More Than Meets The Eye | Genesis 30:25-43, 31:4-13 | Ben Akatsa | July 19, 2026

Our reading this morning comes from the book of Genesis, chapter 30.

Genesis 30 · chapter mention

If you're using one of our black Bibles, it's on page 22.

And we're going to be reading the rest of Genesis 30.

So from verse 25 through 43, and then we're going to read Genesis 31, 4 through 13.

So Genesis 30.

Starting with verse 25.

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

As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country.

Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.

But Laban said to him, If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.

Name your wages, and I will give it.

Jacob said to him, You yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me, for you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly.

And the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned.

But now when shall I provide for my own household?

He said, What shall I give you?

Jacob said, You shall not give me anything.

If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it.

Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, the spotted and the speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages.

So my honesty will be answer for me later.

When you come to look at into my wages with you, everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.

Laban said, Good, let it be as you have said.

But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had white on it, and every lamb that had black, and put them in charge of his sons.

And he set them a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob.

And Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock.

Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plain trees and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks.

He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places where the flocks came to drink.

And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks, and so the flock brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks towards the striped and all the black and the flock of Laban.

He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock.

Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the trough before the eyes of the flock, that they may breed before the sticks.

But for the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there.

So the febler would be Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.

Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks of female servants and male servants and camels and donkeys.

Genesis 31, 4.

So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was and said to them, I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before, but the God of my father has been with me.

You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times.

But God did not permit him to harm me.

If he said, The spotted shall be your wages, then all the flock were spotted.

And if he said, The striped shall be your wages, then all the flock bore striped.

Thus God has given away the livestock of your father and given them to me.

In the breeding season of the flock, I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that matted that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and mottled.

Then the angel of the of God said to me in a dream, Jacob, and I said, Here I am.

And he said, Lift up your eyes and see all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.

I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me.

Now arise, go out of this land, and return to the land of your kindred.

This is the word of the Lord.

Good morning, Ethnos Church.

It is so good to see you all, and it is my privilege this morning to preach the Word of God.

And I know we've already prayed, but I'm gonna ask us to go ahead and uh pray again.

Um we sang this morning, Here I Am to worship.

So before I pray, I'm gonna ask us to just sing the chorus of that song, and if you could have the words up uh on the screen, um, and we'll just sing this before um before we pray.

Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God, you're all together lovely, all together worthy, all together wonderful to me.

Just sing it again.

Here I am, here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God, you're all together lovely, all together worthy, all together wonderful to me.

And now with our heads bowed, um, gonna ask us to make two prayers.

The first one, just make for yourself and just pray this way.

Heavenly Father, help me to see your glory through the message today.

Heavenly Father, help me to see your glory through the message today.

And then the next prayer, just pray for me and pray this way.

Lord, would you enable Ben to speak clearly helpfully and worshipfully, just like that.

Lord, would you enable Ben to speak clearly, helpfully, and worshipfully?

And then I'll pray for us.

Heavenly Father, we are here this morning to worship you, to see you, to experience you, as we read your word, as we sing your word, and now as your word is preached.

Your word tells us that in your presence there is fullness of joy.

So we pray that as we see you today and experience you through your word, we'd experience something of your presence.

And there would be a joy in our hearts because of that.

Lord, as one speaking, I need this message as much as my hearers.

And I pray that, Lord, you would take my five loaves and two fishes, multiply them to feed your people, because if you do not feed them, I certainly cannot.

We are also dependent on you today.

In Jesus' name we pray, and all of God's people said.

Amen.

Up on the screen, you'll see uh a picture from an animated show called The Transformers.

This was made into, oh I had someone say, Woo! This was made into a blockbuster movie.

And the original theme of that song had a line in there that said, Transformers, more than meets the eye.

Yeah, I heard somebody saying it with me.

Yeah, Peter! More than meets the eye.

Really to communicate this idea that what you see, there's something more going on beneath the surface.

These might look like trucks and cars, but they're actually robots and they can do all these cool things.

There's more that's going on beneath the eye.

And I think there's something of that that's that's in our message today.

In fact, our message is titled More Than Meets the Eye.

We are in the book of Genesis, and the book of Genesis is the book of beginnings.

It tells us about the creation of the world, and then there's a fall.

Man disobeys God, they sin, and so there's chaos that descends.

At some point, God sends a flood, and then before he sends a flood, he chooses a man and his family to save them.

And after the flood, when the water has cleared, he starts again with the human race, but the human race still rejects him.

Then the Bible now narrows in to a few individuals because God is now going to create a people for himself.

