Pocket gods Won't Save You | Genesis 31:1-55 | Travis Boles | July 26, 2026

Today.

Travis is the lead pastor of Harbor Church in Magnolia, which is a church plant that is about two and a half years old.

He and our lead pastor Jonathan went through the Houston Church Planting Network Residency together.

Prior to being a pastor, Travis was a Houston police officer for 14 years.

And he worked a variety of roles across the city before he felt God calling him to full-time ministry and preaching of the word.

He has an MDIV in church history and a master's in theological studies.

He has been married to his wife Julie for 18 years.

He and his family are here, and they have four children: Janae, Piper, Judson, and Bo.

Travis, after the scripture reading, you're welcome.

We're glad to have you here with us.

We have been praying for you, and we look forward to what God has to say to us through your ministry this morning.

Now we'll have the scripture reading.

We're starting with verse 17 and going through 55.

If you're using one of our black Bibles, it's on page 24.

So please click over in your devices or turn in your Bibles to Genesis 31, starting with verse 17.

Please stand for the reading of God's holy and inerrant word.

So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels.

He drove away all of his livestock, all of his property that he had gained, the livestock and his possession that he had acquired in Padanaram to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac.

Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's household gods.

And Jacob tricked Laban, the Armenian, by not telling him what he intended that he intended to flee.

He fled with all that he had, and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face towards the hill country of Gilead.

When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days, and followed close after him into the hill country of Gilead.

But God came to Laban, the Aramean Aramean, in a dream by night, and said to him, Be careful, do not say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.

And Laban overtook Jacob.

Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched their tents in the hill country of Gilead.

And Laban said to Jacob, What have you done?

That you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword?

Why did you flee secretly and trick me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre?

And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell?

Now you have done foolishly.

It is in my power to do you harm.

But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful, do not say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.

And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house.

But why did you steal my gods?

Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force.

Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live.

In the presence of our kinsmen, point out that I have that is yours and take it.

Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.

So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of two female servants, but he did not find them.

And he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's.

Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them.

Laban felt all about the tent but did not find them.

And she said to her father, Let not my Lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.

So he searched, but he did not find the household gods.

Then Laban became angry.

Oh, then Jacob became angry and berated Laban.

Jacob said to Laban, What is my offense?

What is my sin that you have hotly pursued me?

For you have felt through all my goods.

What have you found of your household goods?

Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between us two.

These twenty years I have been with you.

Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the ram of your flocks.

What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you, I bore the loss of it myself.

From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

There I was, by day, the heat consuming me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.

These twenty years I have been in your house and served you fourteen years for your daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.

If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.

God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.

Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine.

But what can I do this day for these daughters, for these my daughters, or for their children whom they have borne?

Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I.

Let it be a witness between you and me.

So Jacob took a stone and set up a pillar.

And Jacob said to his kinsmen, Gather stones.

And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.

Laban called it Jagar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Gal Galid.

And Jacob said, and Laban said, This heap is a witness between you and me today.

Therefore he named it Galid and Mitzpah.

For he said, The Lord watch between you and me when we are out of one another's sight.

If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see God is witness between you and me.

Then Laban said to Jacob, See this heap and the pillar which I have set between you and me.

This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me to do harm.

The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.

So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac, and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country, and called his kinsmen to eat bread.

They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country.

Early in the morning Laban arose, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters, and blessed them.

Then Laban departed and went and returned home.

This is the word of the Lord.

That was a big passage to have to read.

And I'm sure, like most of you, sometimes when I read the Old Testament and I'm like, I go, what is going on here?

And how how does this apply to my life, really?

But uh before we get there uh and dive into this passage, I would just like to say, I know that most of you don't know me, but I feel like I know y'all.

Uh going through the uh all the different residencies that the Houston Church Planning Network with Pastor Jonathan, uh it was a time of really blessing.

He was in this time where he was praying about and working towards planting a church, and we were doing the same thing over at Harbor Church, and we actually ended up planting churches at the same time.

