October 20, 2024

Sunday Gathering – Genesis – Relationships

33 minutes

Sermon Summary: God's Unwavering Promises

Sermon Title: Relationships - Genesis 30

Speaker: Andy

Summary:

Andy's sermon delves into the intricate tapestry of Genesis 30, a chapter filled with familial drama, jealousy, and divine intervention. He draws parallels between the soap opera-like events depicted in the chapter and the complexities of modern life, highlighting how God's plans often unfold amidst chaos and human imperfection.

The sermon begins by summarizing the key events of the chapter: Rachel's jealousy of Leah, the birth of Jacob's children through his wives and their maidservants, and Jacob's struggle with Laban. Andy emphasizes the unconventional nature of these events, challenging our preconceived notions of a neat and orderly God.

He then focuses on Rachel's character, highlighting her jealousy, blame-shifting, and longing for children. Despite her struggles, Andy points out that God remembers Rachel and fulfills His promise by granting her a son, Joseph. This serves as a reminder that God's promises are unwavering, even in the face of human failings and disappointments.

Andy connects Rachel's experience to the challenges faced by individuals today, emphasizing the importance of maintaining faith in God's promises even when life seems unfair or chaotic. He encourages listeners to trust in God's timing and to seek His guidance amidst life's complexities.

The sermon concludes with a call to action, urging listeners to embrace God's forgiveness and to find freedom from self-criticism. Andy emphasizes that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross has removed the burden of condemnation, allowing us to live a life free from reproach and self-doubt.

Bible References:

Genesis 30:1-43

Key Themes:

God's unwavering promises

The power of faith amidst challenges

The importance of forgiveness and self-acceptance

The transformative power of Jesus' sacrifice

Additional Notes:

The sermon is delivered in a conversational and relatable style, making it accessible to a wide audience.

Andy uses personal anecdotes and relatable examples to illustrate the concepts discussed in the sermon.

The sermon emphasizes the importance of trusting in God's timing and His plan for our lives.

Transcript

Yeah, I brought the gifts and offerings from the church at 146 this morning

Good morning, everybody

Great to see you. So let's open

God's Word together and

continue

The soap opera that is Genesis

Okay, as we heard Nick, I think used the analogy last week and compared chapter 29 to

Coronation Street, I think as we get into chapter 30

that

coronation Street pales into significance

completely and

It's I'm not going to read it all because we're beer from the rest of the morning

But but it's it's a fascinating chapter

All right, and a lot of these chapters are actually it's good

It challenges our sort of preconceptions and I don't know for you

Maybe as you look at this afterwards as you hear and listen to this now some of this, you know

We get a conception that God likes things to be nice and ordered

but actually it's we like nice things to be nice and ordered and we think Christianity should be this and this and this and

This and God will work when this is sorted out and as we read these chapters

We actually find the truth to be a long way from that

It's fascinating. So last week we heard about Leah

Who was Jacob's?

Became Jacob's wife by deceit from Leah's dad and

And we heard about having four children by Jacob and that even though Rachel Leah's sister was the one that Jacob wanted to marry

That actually he was deceived into

Marrying Leah and had four children by her and chapter 30

Opens with Rachel being jealous of her sister

And actually not only jealous of her sister

But then starting to blame everybody else for what's going on and pointing the finger at Jacob and saying well

You know, this is your fault and Jacob gets angry with Rachel

And so Rachel tells Jacob but to go and sleep with her maidservant

This is soap opera and beyond go and sleep with her maidservant

Who is called Bilhar and so he does that and then Bill hug his birth to Dan and Neftali these two boys

And then guess what on seeing that Leah

Rachel's sister says aha Jacob go and sleep with my maidservant and have children

Yeah, so that happens Leah tells Jacob to sleep with her maidservant a lady called Zilpah and Gad and Asher

are born

All right, and then we get into the first

Me even more weird bit

Okay, so if you remember last week the names of Leah's sons

The oldest son was a chap called Reuben

All right

And then we read in this chapter chapter 30 that Rachel goes to Reuben and say give me some of your mandrakes