He starts with a man called Abraham.

And then Abraham has a son called Isaac.

And then Isaac has a son called Jacob.

Jacob is the man that we're looking at today in the scriptures.

Last week, the scriptures focused on Jacob and his two wives and their maidservants, and there was conflict.

Today, the scripture turns our attention to Jacob and his father-in-law Laban.

And yes, there is conflict that comes up.

Just like last week.

And here's the setting for us.

The setting is a conversation between Jacob and his uncle Laban.

If you look at verse 26 with me, Genesis 30, 26, he goes to his uncle, his father-in-law, and he says, Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.

Yes, Laban knows the service Jacob has given him.

Because Jacob has worked hard for 14 years as a way to give his uncle a dowry so that he can get his two wives from them.

So Laban knows the service that Jacob has done for him.

But then verse 27 is interesting.

When Jacob says, Release me that I may go, the scriptures, if you're looking at the ESV, has this has this word, but, but Laban said to him, What is Laban about to introduce?

And then Laban, as though to sound like he's this good person, which by the way he is not, he says, If I have found favor in your sight, favor in your sight, Jacob, as though Jacob you're the greater one than I am, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.

And then in verse 28, he says, Name your wages and I will give it.

Jacob has come to his uncle to say, Let me go, let me and my family go because I have already served you these 14 years.

I mean, I've earned my keep.

But then Laban says, Not so fast.

Because I've actually learned that the reason I'm enjoying all these blessings is because of you, Jacob.

Why let you go when all this time you've been my cash cow?

And verse 28, he introduces this word, wages.

Are wages for free?

No.

He's introducing into this conversation, I want you to work some more for me.

Name your wages and I will give it.

And then Jacob in verse 29 tells him, You yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared before me.

And then we learn in verse 30 that by the way, when Jacob came to live with his father-in-law, in verse 30 we learn, for you, Laban, my father-in-law, had little before I came.

But it has, and it has increased how?

Abundantly.

And the Lord has blessed you wherever I have turned, wherever I have been, the Lord has blessed you abundantly.

And here's the issue for Jacob.

You've been blessed abundantly, you have all this livestock, but now when shall I provide for my own household also?

You see, Jacob is gonna be going back, wants to go back to his parents.

He doesn't want to go back the same way he left.

He left with nothing.

Now, sure, if he goes back right now, he's gonna go back with a wife and with children, 12 of them.

But he wants more.

Wouldn't you?

And then in verse 31, Laban says, What shall I give you?

And Jacob tells him, You won't give me anything.

I don't want anything for free.

This is gonna be a work arrangement.

If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it.

And then in verse 22, Jacob says, Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled, every spotted sheep, and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they will be my wages.

And then Laban tells, and then Jacob tells him, and by the way, if you find I've done differently, then you can consider that I've stolen them from you.

Do you know what Laban says in verse 34?

He agrees very quickly.

Good, let it be as you have said.

Why did Laban agree so quickly?

You see, it has been observed that in this part of the world, goats would normally be one color, either black or brown, and sheep would normally be white.

That would be the majority of the flock.

For you to get animals that are multicolored, they would be the fewer of the flock.

Laban knows he is getting a really good deal.

And that's why he says, Good, let it be like you've said.

He knows he is getting a good deal.

But then what does he do right after?

Right after he says, Yeah, let's make the deal.

Verse 35, what does Laban do?

That very same day, the very animals that Jacob said, I want you to give me these animals for these animals to be my wages, these are the animals that Laban removes from the flock.

He's going to frustrate Jacob's progress.

And we'll talk about that more.

You see, Laban is not a good man, but that's not the only thing that's going on with Laban.

Laban is also spiritually blind.

The scriptures give us a window into the status of Laban's heart.

Where do I see this?

I see this in verse 27.

And what I want us to see is that it is possible to recognize and enjoy God's blessings without ever surrendering your heart to Him.

We see this in verse 27.

I don't know if you noticed it, and it's up on the screen.

Do you see what Laban said?

I have learned by divination.

I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.

You see, Laban knows he's enjoying all his blessings, but he brings in the word divination.

I have learned by divination.

Divination is to try and figure out by some spiritual means either what the future holds or something that you currently do not know.

And divination was not allowed in the Old Testament, in the scriptures, divination is not allowed.

Deuteronomy 18 9 says, There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination.

And then later on in Genesis 31, 19, we find out that when Jacob and his family are leaving, Rachel steals her father's household gods.

