Genesis 29:31-30:24 - Fighting For Fulfillment

Main Idea: Jesus will give you the fulfillment no one else can.

• OTHERS’ SIN LEAVES US BROKEN

• OUR SIN LEAVES US GUILTY

• JESUS FORGIVES AND RESTORES US

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

So we've been looking at Family Feud.

Isaac, Jacob, and as we'll get into today, all 12 of Jacob's kids, they are God's chosen people, and they are not behaving anything like God.

This family is so messed up in a really comforting way, because we can look at what's happening, and I'll be honest with you guys, for most of you, your families are never this bad.

And so you can go home to your family today and be like, guys, thank you for not doing, like, literally, in this portion of Scripture, Genesis chapter 30 today, we're gonna see Jacob and Rachel and Leah and a couple other people do stuff that you're like, I could never imagine doing that.

That is so terrible.

And so I think it brings some comfort to our hearts that God can use broken people and those broken people can include us.

And if God can use these people, and if God can bring Christ into the world through this family, then imagine what he can do with you.

And as we have been walking through, we've seen that God's way and man's way are totally separate things.

Man's way is always insistent on fighting.

They're fighting for, or this last week, respect.

They're fighting for the blessing of God.

They're fighting over God's will.

And instead, God's way is often something that is handed to us, that God gives it.

You don't have to, if you will, connive and thieve and trick your way into receiving what God has for you.

So we've seen that even in the life of Jacob, that he tricks his brother into giving him the birthright.

He tricks his father into giving him the family blessing.

He, as we'll see in some future weeks, he tricks his father-in-law.

He continues to do tricky things even within his marriage.

And yet God still has a plan for him.

But his plan for him, as we saw when Jacob was back at Bethel, was, I am going to bless you.

I am going to make of you a great nation.

And in your family, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

So that's the promise.

And so even as we come to this portion of scripture, I want you to come into it with that mindset, that what these people are doing in this passage is not good.

It's not something that you should replicate.

And it's something that we should recognize even in our own lives when we are falling prey to this.

Today, we are in Genesis chapter 29 verse 31 through chapter 30 and verse 24.

The chapter and verse spacings for this portion of Genesis are a little weird.

It doesn't quite follow the story exactly.

And so it jumps through some of that.

But today, we're going to be looking at fighting for fulfillment.

Fighting for fulfillment.

When it comes right down to it, other than our basic necessities of food and shelter and clothing, what many of us are wanting in life is fulfillment.

We want to have a purpose.

We want to wake up in the morning and be excited about doing this thing that we were made for.

We want, even in our interactions with other people, we want to feel like, yes, I am at my truest self.

I get my greatest fulfillment when I am with my spouse or when I'm taking care of my kids or when I am hanging out with these friends, I feel like this is the reason that I was made.

But the truth is, many of us do not feel fulfilled.

We don't wake up and go, yes, I can't wait to interact with everything that is coming today.

And in this passage, we're going to see in particular, one lady named Leia that we met last week, that she is searching for fulfillment.

And she finds a little bit of it.

She releases some of it back, and then we'll see a couple of other characters that aren't even trying to find fulfillment where she is.

And where she finds some fulfillment, and where I'm going to call us to today, is to find fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

He is the only one who truly can give you fulfillment.

No one else, no other thing, no other situation or environment or job or possession can give you the fulfillment that Jesus gives you.

So let's look in the passage today.

Look at some things along the way.

If you look on your outline, it's real simple.

Part of that's because Bryon's tired.

And so you might get the shortest message Bryon's ever preached.

And that will happen regardless, because I don't have a whole layout of notes today.

Frankly, I'm just going to tell you guys why God's light on my heart from the word.

And so didn't do some of the things I usually do, but I pray that it will be a blessing.

Genesis chapter 29 verse 31 says this.

When the Lord, when you always saw that Leia was neglected or hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was unable to conceive.

Now that's a wild sentence to start off the message on.

You guys are like, whoa, what's happening here?

