse should really shock us.

It says he removes the stone from the rock, then Jacob kissed Rachel.

Now it's been a long time since I've dated, but I think that Jacob is skipping a few steps here.

I think that if maybe you're in the dating scene right now, I think that likely it would be a bit of a turnoff for you if the first thing that a person that you were mildly interested in was came up to you and started kissing you.

And if that wasn't enough of a turnoff, well, look what Jacob does next.

It says he wept.

All that to say Jacob's a little bit of a mess right now.

He's not consulting God, he's moving with haste.

And Moses is doing something for us because the last time, you especially notice this in the original language in the Hebrew, but the last time this word wept was used, it was when Esau was weeping because he had discovered that Jacob had stolen his blessing.

And what Moses is doing here is showing, it's kind of odd, isn't it?

That it should kind of be like this really happy moment, and yet here is Jacob weeping.

And Moses is showing us that just as Jacob has deceived Esau out of his blessing and birthright, Jacob's about to have everything stolen from him.

This woman that his heart that scriptures say loves is about to be taken from him.

And what Moses is showing us is that when we fail in the way Jacob's failed, when we fail to respond, the only thing it does is lead to our own pain.

It only leads to our own pain.

We're seeing a picture here of Jacob's downfall, of his devastation, of the damage that he's invited into his life through sin.

And some of us need to hear this because we don't really think the way that we respond to God's word is important.

We don't think it really changes much whether or not we live according to God's word.

And yet what we're seeing here is that if God's word says something and you don't do it, we're seeing who loses out.

Who loses out on you not living in obedience to God's word?

See, some of us think, well, if I'm obedient to God, I'm losing my freedom.

God's showing us here is that the only person that is losing here is you.

You're inviting destruction into your life.

That's why the second thing that we see as we look at the picture of Jacob's sin is the destruction of looking out for yourself.

The destruction of looking out for yourself.

See, in verse 13, Laban enters the scene.

And this becomes kind of like the most intense wrestling match that you have ever seen.

Because we've been with Jacob, and Jacob has proven that he is a master schemer.

He is masterful at deceit.

And Jacob in meeting Laban really has met his match.

Laban is kind of like Jacob 2.0.

He's like the better version of Jacob.

He can deceive even better than Jacob can.

So look how how Laban comes then.

It says, as soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house.

Jacob told Laban all these things, and Laban said to him, Surely you are bone of and uh surely you are my bone and my flesh.

And he stayed with him a month.

You know what Laban's doing with Jacob?

He's just buttering him up.

Laban is just getting on Jacob's good side.

In fact, the language really points our eyes to this.

When it says that Laban embraced Jacob, it's the same word that's used in Genesis 2.

When it says that the husband is to cleave to his wife.

It's like the most intimate relationship there is.

And Laban is as though he's saying to Jacob, I love you more than anything else in the whole entire universe.

He says to Jacob, You are bone, you are my bone, and you are my flesh.

And you'll remember from Genesis 2 that when Adam finds Eve, that's exactly what he says.

He says, My bone, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

And Laban is buttering Jacob up with this language of intimacy.

And yet what we're going to see from here on out is that the only person that Laban loves is himself.

Laban is completely willing to deceive Jacob.

Laban is completely willing to throw both of his daughters into a horrible family situation, all to look out for his own interests.

As much as Laban can pretend that he loves Jacob, the only person we see Laban love is himself.

Laban is willing in every way to put his own interests before the interests of Jacob and also the interests of his own daughters, Leah and Rachel.

See, what we're going to find is that all of Laban's actions come from a motivation to serve himself.

And what Laban is about to do is to deceive Jacob.

Jacob wants to marry Rachel.

And in the following verses, Jacob will ask to marry Rachel, and Laban will tell Jacob to work for seven, if you work for seven years, I will give you Rachel.

And then as the masterful schemer and deceitful person that he is, when the time comes, in verse 21, for Laban to give Rachel to Jacob, look at what it says.

It says, Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife, that I may go into her, for my time is completed.

It says, So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast.

But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went into her.

Why then have you deceived me?

Now look what Laban says.