That's a plant right? I don't know the ins and outs of that

But she asked him she asked Leah's eldest son for mandrakes and Leah hears this and intervenes and says no

So Rachel says, oh, okay. I'll let you sleep with Jacob if you let me have Reuben's mandrakes

It's all in here, right? It's all in here, okay

And so Leah says yeah, okay, cuz Leah hadn't been able to have children after she'd had before she stopped having children

So Jacob sleeps with Leah

Again and Izzikar and Zebulun two sons are born and then Dinah one daughter is born

And then we get into the middle of the chapter and we read that God

Remembers Rachel and we'll get into what that means in a little bit

God remembers Rachel and Rachel conceives and she gives birth to Joseph

And that gives a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for us because we know that there's some stuff coming in later

Chapters that we can really preach about without getting confused

Right and you we can all sing the songs and all that stuff. You know, that's coming. So that's good news

Right, but so then we get to the end of that bit and then the second half of the chapter

This is weird bit number two. Jacob wants to go back home

So if you remember he had studied work seven years for Laban who is the dad of Rachel and Leah

He worked seven years so that he could marry Rachel and

Laban tricks him and makes him marry Leah and it says you need to work another seven years

In order to have Rachel as your wife as well. So

So he's worked 14 years for laban and he goes to laban says I want to go home

Yeah, I want to go home with my wives and family but laban says well hang on a minute while you've been working for me

These 14 years I've got really wealthy and things have gone really well for me

I'd like you to stay Jacob name your wages and you can stay and work for me

So Jacob has a think right and he says okay

I'll name my wages and I'll stay working for him

My wages are I want every speckled and spotted sheep and goat and every dark lamb that you have

Okay, you were this still. Okay, so so you'd be glad I've summarized it rather than reading it. So labor says yeah

Okay, you're on and then the very same day

Laban runs around and gets every spotted sheep speckled lamb speckled goat and dark lamb and scurries them away from Jacob

So he can't find them

Okay, you can bear with this bow with this it gets better

So then Jacob he goes around the trees that are poplar almond and plane trees

Get some branches and strips the bark off them and then he puts those branches in the water troughs

Where the sheep come to drink and when his sheep come to drink from those water troughs and they mate

Guess what? They give birth to young that are streaked and speckled and spotted

How about you can't wait to hear what we're gonna talk about this

Right and we read at the end of that chapter Jacob becomes exceedingly wealthy

Okay

I'm gonna I just thank God that when you want to prepare sometimes I feel okay

There's a few few key verses in here that I really want to bring out and that's what we're going to be doing this morning

But with that summary you think why is going on?

What is happening here because of all this crazy stuff happening, you know, this is this is the nation of Israel

This is the people of God. This is God's chosen people his holy nation and there's like there's four months to all of them

And they're conceived in sort of chaos

but I tell you that's why God works because when all that mess is going on all that complexity of human interaction and

Stuff that a lot screwed up stuff that doesn't make sense and people making mistakes

We're gonna see a little bit more in a minute God's plans and God's purposes

Continue to move forward

And I tell you that is such good news because that says when there's so much mess in my life

God's plans and purposes for me continue to move forward when there's so much mess in the church

God's plans and purposes for the church continue to move forward when there's so much mess in this nation

In this continent in this world today

God's plans and purposes are continuing to move forward

Because it's not all nice and neat and boxed up, you know

And actually we think about it the story we've had so far is you know

Remember God spoke to Abraham about his promises, you know

and our Abraham's gonna have children as numerous as the sand on the seashore and there's the

Stars in the sky and Abraham tries to make it happen himself and give Ishmael arrives and Sarah laughs at God and says I can't

Have children and lo and behold. Guess what? She does have the one and then Isaac. He doesn't seem to want to get married

So, how is he going to carry on the promise?

But eventually he marries Rebekah and then we have the stories of Esau and Jacob and the deceit

With their mum Rebekah in order that Jacob gets the blessing and without all of that and now that same sort of mess

He's just carrying on

Yeah, and we shouldn't be surprised that we're living in a place of mess

But what we should be doing is in that place of mess saying God, what are you doing?