This man who is practicing divination is experiencing all of God's blessings, but his heart is far from worshiping the true and living God.

Because it is possible for you and I to experience God's blessings without giving our hearts to him, without ever surrendering our hearts to him.

I'm sure you've seen this when they have these award shows, whether it's the Academy Awards or the Grammys, and somebody comes to the microphone and they say, I am so grateful for the blessings that I have.

And they're communicating, I'm experiencing something I should not be experiencing.

They're really right, it's true.

Because the scriptures say that every good and perfect gift comes from above.

So they have put their finger on the fact that everything I'm experiencing is coming from something outside of me.

I'm so grateful for the for the blessings I've experienced.

But sometimes you get to learn about those people's lives and you find out, oh, they are not following the Lord.

They do not know Jesus.

They have all these blessings and they're acknowledging there is some divine something going on, but they've never surrendered their heart to the Lord.

I don't know about you.

What are the good things you're experiencing in your life?

It might be for you, your intellect.

Job 32, 8 says, But there is a spirit within people, the breath of the Almighty within them that makes them intelligent.

Did you know your intellect did not come from you?

But have you taken a moment to acknowledge that that intellect that you have has come from the Lord?

Let me find out about this God so that I can serve him and give my life to him.

It is possible to experience the blessings of God without ever giving our hearts and our lives to him.

What does it profit a man if he gains a whole world and loses his soul?

You see, God loves you so much, allowing you to experience the blessings you experience.

And I'm not saying your life hasn't had trouble.

I'm sure it has.

Nobody's life is trouble-free.

But there have been some good things that He's given you.

But have you given your life to this God through the person of Jesus Christ?

Because there's more than meets the eye in your life.

God wants you to give your heart to him.

The scene now really gets strange from this point.

Because after Laban takes the flock, here's what I think is going on in this story.

Suddenly they're gonna be the fewer of the flock.

And if you give those animals to me, he says, I will co I will continue pasturing your flock.

I'll continue keeping them.

So Jacob was not making a deal where he was gonna get those animals on that day and leave on that day.

That's not what it says.

He says in verse 31 if you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it.

So what Jacob was telling Laban is give me those animals, the few of the flock, and while I'm pasturing the rest of the animals.

These are gonna be my wages, and I am going to breed my flock from these ones.

But then Laban takes those furry flocks and takes them away.

What is his plan?

To frustrate Jacob's progress.

He wants Jacob to go ahead from the remaining flock.

From the remaining flock.

He wants Jacob to go ahead and breed them, pasture them so he can get the flock that he wants.

Laban wants to frustrate Jacob's progress.

Now I'm sorry, this picture, it kind of seems like the multicolored ones are the ones that are many, that's AI for you.

Because these ones should be the more and these should be the fewer.

Okay, so I'm sorry that doesn't communicate too well.

But I want you to know that Jacob was left with the with the Jacob was left, yeah, these are the few ones that Laban took.

And it was gonna take time for Jacob to breed those animals.

And if Jacob is gonna succeed, it is going to take God.

There's these strange breeding tactics that Jacob now goes through.

And at some point I am reading, I had to get a pencil out and a paper.

Okay, spotted, speckled, motted.

What on earth is going on?

Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing, you know, doubles.

Um and then he's getting these sticks, putting them in the water, so that when the animals come, that's where they breed.

You know, they'll see the sticks, and somehow when they breed, they get multicolored flock, like this whole strange thing.

And you wonder.

So he sets the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the watering places, where the flocks came to drink.

Why did he do that?

The scriptures tell us.

Because they bred when they came to drink.

So Jacob knows where they go when they are coming to breed.

And then the strange thing is this in verse 39, and it's up on the screen, the flocks actually bred in front of the sticks that Jacob put together.

And so the flocks brought forth precisely what Jacob wanted.

The scriptures are tying very tightly Jacob's strange actions to the result.

The scriptures are telling us Jacob's plan actually worked.

Isn't that crazy?

How whenever does that work?

Like I think I have an image on the next screen where you see, you know, animals, you know, standing in front of these peel sticks.

And then when they breed in front of these peel sticks, what do they get?

You know, on the next screen, they actually get, ah, striped speckles.

How next does that work?

Some people think that maybe there was some breeding practice that was known then.

Well, like if you put something like this in front of the animals and they come out striped.

Some people think that maybe there was some kind of science that they knew back then.

I mean, I don't know.

Why does Jacob do what he does?

I mean, he's trying to get that result for sure, but here's the main question: why does it work?

Does it work because of his ingenious breeding practices?

No.

Why does it work?