Laban's response to this question, which is right of Jacob.

Remember, like sometimes I think we struggle to put ourselves in the text.

Jacob has wasted seven years of his life working for something that never came to fruition.

And Jacob looks back on his life, and like you could imagine the intensity in this conversation.

When Jacob and Laban are talking to each other, the people in the room are like, okay, this room just got really hot and awkward.

Jacob says, How could you deceive me like this?

Look what Laban says.

Well, it's not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn.

You know what Laban says?

He says, I would never give you Rachel first, because then people would, the people in our country, that's just not what they do.

They would look at me and they'd say, Laban, why are you giving Rachel in marriage before Leah?

You gotta marry the older off first.

See, Jacob is, so sorry, Laban has so much fear of man in his heart that he is willing to deceive Jacob for seven years.

He's willing to sell off his own daughter as though she's a slave to Jacob against her will, in order that the people of his country might look to him and say, well, at least he's doing things our way.

We look at that and we say, that's ridiculous.

And yet, so many of us struggle with the same thing.

See, the struggle of Laban is really an intense struggle with people pleasing.

And this is what people pleasing does.

See, people pleasers, they cannot actually love people.

Just like Laban cannot actually love anyone, even his own daughters.

When we live out of the fear of man, if we are people pleasers, we cannot actually love people.

We can only lose or sorry, use people.

Don't you see how that's relevant in the way that we seek to please people?

See, if if your boss's, if your boss's image of you is the most important thing of your life, you will not actually seek to love your boss.

You will seek to use your boss in order that you might get praise from him that will kind of build you up.

And you will act in a way not to actually love your boss, you will act in a way that just sort of uses them as this praise funnel.

You just want praise.

You just want to feel good about yourself.

And so you'll live in a way that's not in that person's best interest, you'll live in a way that is in your best interest because the thing that you want is that person's praise, not actually their best, not actually to love them.

See, when we live to please people, we want to find merit from them.

And so we will use them in order to get their respect, in order to get their merit.

See, love, love requires the opposite.

True love, if we're gonna love people, it requires self-sacrifice.

And what Laban needed to do in order to love Jacob, and in order to love Leah, and in order to love Rachel, what Laban needed to do is sacrifice his own desire to be seen in his country as this person who follows some random custom.

He needed to sacrifice that desire for the good of the people that he sought to love.

See, Laban, he's making himself out to be a loving person, but he actually cannot love because he's only looking out for himself.

And if you love like this, you can only bring damage to people in your life.

And so you need to understand this about love.

Love, by its very nature, it has to be self-sacrificial.

Love always sacrifices.

Parents, think about your love for your kids.

The parental love of a father or mother for their child is sacrificial.

You need to sacrifice so many things.

You need to sacrifice your time when you're young.

You know, you sacrifice your time joyfully, but you do it to be with your kid and to read them kids' stories.

And this is the season I'm in right now, so it's really relevant for me, but there are not many kids' stories that are fun reading, are there?

I read one and the title of it was Something About Making You Laugh, and I thought, oh, this will be good, it's gonna make me laugh.

And I read it, and it was not funny at all.

And so part of parenting is you sacrifice your time to read these stories that are not interesting to you at all, and yet you read it for their good.

And you you even really have to sacrifice your career, don't you?

In order to really pour out into your kids, to pour out time into your kids, you've got to sacrifice a lot to be there for them because they just take a lot of time.

Love requires sacrifice.

And the reason why so many kids kind of grow up a mess as an adult is because so many parents are unwilling to make that sacrifice for them, so unwilling to sacrifice their job, so unwilling to sacrifice their time, so unwilling to sacrifice their resources in order for the love of their kids.

So you need to sacrifice in order to love.

Doesn't this make so meaningful what Christ has done for us?

See, Christ did not just come down with the words, I love you.

It would have been easy for Christ to say it.

Christ came down with sacrificial love, the only kind of love there is.

Christ came down and his love for you was so great that he was willing to give his whole life for you.

This is what love requires, self-sacrifice.

You cannot look out for yourself.

When you look out for yourself, you will only bring destruction into your family.