What are you saying I want to tune into what you are doing and what's happening

Last week. We looked at Leah and we saw how God brought her to a place of praise and freedom

From what everybody else thought about her, you know

We heard how she won that was unattractive that she was the the cast off that her dad

Skeamed to give her away to her husband

and the challenge of that for her obviously but God brought her through that to a place of freedom from what people thought and a

place of praise and worship

To God this week. We're going to home in on her sister Rachel

And and just talk a little bit about that in the next few minutes

You see Rachel Rachel was the attractive one as we heard last week and when you read about line chapter 29

Rachel was the one that Jacob wanted to marry

The one he was prepared to wait seven years

Before he could have her as his wife and then agreeing to work another seven years

Afterwards, you know, that was the value of that man placed on that woman and there's a sermon or two in there about values

Between men and women which we're not going to get into but you can get the picture

How highly he respected her and thought of her and now at the start of chapter 30 we read this in verse 1

When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children. She became jealous of her sister. That's Leah

Who by this time had four children? So she said to Jacob give me children or I'll die

Jacob became angry with her and said am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children?

So Rachel is jealous at the outset of this, you know

Leah is having all the children to Jacob and she hasn't had any and you kind of start think

How must that have felt?

to her how much she you've handled that how painful and

Difficult that must been must have been not only just naturally

But we've gone from the promise of God to Abraham like like I said the promise of God came to Abraham

Your children are going to be that numerous and he has one son

Right. His children are going to be as numerous as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky

And he just has one son and it's like the promise of God is hanging by a thread

One son and then Isaac marries Rebecca and yeah, they have two sons, but the promise and blessing of God is to Jacob only

One son so for two generations this massive promise of God is like he's hanging by a thread

Just one son

Just one son and now we get to Jacob and suddenly it's like the children of the promise are popping up everywhere

You know Leah's had four by this time already and they're in the promise and the blessing of God, but there's Rachel

And she must be thinking what's going on? How could this have happened? She is not involved

She is the one missing

out

And I think we probably all know a little bit about how that feels

I remember when I was a

Young man of 18 so probably like a lot of us. I went through school

we had a group of mates who hung out together and when I got to

I did a levels with these guys

and when the results came out all the all of them got the grades to go off to college except for me and

And I remember at the time thinking

Well thinking quite a few things. I remember I remember them on the day

The results came out then trying to console me that doesn't work. Does it? You know, they've got the grades

They're off into it

Is that at that time people always went off to new towns and cities and whatever and they were off

And they were excited and they tried to console me

But it doesn't work does it like that when when you're the one feeling left out of all these other people

If all these other people try and console it, it doesn't really work

I remember the school throwing a book of courses at me and say have a look at that and that was the sum of their wisdom

And I remember the walk home to my parents house and feeling this sense of failed

Expectations, you know, it's not a statement about them

It's just my insecurity in the way that I processed it at the time

But the biggest thing I think I remember more than anything else was that everybody else they had success

Everybody else was getting on everybody else was now leaving the hometown where we'd grown up and was off to something new and exciting

And I was missing out

And you know that feeling when everyone around you is in on something but you're not

You're missing out, you know for those of us Christians of a certain age and era would remember when you know

John Wimber came in the 1980s when the Toronto blessing so-called happened in the 90s and so many

Conversations around then when God was doing stuff in people's lives if you weren't feeling it you felt you were missing out

And it just exposed our insecurities

Actually that we feel why isn't that happening to me?

God mustn't love me as much as he loves them and all that sort of tosh, right because it's just bringing out our insecurities

That's all it's doing and so here for Rachel wishes. She's missing out

That's what it's like for her. I

Thought this was gonna happen God

But it hasn't

Not only not only is what I thought was going to happen to me not happening it's happening to them

Leah is the one getting blessed in the story, but I thought it was me. I thought Jacob loved me

I thought the blessing of God was going to come to me

I thought I was gonna have children but it's not happening and not only is it not happening to me

It is happening to that person over there

It's not fair

God

Why is it like this God?

in life

In the church

in our own pursuit of Jesus

Is this resonating a bit?