If you remember last week, Jacob had worked for seven years so that he could marry Laban's youngest daughter, Rachel.

He saw her, he met her, he fell in love with her.

It's said that the seven years that he worked for, it was just like a few days because of the great love that he had for her.

And during the wedding feast, which would kind of be a drinking feast, his father-in-law, under the cover of nights and then possibly due to the inebriated state that Jacob found himself in and possibly as well due to old-timey veils and stuff that you would have in the Middle East, his father-in-law subbed in the older daughter, Leia.

So Jacob worked for seven years for Rachel because he loved her.

And then Laban snuck in Leia instead.

Scripture doesn't tell us if Leia was happy with that plan, if she was like, wow, I never thought that I would get married.

And now, like, he stuck with me.

It doesn't say what happened with that.

But we are told, Jacob was irate.

He says, hey, I worked for seven years for Rachel, and what in the world have you done?

And Laban throws it back in his face.

Jacob is the youngest of a set of twin brothers.

So you have Esau, who's the older brother, and so he was the first born.

He deserved all of the birthright, the blessings, all of that stuff, all of the possessions and property were supposed to, or the majority of it, was supposed to go to Esau, and then Jacob was just supposed to get whatever was left.

Jacob had tricked first Esau, and then his father into giving him stuff, treating him like the first born through lies and trickery.

And Laban says, well, I don't know how you do it, but in our country, we do not give the younger before the first born.

Just throws it in his face and says, no, you think you're really tricky?

I'm even trickier.

And so he gives Leah.

Well, then he says, if you work for me for seven more years, then I'll also give you Rachel.

Now, here's where the Bible doesn't explicitly state this, because it should be obvious.

Should you, after falsely marrying one of your daughters to a man, should you say, oh, I'll give you the other daughter to marry as well?

Should you do that?

No, this is bad behavior.

And Jacob accepts.

Now, I'm sure there's a whole slew of ethical conundrums that you could work through on.

All right, should Jacob have just stuck with Leia?

Should he have said, no, like this was not, if you will, this was not consensual.

This is a sham marriage.

This isn't real.

And so only my marriage to Rachel would be real.

You could walk through all of that if you wanted to.

But the important part here is Leia is an unloved, unwanted bride.

Frankly, kind of hated in comparison, especially with her sister.

For Rachel, Jacob ends up working 14 years of his life, and Leia is all alone.

But I want you to notice who noticed Leia when her dad used her as a pawn, when her husband disregarded her, when her sister got everything that she wanted in life.

Who saw her?

Who noticed her?

The Lord.

I don't know where you're at today.

I don't know what kind of situations that you are walking through.

I don't know the hurts that you're carrying that no one else sees.

But I want you to know that God sees.

And in your darkest moments, there is a God who notices the hated, the unloved, the unwanted.

And he cares about you.

Because of God's seeing of Leia's situation, in verse 32, Leia conceives, gave birth to a son and named him Reuben.

For she said, Yahweh has seen my affliction.

Surely my husband will love me now.

I find it so sad.

We'll see this over and over again in the passage, and so I don't have to draw attention to it every time.

Leia is unloved, and yet she is used by Jacob to bring kids, to bring sons.

There is not an affection.

There's not a care.

There's not a love.

We'll see that in some of the following verses, but she's being used for Jacob's fulfillment and his pleasure and his plan for his life and making a large family, but she's unloved.

I want to encourage you, if you are married today, your spouse is not just there for your fulfillment and your enjoyment.

You are there to show Jesus's love to them.

There ought never to be a situation like this, where someone is unloved and that yet they are used by their spouse.

I encourage you have the love of Christ even in your marriage.

And here, as Leah receives this son, she names him Reuben, and she says, okay, God has seen where I'm at now, but her focus is, God has seen me.

I have this son, so now I bet Jacob will love me.

I've given him his firstborn son.

Well, if you know anything about Jacob, he's not particularly fond of firstborns anyway, but that's what happens.

Verse 33, she conceived again, gave birth to a son and said, Yahweh heard that I am neglected and has given me this son also.