The scriptures tell us.

The scriptures tell us.

If you go to the next chapter, chapter 31, and you go to verse 10.

It says, In the breeding season of the flock, I lifted up my eyes, I being Jacob, and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and mottled.

Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob, and I said, Here I am.

And Jacob said, and the angel said, Lift up your eyes and see.

All the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled.

For I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.

The plan works not because he is so ingenious, but there's more than meets the eye.

It's because God is involved.

In fact, in verse 43 of chapter 30, it says, Thus the man Jacob increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

That word increased in that verse 43.

When God appears to Jacob the first time and tells him, You're going to get offspring, you're gonna get many offspring, and they will spread abroad.

When God uses the word spread, it's the same word for increase.

The scriptures are telling us God is the one who's at work.

And in the verses we just read, very explicitly, God the angel of the Lord says, the reason this worked is because I have seen everything that Laban is doing to you.

But I don't know if you notice something in that verse, in that chapter 31, verse 10.

I don't know if I have it in the screen.

Oh, I have it on the screen.

We can look at it together.

What does that say in the breeding season of the flock?

When did Jacob see this dream, this vision?

In the breeding season of the flock.

You see, what we learn later is that Jacob spends another six years with his uncle.

Another six years of breeding livestock.

We do not know at what point in those six years that Jacob saw this tree.

We just know it was in one of those breeding seasons.

Now, from what I looked up, sheep and goats in a year have about at least one breeding season, maybe two.

So we don't know in which one of those breeding seasons in which year God appeared to Abraham, to Jacob.

But we know at some point God appeared to Jacob.

But did Jacob's methods change?

Jacob's methods did not change.

In fact, the writer spends a lot of time writing about all the speckled and mutted and about Jacob removing, you know, um parts of sticks, Jacob working so hard.

Jacob was doing that work in every breeding season, even after God had shown him, I am with you.

And I think what the scripture is trying to communicate to us is this it is possible to receive God's promises in a moment of spiritual insight and still spend our days living by our own sight.

Because that is exactly what Jacob does.

He had some great spiritual insight where God is telling him, by the way, I am involved.

And really, what this dream communicated to Jacob was this.

It communicated to Jacob, because when Jacob looks in the dream, he's seeing striped-colored animals breeding with striped-colored animals, right?

But in reality, when Jacob is picking the flock, he's only picking single-colored animals and hoping that his sticks give him the result.

What God was telling him was this every time you picked a black animal or a brown animal or a white animal, I was working to ensure that each of those animals had the ability to produce exactly what you needed so that you can become wealthy.

That's what that dream is showing Jacob.

Because when Jacob lifts his eyes, all he sees are multicolored animals, but that was not his reality when he woke up.

God was telling him, I am involved.

And in verse 42, you can keep that picture up on the screen.

If you go to chapter 30, verse 41, the scriptures say, Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, what would Jacob do?

He would lay the sticks and the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks.

But for the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there.

So the febler would be Laban's and the stronger Jacob's.

He is not.

And you can go back to the picture that was there.

Yes, that one.

The scriptures are telling us this.

Whenever the stronger would come to breed, Jacob would lay the sticks, and what would be the result?

The multicolored animals.

Whenever the weaker would come to breed, guess what?

He would not place the sticks.

And what would the weaker ones produce?

Same colored animals.

It's not like Jacob was getting both times multicolored animals, and he's saying, Oh, these weak multicolored ones will go to Jacob.

No, God had ensured that every time the weaker ones came to breed, they would produce the same kind of colors, and that flock would remain to be labans because that was the agreement.

And every time the stronger ones came, God ensured that the offspring would be the multicolored so that Jacob would keep the stronger ones because that was the agreement.

God stood behind the agreement so that his man could succeed.

And Jacob was working so so hard.

But you and I do the same, same thing.

Because we believers, we know this.

Hebrews 1, 3.

It's up on the screen.

We know that Jesus Christ, who we have trusted, is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact infinite of the name of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

We know Jesus is all powerful and almighty.

We also know from Colossians 1, 16 through 17, and it's gonna be up on the screen as well.

For by him, oh Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, or the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, everything was created through him.

And you and I also know Romans 8.32.

What does Romans 8.32 say?

He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

You and I know that verse.

We know that if God did not spare Jesus, how will he not along with him graciously give us all things?

Providing for our needs.

How will he not along with him graciously give us all things?

Taking care of us to ensure that we live as precisely as long as he determined we should live and not a moment longer.

I'm not saying our lives will be easy.