The third thing I want you to see here is that the damage of our sin is always regrettable.

Now, the picture that Moses is showing us here is this that Jacob in getting what he deserved, and Laban in looking out for himself, all that they receive every time they sin is damage to their life.

And Moses wants us to understand this that sin will never satisfy you.

It will only invite destruction, it will only invite damage into your life.

And we begin to see this in verses 21 to 25, as Jacob begins to discover exactly what had happened.

And going into Leah and sleeping with her, discovers that he was deceived.

So then Laban says to Jacob, we had read up to verse 26 already, he says to Jacob in verse 27, complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.

And it says, Jacob did so and completed her week.

Then Laban gave him his daughter, Rachel, to be his wife.

Now, Laban has already committed the sin of deceiving Jacob.

He's already done the damage.

Jacob's already received the punishment for Laban's deceit.

Now he is married to Leah.

It was not his plan.

But it does not stop there because after marrying Leah, you know what Jacob does?

See, sin in this story, it just keeps snowballing.

Laban's decision to deceive Jacob, Leah, and Rachel just keeps snowballing in everyone's life, and it just creates more and more sin.

And what we're gonna find next week in chapter 30, as we consider uh Leah and Rachel giving birth to children, is that it invites envy into his daughter's life and invites jealousy into his daughter's life.

This decision of Laban only snowballs into more and more sinful decisions.

Now Jacob's got a decision to make.

Jacob is now married to Leah.

And Jacob knows God's plan for marriage.

Jacob knows that in Genesis chapter 2, God said that a man singular was to marry a woman singular.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

That polygamy was never part of God's will.

And Jacob here is at a crossword.

Does he follow God's will, or does he commit a sin in response to Laban's deceit?

And clearly Jacob chooses the wrong choice.

See, here's the question: what should have Jacob done?

After he realized that Laban had deceived him.

Well, we actually have an example of it in Genesis.

It's an example that is given to us by Jacob's own son, Joseph.

See, there you'll remember that Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers.

He was left for dead.

And this horrible thing happened where he was sold into slavery, and yet God works through it.

And what you find in Joseph's life is he never, like Jacob, gives up to his own ways.

Instead, what Joseph does is he sits under the sovereign will of God and he says, the situation is horrible, but I trust God.

You know what Joseph says at the end of his life?

He says, They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Joseph, he looks at the damage that sin had caused in his life and he submits himself to the will of God and he says, God's gonna do something out of this.

God's gonna do something out of this.

I love the example we have of bringing Dave and Sonia Locke up this week.

Because they had this exact same thing.

They had just stepped into retirement and they had had a plan for their life.

And yet, God had other plans.

And they could have reacted two different ways.

They could have spiraled out of control.

They could have said, God, this is not the way.

They could have pushed themselves away from God.

And said, God, how could you do this to us?

They could have looked at their life.

God, we've served you for so long, and this is the way that you treat us.

But instead, you know what they did?

They pushed into the sovereign will of God.

And they said, This doesn't make any sense.

This is never the way I would plan it.

But they still continued to believe that God is a good God despite the destruction that was in their life, not because of their sin, but because of this fallen world.

They pushed into the sovereignty of God.

And they said, God's will is what is best for us.

This is never the way we would plan it, but we're going to lean into God's will here.

See, this is our greatest need.

To lean into the will of God.

And what Jacob should have done is instead of pursuing his own will, instead of pursuing his own way, he needed to pursue God.

He needed to pursue God's way.

And God had clearly ordained things.

Just as God had used Jacob's deceit to get him the blessing, God could have used Laban's deceit for Leah to be the wife of his choice.

And the thing that Jacob needed to do was to pursue a devotion to God that said, no matter what you bring into my life, I am going to trust you.

I'm going to trust you.

I'm going to devote myself to you, God.

This is clearly your way.

Your will for me is not that I take another wife.

That would be sin.

So I'm going to devote my way to you.

See, here's the reality that the picture shows us.

The picture of sin in this chapter.

It's that our sin will never reward us with anything positive.

Jacob in this moment, you know what he believes?