The other thing is, is uh we pray for y'all on Sundays, just like y'all pray for us, and it is a huge encouragement just having brothers and sisters in Christ, just in a different location around Houston.

So, with that though, before we begin, I would like just uh just to pray for just a second before we jump into God's word.

Would you just take a moment just to quietly just pray for yourself, that you would set aside any distractions that you have in your heart, and that you would the Lord really would speak to you through his word this morning.

Would you take a moment also just to pray for your neighbor that they would do the same, that they would be able to set aside any large stresses in their lives and be able to focus in on God's Word?

Lord, we love you.

Lord, this morning, just please help your word find its mark in our hearts.

And Lord, just we pray that your word is not returned void.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

If the book of Genesis was a Netflix series, I think it would be pretty wild, right?

It has every single thing that you would want in a good TV show.

It has all the drama, all the action, it has character development, it has political intrigue, drama, crazy, interpersonal relationships, betrayal, yeah, some backstabbing, treachery.

It is all there.

It's one of the reasons why I love the book of Genesis.

And in Genesis chapter 31, these verses 17 through 55, it sort of marks this climax in the story of Jacob, his 20 years there with Laban, his cunning father-in-law.

Genesis 31 · chapter mention

And Jacob's time with Laban, it ends in a very interesting way.

And if you're looking to see how this applies to our life, we should be trying to pick up on several different things.

One, it's going to sort of reveal God's covenant faithfulness, family conflict, and the perils of it, integrity, idolatry, God's providence, and that peace that ultimately is going to point us to Christ.

At the very end of Sermon 2, we want to go back and see how this Old Testament passage point us back to the gospel and back to Christ.

Now, Jacob is an unlikely hero of this story.

He's imperfect.

Same is true of Rachel and Leah.

They are unlikely heroines.

But their imperfection, though, it really highlights our covenant God who's faithful to preserve his promises.

Promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and ultimately his promises to us through Christ.

So if this was a Netflix episode, it would start with a recap just to kind of uh let us understand where exactly we're at in this scene, in this climax of the story.

Previously, Jacob had been, uh had actually deceived Isaac, his father, and received the blessing that was actually intended for Esau, his brother.

Jacob has to flee from Esau because he had vowed to kill him.

Rebekah, his mother, says, You should go and find my brother Laban, both for your safety and also so you can find a spouse from among our people, because Esau had married several Canaanite women, and apparently they were a handful together when they were all uh together with uh their Isaac and Rebekah.

Now, these are God's words, not my words.

This is in the Bible that these wives cause this chaos and this family drama.

Who you marry matters.

You see that all the time in the book of Genesis.

Now, Jacob goes to Laban and he meets Rachel, and he is so smitten by her that he agrees to work seven years in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage.

However, on their wedding night, Laban deceives Jacob the trickster by giving him his older daughter.

Some people like to refer to her as lazy-eyed Leah.

Now, I had a seminary professor who would always caution us about calling her lazy-eyed, because he would point out that the Hebrew word there could also mean weak eyes, meaning that she could have had maybe poor vision, or maybe her eyes were just light in color, or maybe she just wasn't as beautiful as Rachel.

Regardless of your interpretation about Leah, Jacob then agrees to work another seven years for Rachel.

And he also married Leah.

And just to be clear, okay, he has multiple wives, and we want to just affirm that polygamy is sinful, right?

If we were to look at the totality of Genesis, we already learned in Genesis chapter 1 and 2, and God's creation that when he created Adam and Eve, he formed this first marriage, this first covenant, this first union of the flesh, and it was between just two people, man and woman.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Jesus even repeats these words in Mark chapter 10, verses 7 through 8.

Mark 10:7–8

Jesus said, And the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh.

So Jacob remained with Laban a total of 20 years, and during that time, God blessed Jacob with a large family through Leah, Rachel, and even several of his maidservants, resulting in the birth of twelve sons, who would be eventually become the twelve tribes of Israel.

Although Laban repeatedly changed Jacob's wages and sought to exploit him, God prospered Jacob with these flocks and resources and increased wealth.