So she named him Simeon.

So she says, wonderful.

This is so great.

God is continuing to hear me.

He hears that I am neglected.

Again, the focus is still on Jacob, that she is neglected by Jacob.

Verse 34, she conceived again, gave birth to a son and said, at last my husband will become attached to me because I have borne three sons for him.

Therefore, he was named Levi.

Here, even on this third son, there's still this hope, will he be attached to me?

Will he bestow me with love and affection and care and want to talk with me, want to spend time with me?

I'll tell you guys, like this is a horrible situation that Leia is in, where she's basically being used as a concubine, like we'll see in the upcoming verses, nothing more than a slave to someone else.

There are times in your life and in my life where people treat us this way.

And when that happens, we have a choice.

We can either keep our focus on, well, I really, really hope that this person begins changing.

I hope that as they adjust their behavior, that then I will find fulfillment.

That's what Leia is doing here.

She says, okay, I have these three sons.

Hopefully one of these is going to win the affection and love of Jacob towards me.

I hope this changes him.

But Leia could not find fulfillment in Jacob.

And that's what she says in verse 35.

She conceived again, gave birth to a son, and said, this time I will praise Yahweh.

Therefore, she named him Judah.

Then Leia stopped having children.

Here, there's no mention of the husband.

There's no mention of what she wishes would change in her life circumstances.

It's just, God, you gave me this kid, I'm going to praise you.

The praise point came when she was no longer looking for Jacob to fulfill everything that she needed in her life.

But instead, she said, I'm going to praise the Lord.

The Lord has to be my focus.

The Lord has to be my fulfillment in this situation.

If the message ended there, it would be so great.

It does not end there, and it gets so ugly so fast.

Chapter 13, verse 1.

When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she envied her sister.

Give me sons or I will die, she said to Jacob.

Remember, she's the loved one.

She's the one that has the attention, the affection, the attachment Jacob has with Rachel.

And yet Rachel, instead of enjoying what other people wished for years, you know, think of the timeline of Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah.

You have years worth of time that Leah is hoping for what Rachel has.

And yet Rachel does not find any enjoyment in what God has given her.

And instead, she's envying Leah.

So both of them wish that they had what the other person had.

It's so sad.

They're trying to find their fulfillment in people, in things, in relationship, rather than in the Lord.

So she says, give me sons or I die.

Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, am I in the place of God?

He has withheld offspring from you.

He says, it's not because I don't love you.

It's not because I'm not spending time with you in a marital sense.

He says, this is God's doing.

Like, I'm doing my part.

So why are you here?

He's angry with her and says, why are you yelling at me?

Then she said, here is my maid Bilha.

Go sleep with her and she'll bear children for me so that through her, I too can build a family.

Okay, if you remember back in the life of Abraham, this is the exact same dumb idea that Sarah had with her maidservant Hagar that she said, okay, well, Abraham, like bring her in and give her a kid, and then it will count as mine because Bilha is my property, and so therefore, any kids that Bilha has are also my property.

Okay, guys, is slavery good or bad?

Bad.

Don't do that.

And so here, what is happening is more and more adultery that is taking place.

It's bringing more and more people into the marital relationship, and it's a total severing of what God's plan was.

So verse four, Rachel gave her slave Bilha to Jacob as a wife, and he slept with her.

Bilha conceived and bore Jacob a son.

Rachel said, God has vindicated me.

Yes, he has heard me and given me a son.

So she named him Dan.

Okay.

Did God vindicate Rachel's choice to cause more adultery to happen?

No.

God is loving.

He is kind.

He, as we're told multiple times throughout the Psalms, the offspring, the fruit of the womb are the gift, the delight of God that he gives, but not because he condones every situation in which kids are conceived.

He loves kids, but he's not signing off on every situation in which kids are conceived.

So here Rachel has just this totally warped mindset that, okay, yes, now I am winning in this battle against Leah.