That's good

Certainly does with me and we do what Rachel does in the story

we look for things and we look for people to blame and point the finger at

Jacob this is your fault. She says, you know

I'm when we feel like that and that jealousy and anger is in us

We might not use those words but often what it boils down to we look to point the finger away from us

And blame somebody or something else. We thought this was what God had promised surely

This was the will of God. I thought the church was going to do this

I thought revival was going to happen in the 1980s or whatever and it didn't

We thought this is what God had promised and instead of being in a place of a place of praise like her sister Leah

We get into a place of anger and

Jealousy sure we might hide it from time, but we might suppress it. We might get really good at putting the mask on

So it doesn't so but from time to time guess what it bursts out

We can't help it because it is in there because of the frustration of

What of our understanding because of the disappointment that this has happened to them and it hasn't happened to us

Because the anger is so deep-seated and so eats away in our quiet moments

How can God do that with them? Leah isn't even the one that Jacob wanted to marry

It's so unfair

How come this has happened in my life? I

Thought God was leading me on

But now I haven't got a clue what's happening

And you know for Rachel it's it's childlessness or that word we often read about in Scripture

It's that sense of feeling barren and maybe for you this morning

But this is resonating a little bit and and you're feeling a sense of barrenness

You know that sense of desert of where is God? Why has this happened Lord?

Or maybe it's just a sense of sickness or desperation or loneliness or isolation

The killer question as I think about this is

What is Rachel lost sight of at this point in the passage at this point in the story?

she's lost sight of God's promises are true and

He is faithful and loving to all he has made I walked in and we're singing

Waymaker

Promise keeper miracle worker probably the wrong order, but you know what I mean, right? We sing those songs, right?

We sing those words and because it's a great tune

We might even sing it with gusto

But the reality is have we got a hold of that in our lives because scripture teaches us that not

Darlings these or Bethel or whoever our favorite worship guy is

You know because scripture teaches that what God is have we got a hold of that and a learning to apply that

in the nitty-gritty

Earthy really annoying things that happen in our day-to-day lives

And not just reserve it for a moment on a Sunday morning because that's what this is about

That's what Jesus wants to do with us

He wants us to get a grip of his word and apply it into our hearts and work hard to make it change our lives

And our lifestyle because he's got freedom for us. Oh

God that's what he wants to do

And

Yet, I guess just like Rachel

There's a great pressure to try and fix it ourselves because we want it now

We don't want to wait for anything

You know the pressure in the world around us is if you've got to wait for anything move on to the next thing

Don't wait, you know we used to preach ages ago must have been 1980s or 90s

We talked about instant foods instant coffee instant tea is you know the pressure on smashed you remember smash?

Hey

We're all old. I know right and the need for everything instant

You know now. It's just it's just got to be a few clicks away

One click away one swipe or whatever and he's there in front of us and all so many things in life

That will bring that pressure of instantness to us, but anything that is of value

takes time

Particularly when it comes to relationships

Particularly when it comes to and I'm talking about relationships husband wise parents and children

Friends in the church, but of course especially with Jesus, and it takes that investment

It takes that build up of trust

And so although Rachel tries to manufacture it herself and let Jacob sleep with her maidservant

That doesn't really cut it for her sure she gets two kids

But as we'll see in a minute that doesn't address the root issue of what's going on in our life

And for you and me we can do that as we get frustrated thinking we're waiting for God. I'll give him a hand

Right yeah, and I'll try and do something myself, but at the end of the day

That doesn't cut the mustard it doesn't doesn't address. What is going on?

So he stays like that for Rachel

As I say and it's interesting just like her ancestors

You know Abraham tries to make it himself and as Ishmael there's a bit of shenanigans going on with

Rebecca and Esau and Jacob and now she tries to have a go and all along already

We're only in chapter 30 of the Bible

There's an awful lot more chapters to come yet, and everybody's trying to make you up and do it themselves

Instead of learning this God who was promised

This is a God who is going to act and do it in his time in his way

Until

We get to verse 22

Which I'm so glad is in here not just because of the rest of the chapter

But because of what it teaches us today and what Rachel can teach us today, so we get to verse 22