And then Jacob overhears some of Laban's people talking, really talking ill of his own people.

They basically blame Jacob for becoming wealthy and sort of building resources and siphoning what they actually believed was their own resources and things.

And so Jacob realizes that this is going to go sideways very quickly.

And the Lord warns him and tells him to return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.

Now, surprisingly, Laban's own daughters, Rachel and Leah, they agree with Jacob and they realize that they actually have no inheritance with Laban, even though there is really his own daughters.

And then he just runs away and flees.

Verses 17 and 18.

So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels, and he drove away all of his livestock and all the property that he gained, and the livestock in his possession that he had acquired at Padanon Aram to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac.

Now these verses they highlight the fact that despite opposition, despite Laban's schemes and oppression, God has prospered Jacob and the Hebrew people, his covenant people.

I think also if you look at the arc of Jacob's storyline and his character, I think what you begin to see is during this time, during this process, he goes from this self-reliant schemer to becoming a key patriarch through whom God would use to play out his redemptive plan throughout the entire storyline of the Bible, right?

Because Jacob would even become the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.

And this time with Laban was really a period of hardship, but it was also a time of ultimately discipleship and sanctification.

Oftentimes, God uses our hard times, suffering, our sacrifices that we make to disciple us and grow us.

Something that you've probably experienced being involved in a church plant yourself.

But before they leave, Rachel, like her father, she is shrewd and she is willing to engage in some thievery herself.

And while Laban is out shearing the sheep, Rachel sneaks into her father, Laban's house, and steals his household gods or idols.

We're not told exactly why she stole them.

We're not told her motive.

Maybe she worshipped these other false gods, just like Laban, her father.

Maybe she intended to rob her father of their favor and their blessing.

Sort of like she had this synchronistic theology that was pretty popular back then in the Near Eastern religions, where they believed in multiple gods right alongside of Yahweh, and felt that Laban's gods with a littlogy would be displeased with Laban and maybe even pleased with her if she took them.

But I think what we're supposed to see here is that Rachel's theft of these household gods, her idols, it exposes her lingering idolatry.

I think this is one of the things that we're supposed to see.

That idolatry and affection for those false gods, it still had a grip on her despite seeing all the blessings that God had bestowed on her and her family through through really her relationship with Jacob.

What is difficult though is when it comes to interpreting the Old Testament, once again, is sometimes we're not necessarily told if something is good or bad.

We have to look at it in the context of the entire Old Testament and the entire context of the Bible.

But we know from the second commandment in the Ten Commandments that are in Exodus 20 that you should have no other idols.

And Rachel and Laban, her father, clearly have an idolatry problem.

An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart, your imagination more than God, anything that you seek to give you only what God can give you.

Laban and Rachel's idols, they are these physical and overt statues, maybe carvings.

But for us, it's easy to think that we're really good when it comes to idols because we don't have anything like a statue up in our houses.

But idols aren't just statues or carvings.

They aren't just evil things like greed or malice.

They are seemingly sometimes good gifts from God, such as maybe career, success, family, money, romantic love, or a good reputation, but they ultimately end up becoming the ultimate source of our happiness, our meaning, and our identity.

And when our idols are threatened or insulted, what happens is we often become irritated, mad, depressed.

We try to justify these things that seem like they're good things.

All the while it has robbed us of our affection for God.

Rachel's idols are here on full display, but ours are often hidden.

You want to diagnose your idols?

Look at your Facebook, your Instagram accounts.

What do you post about a lot?

If someone were to look at your post, would they see a theme or be able to connect the dots?

What do you search out?

What do you study?

What do you research and read about a lot?

What is your social media algorithm putting in front of you constantly?

What posts are usually recommended for you or to you?

What ads do you get?

Look, what does your Amazon purchases look like?

If you're like me, what does your Amazon wish list look like?

Better yet, if you want to diagnose your idols, ask your spouse, your husband, your wife.

Want a kick in the stomach?

Ask your kids.

I bet your kids could identify what gets your attention, what gets your affection really quickly.