All I am saying is that you and I listen to a message like this on Sunday, read a verse like Romans 8 on Sunday, and then live Monday through Saturday as though we are all alone, as though God is not involved.

And I think the call for you and I is pretty simple.

For us to stop striving.

And that anxiety now has to give it to God.

Because there's more than meets AI.

God is involved in your life and mine.

I don't always believe that to be true.

And I want to talk to those of us who are in our twenties, you know, our thirties.

That college, young professional age where there's so many decisions that we have to make.

Whether it's who to marry, are we gonna stay in this job for the next four years?

How will I land the job that I'm hoping to have?

Apply Romans 832 to that.

Because you're gonna worry so, so much, work so hard like Jacob did.

And yet you didn't have to.

All you had to do was prayerfully obey and follow Christ.

Apply that to your life.

That's what the scriptures want you and I to do today.

There's a preacher called John Piper, and this is what he says.

He was interviewed at 80.

And he was asked, at 80, what advice would you give young people?

He said something to this effect.

I feel sorry for you, young people.

What are we to start?

A comment.

Because you do not have the 60 years that I have to look back and see what the Lord has done.

60 years of accumulated gratitude over God's particular sovereignty over all the little details of caring for me.

End of quote.

He's talking about Romans 832.

He's not saying his life was easy.

This is what he is saying.

Isaac Newton, a preacher from yesterday, wrote pastoral letters to some of his congregation.

And in one of those letters he says something like this.

I think it's up on the screen.

Everything which he, meaning God sends, is needful, nothing can be needful which he withholds.

End of quote.

Everything you ask the Father for that is needful, he will send.

If it is not needful, he will withhold.

That's how you and I need to live.

That's how Jacob needed to live.

And that's God's involvement in your life and mine.

Please go ahead and bow your head.

You know yourself.

The Lord knows you.

It is possible to recognize and enjoy God's blessings like Laban did without ever surrendering your heart to Him.

And so my question to you who's here today have you surrendered your heart to Jesus?

Have you made a conscious decision to follow Christ?

Because if you haven't, you haven't surrendered your heart to God.

If you're here today and you know that's you, I'm not gonna ask you to lift your hand at all.

I'm just gonna ask every head to bow.

And if that's you, you're like, I haven't surrendered my heart to Jesus.

I know there's some kind of response I need to make.

I feel this tugging in my heart.

I just need to talk to someone.

If that is you, I'll just ask you to look up at me to just catch my gaze.

And I'll make sure somebody gets with you after the service.

If that's you, you know you have not surrendered your heart to Christ.

Just catch my gaze.

The Lord loves you.

And I want you to know it's not just I who have seen you, but the God who told Laban, I have seen all that your uncle is doing to you.

The God who's all seeing has seen you too.

For this second one, it is possible to receive God's promises in a moment of spiritual insight and still spend your days living by your own sight.

For you who's a Christian, Romans 8 32.

He who did not withhold his own son from us, how will he not along with him freely give us all things?

Memorize that scripture, memorize that scripture, apply it to your heart, apply it to your fears, apply it to this uncertain future, apply it there.

Apply it where you've been let down by relatives like Laban, like Jacob was let down by his uncle.

This verse applies to that.

And tell the Lord, I need you to take care of me.

Because Jesus said you take care of the birds, and not even one of them falls without your father.

That's a sort of care I need from you, God.

And I'm gonna ask you that if that resonated with you, maybe uh uh at some point um, when at this end of the service where we normally say, if you'd like someone to pray with you, you can go and pray with a prayer team on the side.

Maybe that's gonna be the time to do that.

But even right now I want to pray with you.

And so if you would say, my heart of late has been like Jacob, really anxious and worrying about how things are gonna come together, about something about my future, and I just want you to pray with me.

My prayer is not magical, all I'm gonna do is pray the scriptures, but I do want to pray with you as a pastor.

If that's you, just with every head bowed, you can just lift your hand up and just put it down.

I'm gonna pray.

Lord, I do not take lightly that anybody would even raise up their hand and say, I need that prayer today.

Lord, you sent your word and healed the diseases of your people in the Old Testament, and you also tell us that your word does not come back to you void without accomplishing what you've sent it for.

So I pray that Romans 8 32 would come alive for these your people.

That they would leave today with an assurance that God is caring for me.

Enable them, Lord, to live Monday through Saturday, every day, the next coming days, the next few weeks, with a heart that is resting in you.

Would you do that, Lord, for all of us, me included.

In Jesus' name we pray, and God's people said Amen.

Amen.