He believes in this moment that the means will justify the ends.

You know what I mean by that?

By taking on another wife, by marrying Rachel, he sins.

But he believes that by doing this, God will work through it.

He believes that the means justify the end.

That it's okay for him to sin.

As long as God will use it.

And I fear for this.

This is an evil, destructive thought pattern.

To think that the means justify the ends.

To think it's okay if I sin.

God's going to use it anyways.

God's a gracious God.

If I sin, you know, he'll cover it in his grace, he'll work out a solution.

And there are ways that I think each of us might believe that the means justify the ends.

There are some of us in here who are willing to lie because we believe that God might use that lie to protect us, maybe from shame, to protect us from something that we fear.

There are others who, in their anger, believe that their anger is like a constructive anger, that it's actually accomplishing things for good, and so therefore it's okay.

You can be angry as long as it gets things done.

We believe the means justify the ends.

God is calling us to devote ourselves to his way, no matter what happens, no matter what happens, to devote ourselves to his way, to trust in him, to accept what is best for his life.

And Joseph is such an example of this, isn't he?

Someone who accepts the will of God, who, when sold into slavery, continues to be faithful, who, when given temptation with Potiphar's wife, renounces temptation and devotes himself to God.

This is God's will for us, that we devote ourselves to him despite the suffering we experience.

Last thing I want you to see as we see the picture of sin is that the debt is fully paid.

You know, something it's really interesting what's not in this story.

You know what the interesting thing is?

Jacob's never cast out.

Jacob will do nothing but let God down.

Jacob will do nothing but fail.

And yet, you know what we discover?

God is still committed to him.

God never shows up, says, you know what, Jacob, I said I was going to be with you, but like I did not know what I was signing up for here.

God never shows up and says that to him.

Do you know why?

Because God knew what he was in for.

God is in the business of calling scoundrels, of calling deceivers, of calling a sinful people to himself and then transforming that people.

That means that all of your sin, all of your failure will never cause God to abandon you because he knew what he was signing up for.

He knew who you were in your sinfulness.

And while you were still an enemy of God, he sent his own son to die for you in order that he might start to transform you.

And he's got a plan for you.

Paul says that this plan, this plan that he began in you, he will not stop until it comes to completion.

He will not stop his work.

He is bringing you to heaven.

He is committed to you.

Why?

Why?

Because he chose to.

Because in sending you Jesus Christ, he has done the same thing for you that he did to Jacob.

He has appeared to you and said, through your faith, you are a chosen child of mine, and here is eternal life.

You are my child, despite your sinfulness that you still struggle with, despite the fact that your flesh is still alive, you are my child, and I have chosen you, and I will bring you to the end.

No matter how much damage you invite into your life, no matter how often you respond wrongly and funnel destruction into your life, I will still be with you.

And there will be a day where I wipe all sin away from your life.

And you never respond wrongly again.

And you never look out for yourself and invite destruction into your life again.

And you never have any more regret because of the damage that your own sin has caused in your life.

There is a day where I will wipe every sin away.

And sin will be finally and forever defeated through Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Father, God, thank you.

Thank you for showing us this picture of sin and its destruction.

And God, thank you that in our sinfulness, in our destruction of our lives, God, you never give up on us.

And God, I reminded of the song that we are about to sing.

Lord, that it is through the ashes of defeat that you resurrect us.

And God, this is both the ashes of our own defeat of ourselves as we have walked in enmity against you and only deserve death because of our trespasses and sins.

And God, it is also in the ashes of the defeat of the cross of Christ, where he was slain in order that we might be forgiven.

And he was resurrected to new life.

And God, you are in a constant state of doing that work in us, Lord, from the ashes of our defeat, from our failure, from the damage that we've invited into our life, from the destruction that we funneled into our life, Lord, you are resurrecting us to new life.

You have a plan for Jacob.

And God, in this room, you have a plan for us.

And so we God, we respond to you now to declare this truth, Lord.

To declare this truth that you are the God who is so committed to us and that you are worthy of praise because you are committed to a sinful, wayward people.

God, we give you the praise.

And we pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.