Youth, kids, what are you jealous about or covet or want that your classmates have?

Is it those Birkenstocks?

Is it The Stanley Cup, or whatever the new insulated cup is that everyone's trying to sell you.

Also, what makes diagnosing your idols pretty difficult is the fact that idolatry is often connected and sort of tied up into our identity.

We try to ground our personal significance and meaning in our idol, our jobs, our work performance, school, parenting.

Often these idols are hidden because they're wrapped up in who we think we are and who we think we are supposed to be, instead of finding our identity and purpose in Christ.

So what we're supposed to see here with Rachel stealing these idols before fleeing from Laban is this warning against idolatry.

But we need to be careful also in how we interpret them running away from Laban in this situation.

They aren't just merely running from Laban and running from a bad situation or fleeing to greener pastures.

I think four things are happening here when Jacob and everyone get together and they leave Laban.

I think it is really easy to miss because God here is faithfully fulfilling his promise that he made to Jacob to bring him home.

So he's fulfilling his promise.

God is faithfully preserving his people.

God is also preserving his covenant.

And here's what we also miss in this story.

Jacob's not merely just running from Laban, he's also obeying God's covenant command.

Jacob's departure is fundamentally an act of obedience for him, an act of obedience to God's revelation and call in his own life.

It's not merely just this escape from this oppressive employer.

And Jacob's obedience here teaches us something important about obedience.

Yeah, he was unfairly treated.

But when you really read the story, you also see that Jacob was actually pretty comfortable.

Often obedience requires leaving comfortable situations because God calls his people somewhere else.

So Jacob says, I'm not going to leave.

He tricks Laban and then he flees with all of his possessions and all of his people.

At verse 22, we find out that Laban doesn't find out that Jacob has fled until three days later.

Jacob and God's people, they have this three-day head start.

And it takes seven days for them to uh get ridden down by Laban and his people to sort of overtake them and catch up to them.

Now I imagine it was a lot easier for Laban and his man to men to hunt them down because Jacob and them were moving with women and kids and livestock and all of their resources.

And Laban and his men, they were really like a war party, traveling light and fast, trying to catch them.

But on one of those nights before Laban overtakes Jacob and his people, the Lord causes him to have a dream and speaks to him, speaks and communicates to Laban.

This is in verse 24.

It says, But God came to Laban the Aramian in a dream by night and said to him, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.

In other words, don't harm him.

Once again, God is sovereignly taking care of his covenant people and protecting them.

Hold on to this because we're going to circle back to this at the very end.

Similarly to how God is protecting his people and protecting his covenant, God does the same thing for us through Christ, through the new covenant.

When Laban catches up to Jacob, he pitches his tent near Jacob's people, and Laban then gets into it with Jacob.

And the entire exchange is recorded for us here in Genesis.

I'm going to sum it up here just for the sake of time, but I'm going to give you the hot points here and the chaos.

Laban says, Why have you tricked me?

Why have you driven my daughters away like captives of the sword?

Then also out of the sword of the side of his mouth, he's like, You know, I really wanted to throw them a farewell party.

Say goodbye.

Yeah, right, Laban.

Then in verse 29, he throws out this veiled threat.

He says, It is in my power to do you harm.

But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.

And here's a real kicker at the very end, verse 30.

Why did you steal my gods?

We've already mentioned God's protection here, but we need to focus in on that last part.

Why did you steal my gods?

And this is actually kind of humorous, almost ironic.

Why did you steal my gods?

A real God cannot be stolen.

A real God cannot be manipulated, taken under duress, physically moved by a mere mortal, and a real God does not need to be protected.

The army even becomes even greater.

Jacob, who's been historically this trickster, stole Esau's blessing, now is a man of integrity.

He renounces the theft of these idols.

It's almost assumed here when Jacob goes and says this and renounces this, it's almost like he's saying, What would be the point of taking those figurines if they aren't even real gods?

There's only but one God.

To Jacob, they're basically like action figures, like bobbleheads.

Jacob thinks this whole thing is absurd.