And we read this

then God

remembered Rachel

He listened to her and opened her womb

She became

Pregnant and gives but gave birth to a son and said God has taken away my disgrace and she named the son Joseph

It's just a few things about this first of all so when he says God remembered Rachel, it's really important

We don't think that actually yeah, God's really busy. He's sorting out Jacob

Maybe he's even gone to what Esau's doing and he's seen some other people around the rest of the world and they go

Rachel I forgot about Rachel quick was that RACHEL or RACH8EL

I can never remember. It doesn't mean that okay when we read that God remembered Rachel

It's not like he had a senior moment, but I would now I'm just forever telling me to write lists

So that I remember, but then I've got to remember to look at the list so so but you know

It's not like that God hasn't got a great long list and he's gone way past the Rachel item and he's down here now

And he's got to go back. It's not like that. He doesn't forget in that sense, okay?

But this is the third so we go back to scripture to try and figure out. What does that really mean then?

Well, this is the third time already in the Bible that we read this phrase in chapter 8 and verse 1 of Genesis

We read God remembered Noah

But that time Noah was in the ark

It was bobbing around on the waters and then we read God remembered Noah

And he dries the waters out and the ark settles

And then the next time is in chapter 19 of Genesis just before he's about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and we read and God

remembered

Abraham and rescued Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah in other words

This is a phrase used to indicate that God is about to take action on behalf of that person

for their good

God is about to do it

Indicates a turning point that what I've been the status quo before that what I've been what life was about before

But what I've been the norm and what I got used to and expected

God was suddenly going to do something and change all of that. So that was no longer the case

So for Noah the ark was going to land and all the animals are going to come out

It was a turning point for Abraham

Lot his nephew was going to be rescued from those cities and now for Rachel we see there's a sudden change

As she moves from being barren to being childless and anybody who's gone from having no children to having one child

Will understand the massive turning point that is in life

But there's much more to it than simply having children here in this passage for us

You see God had not forgotten Rachel his promises and his plans and his purposes are not upset by our

Disappointments by our screw-ups by our what the Bible calls sin sure we may think they are from our perspective

But he does not forget his promises and plans and purposes remain true

He is a Heavenly Father who loves his people. He had made a covenant with Abraham

That's a big strong word for a prompt were you've way beyond the promise

He made that to Abraham and he was going to fulfill it and now the promise of God was on

Rachel and that was not going to change no matter what else happened or had happened to her

The

Promises of God over us are not affected by family rouse and arguments

That's so good to know in it

That is so good to know and they're not affected by how long that we have to wait

And so what what was the effect of this? I?

Just want to end bring this to an ending with this bit

What was the if you guess she had a son she had Joseph of course?

But there's this little phrase in the NIV it says that

Though she said God has taken away my disgrace

I just want to change that slightly in most other versions. He says God has taken away my reproach

and actually when I looked it up the

Sounds arrogant. I don't say the original Hebrew. I looked it up in a book

I'll just write and actually the word the word is better translated reproach, so I looked up reproach in a dictionary

And it said in the dictionary reproach means to criticize someone

Especially for not being successful or not doing what is expected?

You see if all the ladies had turned up in unit two yesterday at one o'clock

And there was bare tables and there was eight lads sat on the chairs playing cards together

Erica would be totally justified in reproaching me

That will be fully done it means you know you tell you criticizing someone for not being successful or not

Doing what is expected, but notice the what she says God has taken away

my reproach

So in other words Rachel is criticizing herself

Especially for not being successful and not doing what is expected of her

She is criticizing herself. She's thinking whatever she she's thinking. What is everybody else saying about me?