She continues, Rachel's slave, Bilhah, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

Rachel said, in my wrestlings with God, I have wrestled with my sister and won.

And she named him Naphtali.

What a sad thing here.

Rachel even recognizes, I'm at odds with God.

I'm fighting with him.

I'm trying to get him to do what I want to do.

But in my wrestlings with him, I have also wrestled against my sister and won.

Here, there's just animosity.

There's anger.

There's fighting.

There's adultery.

And you guys go, this would make a great soap opera.

It probably would, to be honest with you guys.

I'm sure there's a telenovela that probably has this exact storyline at some point.

Verse number nine, when Leah saw that she had stopped having children, which is so sad because we left on such a great note of, now I will praise the Lord.

My focus is on God.

But she took her attention off.

So just because you put your attention on God at one time, just because you're finding fulfillment in the Lord at one point, doesn't mean that that's just like a one-time decision, that then you're just locked in forever, and you will never again get your focus off.

The truth is we have to every single day go, God, I need to find my fulfillment in you.

I need to find my identity, what grounds me, what gives me purpose and hope for my day.

It has to be you to follow what you have called me to, to rejoice in who Jesus is and what he has done for me.

You have to keep doing that.

When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

It's not good, guys.

Also, side note, this is now, Jacob has now outnumbered Esau for how many wives that he has.

And so, that was already something that was looked at poorly in the life of Esau, that he was not following God's design for marriage.

But now, Jacob, the chosen one, the blessed one, now has even more wives.

And he's just using women, and they are using Jacob to fight each other.

It's just a whole messed up situation.

So she took her slave Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Leah's slave Zilpah bore Jacob a son.

Then Leah said, what good fortune.

And she named him Gad.

I also noticed there, there's no mention of the Lord anymore.

There's no God has done this.

The Lord has seen my neglect.

None of that's happening anymore.

It's just what good fortune.

When Leah's slave Zilpah bore Jacob a second son, Leah said, I am happy that the women call me happy.

So she named him Asher.

This just makes me go, guys, what are we doing?

Because now, instead of the attention being on, all right, I wish I had the love of my husband that Rachel has, instead of being like, okay, I want Jacob to give me fulfillment so that I feel like I have purpose or I have worth, now it's the women, now the townspeople.

And now I can say, hey, listen, look, I've got six kids that are mine, four of her own, and then now these two from her handmaid.

The focus is totally off of God now, and it's back on to other people are giving me my identity.

Ruben went out during the wheat harvest and found some mandrakes in the field.

When he brought them to his mother, Leah, Rachel asked, please give me some of your son's mandrakes.

Mandrakes were a fruit that were assumed to be an aphrodisiac and to have some fertility powers, if you will, that it would help you to be able to conceive.

So here, Ruben, the oldest son of Leah, Rachel goes, please give me some of your son's mandrakes.

But Leah replied to her, isn't it enough that you have taken my husband?

Now you want to take my son's mandrakes?

Well then, Rachel said, he can sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes.

Here, now, Jacob is literally being prostituted out by his wives for fruit.

Also, bad decisions with fruit, seeing the fruit, taking it, all of that is meant to bring to mind the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, where God says, hey, like, just do what I have called you to do, do what I've told you, and they're not following.

And instead, they're doing whatever is right in their own eyes.

They say, God, we're not going to listen to your definition of good and wrong.

Instead, we're going to define good and wrong on our own.

When Jacob came in from the field that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, you must come with me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.

So Jacob slept with her that night.

And then here's a verse that should bring both comfort and kind of rub you a little bit.

God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Was Leah perfect in what she was doing?

But did God still listen to her and care for her even in her imperfection?

I need that.

There's never been a day where I've been like, man, Bryon has been perfect today.

I am killing it.

And the truth is none of us have ever been in that spot, not truly.

And so I'm thankful that we have a God that listens to us in our messed up state.

I'm thankful for the truth that we hear from Scripture, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

The truth is this, that God hears when sinners cry out to him.

We're told in Scripture if you're just trying to get God to do what you want, you're like, give me the Lamborghini.