Why would God's people take an idol?

They have no use for it.

Because Yahweh is the only true God.

And he says that anyone who has taken your supposed gods shall not live.

Such is the seriousness of idolatry.

Such is the seriousness of God's jealousness for our affections.

Laban then furiously searches for his supposed gods and he doesn't find them.

Rachel has hidden them in her saddle or maybe her saddlebags or something like that.

And with a little bit of clever misdirection, she takes any suspicion away from her and the location of those idols.

And this amplifies the irony.

Once again, those supposed gods, they are powerless to defend themselves.

They can be stolen, they can be hidden.

And once again, a God that can be stolen or hidden in saddlebags cannot truly be God.

And there is a great contrast here between Yahweh, our God, and these alleged false gods with a little G.

You can't steal Yahweh, he can't be hidden, he can't be manipulated.

You can't turn his hand when he wants to free his people, he will.

When he wants to protect his people, he will.

Even to the point where he visits Laban, a pagan in his dreams, and sovereignly warns him.

With a movie, the Odyssey, right?

Everybody's going to see it.

It's all over social media.

When you think about Greek mythology and that pantheon of gods, it really is nonsensical.

God is the ultimate, the supreme being.

In fact, we can't even fathom something greater than God.

In Greek mythology and ancient Near East religions of men like Laban, they thought there were multiple gods.

But if there are multiple beings who can be thwarted by humans, like in that mythology, then they aren't real gods.

None of them are ultimately God.

Or ultimately the supreme being.

They're just therefore not gods at all.

In contrast, our God is sovereign.

He is all-powerful.

He's incorporeal.

He doesn't have a body.

He can't be drawn.

He can't be crafted into an idol.

He is far greater than that.

He even transcends our own thoughts.

He can't be stolen.

He can't be hidden.

He's not even confined to a geographical region like Laban would think, or any of the people that would follow those Near Eastern religions during that time.

This sort of anticipates this scene, anticipates the sort of the ridicule of idols and false gods later on in the Old Testament.

One of my favorite ones or sort of scenes of this is in Isaiah chapter 44.

Isaiah 44 · chapter mention

You might know it.

It sort of highlights the foolishness of idols or worshiping anything other than God.

In Isaiah 44, it pictures a man who just arbitrarily goes out, picks a random tree, he then cuts it down, and then arbitrarily and by chance, he decides with part of that tree, he's going to cut it up and put it in his fireplace.

He's going to use it to warm his house, to uh cook some food.

But the other half will become his God, and he will bow down to it and worship it.

And then he says to it, Deliver me, for you are my God.

This is foolishness that we also, if we're not careful, can fall into.

We're not carving up little trees into idols, but we turn and we make our job, our success, our status, our ultimate concern.

We end up sacrificing our lives, our time to it, our money to it.

We worship the created rather than the creator.

Our God cannot be drawn, crafted, stolen, or hidden.

He is sovereign.

Unlike Laban and Rachel's supposed gods, he doesn't need us to defend him because he is eternally self-sufficient.

That's a God that's worthy of our praise, worthy of us to sing songs about him and to him.

This passage is a reminder to root out those idols in your life, because following them is folly.

Now, after Laban, after he doesn't find his idols, Jacob finally confronts these years of injustice in verses 36 through 42.

After years of silence, he lays out his sort of case against Laban.

He lists changing wages 10 times.

I doubt you would stay at your job if the boss came in and lowered your wages ten times.

He quotes harsh labor, sleepless nights, losses that he had to personally absorb.

And once again, Jacob realizes God's hand in blessing and protection and safety, even in the midst of all of this.

Verse 42 if the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.

God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.

So what ended up happening is Jacob ends up acknowledging that everything he has is a gift from God.

There's a humility in this.

Jacob's resources, his possessions are not just a product of his sweat equity, but they are ultimately gifts from God.

It should make us ask this very important question in our own lives.

Do you see your spouse as a gift?

You see your family, your kids as a gift?

What about your money, your resources?