What is everybody else thinking about me, and she's a result of that. She's

criticizing herself and

then suddenly God comes and acts and

Takes that away

But I just how common is that amongst us in fact the more

I think about this the more I think we're all like this right we all get hang-ups and start thinking

What does so-and-so think about me? What do they think about me? You know I wish I was like them

But I'm not like them. I'm not as successful as them. We might not use that language

But we criticize ourselves

And so we have this reproach if you like to ourselves you think if only I was like them

We use language like

Well, I'm not a success

I've I've not got a levels. I failed my a levels. I'm not a success

I can't do that I

Would never be like them. I could never be like them

I'm a failure I

Don't belong

You know we use language if you use language like that

Just in here you may not even tell people about it, but in here

Then that is you are approaching yourself, and you are criticizing yourselves for not being successful or doing what is expected

And we do that don't we and it and it's such a crippling thing it really is it's such a crippling thing that

That that constrains and restricts and limits

And as we focused on it limits what God can do innocent through us

When as we're going to see he's won the freedom for us to be to not have to live like that. You see Rachel

Stop worrying

What other people thought about her?

She stopped viewing herself as the loser as an object of ridicule of being

Second best her approach was taken away by God

Enabling her to have a child and in a kind of ironic twist of scripture this same father

God takes away our approach

Through the death of his only child

on the cross at Calvary

He's done it. He's done it. We don't have to live in that place where we are critical of ourselves all the time

We don't have to live in that place where what we do is so conditioned by everybody else around us because that's what we're bothered

Thinking about he has won freedom for us on the cross not to have to live like that

Paul writes in fact Paul writes in his letter to the to the Colossians

but Jesus has taken it away and nailed it to the cross if

You're stuck in a place this morning where you are critical of yourself because of what other people have or haven't said and you've got false

Expectations of yourself because it's driven by what other people have done or said or thought about you

Jesus says I've nailed that to the cross we can be free

Good

Some of us are getting it we can be free and we need to come back to the cross and find that place and say

Jesus I need your forgiveness. He writes Paul writes again in Romans 8 there is now no

Yeah, get it see now that is classic isn't it that's a verse that we know and love because we're good Christians

Right, but the trick is applying that to our lives day by day in our thought life

You don't have to be critical of yourself. You don't have to stand accept the stand there say I'm a failure

I'm no good because Jesus says no there is no condemnation for anyone who is in Christ

We have to get a hold of that and apply it to our lives

These scriptures are here to set us free and to bring us truth

Not just simply to memorize but that is a step on the way, right?

But here to set us free and we need to get a hold of this word and let it change our lives because this tells

Us what God is all about this tells us what God has got a plan for you and a purpose for you

This tells us how we need to live and discover who this Jesus really is and that he is alive today

And it can change lives

Just

To come back to so it's a my little story when I was 18 and that sense of feeling, you know a loss

Late, so it's just like Rachel. Nothing changed straight away. But later that year I had an interview at what was then called Sheffield Polytechnic

And I remember going back on the train home from that interview and it's one of those really old trains

Not steam train

One of those really old trains were those carriages that have got six seats in only, you know

The sliding door and there's three seats there

And I had that compartment to myself on the way home and for the first time I didn't really use this language then

But for the first time I had this sudden sense that God's hand was on what was going on

and that switched

Maybe even at that point or soon after and I wasn't bothered that my mates had gone away and off doing their thing

Suddenly there was something far more significant on the scene

God's hand God's plan God's purposes

And so I finish with this and I do come back to this this issue of reproach

And maybe as we sing at the end, I want to encourage you to respond to Jesus about this because you know

Maybe the starting place is actually to ask for forgiveness

Maybe

Maybe the starting place is to say, Lord, I'm sorry to think like that

I bring this all to you Jesus and if it's helpful

I encourage you just to come and kneel at the cross and the sun and just do business with God

Because he longs for us to be free from this. You don't have to live like that

anymore because Jesus died on the cross and is alive today to change your heart change your mind and change your life and

Those patterns those thought patterns can be transformed by the power of the cross and I just encourage you as we worship

In a minute to respond to him. Like I said come and kneel on the floor and worship and give it to him

He is the one who can do this

You see when God breaks into your life

There's a reevaluation of what truly matters and as we encounter a living God a

Loving father who has called us by name who has chosen us who says you are mine

Who has watched over us from before we were conceived

Who has very great and precious promises for us and who ultimately gave us his only son for you

And for me the more we live in that space the less we worry about what has happened

What others think and the more we live in the goodness that our reproach is taken away

by Jesus

Amen

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By Meadowhead Christian Fellowship