Do you really consider them as something that God has gifted you?

And then now you are the steward of those resources.

Jacob does.

He's come to sort of this full circle moment here.

And so should you.

Now, despite all the evidence that Jacob brings to Laban, it shows that God's been sustaining him, causing him to prosper, even though Laban has done all these horrible things to him, Laban still remains spiritually blind, despite all that overwhelming evidence.

Laban doesn't repent, he doesn't change his tune.

In fact, he just looks at everything that Jacob has and basically is like, that's all mine.

He remains concerned over his possessions.

He sees his daughters and ultimately Jacob as his own resources.

And ultimately Laban can't do anything about it.

So he turns and makes a treaty, a covenant with Jacob, between Jacob's men and his men.

Peace comes through God's restraint and not human perfection here.

And the chapter ends with this sacrifice, this meal, this covenant.

And ultimately they split ways.

Neither Jacob, Rachel, or Leah is completely righteous or deserving of this covenant faithfulness that God chose them, but God still remains faithful.

God preserves his covenant line.

And we know as New Testament readers and new covenant believers that from the very line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would come Christ, come the Messiah, Jesus.

So what God is doing is he's actually restraining conflict and he is preserving that redemptive line that would lead ultimately to Jesus.

This anticipates God's greater work through redemptive history, preserving Israel, preserving David's line, preserving Christ's coming.

One of the things we need to do as believers when we're reading the Old Testament is we always need to ask the question how do these Old Testament scriptures, how do they point to Christ?

How do they point to the gospel?

I think Genesis 31, I think it does this in several ways.

God faithfully preserves his covenant family despite sin, despite dysfunction.

Just like he does with us.

Even though we are sinful and we fall, we fail, if you've repented of your sins, you've placed your faith and trust in Jesus, then you are saved.

God will persevere you all the way until the end.

While Jacob is this flawed and sinful rescuer and leader who leads his people out of oppression with Laban, Christ is the new and better Jacob.

He's a new and better Moses who leads his people out of bondage to sin through faith in him.

Jacob makes us look for this greater redeemer that's going to come.

Also, the covenant of peace between Jacob and Laban, a peace between his men and Laban's men, and anticipates this greater peace secured by Christ, who sir who gets us a peace with God even after our rebellion.

And he reckon God and God has reconciled us to God through Christ.

And also now we can have peace with one another.

Jacob's confession that everything he possessed came from God's gracious intervention also points to the New Testament truth that every spiritual blessing that we now have comes by grace through Christ.

Genesis 31 reminds us that God's people, often when we're surrounded by broken relationships and hard times, unfair treatment and uncertain futures, God is going to preserve us spiritually.

The Lord remains faithful to his covenant and to his people.

Just as God protected Jacob on his journey home, he preserves his people through Christ.

Jesus is a great covenant keeper who perfectly obeyed the Father who bore the consequences of our sin and guarantees that God's promises to his people will never fail.

Jesus also, the better Jacob, the better Moses, who leads his people out of this bondage and sin, frees us to live lives in better obedience to God.

As Jacob discovered, the security of God's people rests not in favorable circumstances, or even trustworthy people, because Jacob did not come across any kind of trustworthy people, but it ultimately rests in the unchanging faithfulness of God Himself.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for your unwavering covenantal faithfulness.

Just as you guided and you protected and preserved Jacob despite his flaws, his dysfunctions, scheme, the schemes of others that were waged against him, we praise you that you hold us fast today in Christ, our true and better Savior, our true and better rescuer.

Expose the hidden idols of our hearts.

Lord, forgive us of times where we try to seek meaning and security or identity and created things rather than you.

Grant us grace to surrender our comfort, to walk in obedience to your calling on our lives, to view every blessing in our lives as a gift from your gracious hand.

Help us to see ourselves as stewards of what you've given us.

Lord, guard our hearts, guard our relationships, mend our relationships, ground our hope entirely in your unchanging promises.

May we just go forward today living not in fear of our circumstances, but in the security of your sovereign grace and your love of your people.

Amen.