Give me the Lamborghini.

God's not going to hear you on that if you're out there stealing stuff and you're trying to tell God, like, God, listen, just really help me with my finances.

I know I just stole the Xbox from the Best Buy, but listen, I really need your help with my finances.

God might not be working in that way, but I'm thankful that for every person that goes, God, I've messed up, I've sinned, I've not been walking with you.

Would you please forgive me?

Jesus says all that the Father has given to him will come to him, and anyone that comes to him, he will by no means, he will not in any wise cast them out.

I don't know today if you're like, I've been wandering from God for a hot minute.

The Lord will hear you.

The Lord will forgive you.

The Lord will save you.

He will cleanse you, just as he works through this family.

And though we're not seeing all of the end effects of it right now, the truth is, even as we look at Leah's son Judah, so that fourth son, that's the one that Jesus Christ came from.

He came from the fourth kid of the unloved first wife.

And God can use even a messed up story like this to bring everlasting salvation and life to anyone that calls on the name of Jesus.

Leah said, God has rewarded me for giving my slave to my husband, and she named him Issachar.

Once again, did God reward her for bringing more adultery into the situation?

No.

I'll throw this in as well as an aside.

Just because you think God's doing something, or that God's rewarding you for something that you did, that's not how he works.

Like, he brings, as Jesus says, he brings the rain on the just and on the unjust.

That is, those that are walking with him, he provides rain for crops, and those that are not walking with him, he provides rain for those crops.

Just because you experience blessings in your life doesn't mean that you are walking with the Lord.

Blessings do not equal God's reward.

Now, sometimes God does bless us, and what a joy it is to experience those times.

But even here, as Leah has this warped idea, as her sister has had, it should make us realize, okay, I'm going to think incorrectly about some situations, and I should probably not bring God's name into something that God himself has not brought his name into.

It's what the third commandment, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

It's not just talking about blasphemy, like using Jesus' name as a curse word, or, oh my God, or something like that.

It's not just that.

Taking the Lord's name in vain is also, listen, Alex, God said you have to give me the red chair that's chilling at, trying to remember, oh, the red chair at Target, the red lawn chair.

God told me that you need to buy that for my family.

I mentioned the red chair at Target, because my son saw it the other day and was like, oh, I like that chair.

I could say that, but God hasn't said that to me.

That's taking the Lord's name in vain.

I couldn't go to any verse in scripture and find Target or a red chair or that Alex is supposed to buy it or that she's supposed to give it to Bryon.

There's nowhere in scripture.

So don't take the name of the Lord in vain, which is what is happening here.

Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son.

God has given me a good gift, Leah said.

This time, and then what are the next two words?

My husband will honor me because I have borne six sons for him, and she named him Zebulon.

Here are the focus still.

Trying to find fulfillment, but is seeking to find fulfillment and purpose in another person instead of in God.

It's not that she's totally erased God from her mind.

It's not that she's living her life totally apart from God, but the focus is not where it ought to be on what does God want for this marriage.

What does God want for my life?

What does God want as I'm raising these kids?

And even as I think about the story of Leia, and I'll mention one verse more later, Leia bore a daughter and named her Dinah.

Here, there are seven kids, and the unloved woman has seven children, and her sister, the one that is loved by Jacob, she has no kids of her own.

Here, what we see is that God was still blessing and caring for Leia.

She couldn't understand it.

She wasn't noticing it, but God had given her blessings in her life, seven blessings, actually, that were all her own.

And yet her focus was still on what she didn't have, the honor of Jacob.

Today, in your life, what do you think that your life would be perfect if just this thing were to change?

If Darryl were to take out the trash more often, then I would find true happiness.

If this person would just, you know, be quiet, stop talking.

If this person would just apologize for what they did, then I would be at peace.

Then I would have happiness.

I'd have fulfillment.

Maybe it's, man, if my kids would just get back into church, then I would find fulfillment.

Then I wouldn't have the guilt.

Can I tell you?

If you are relying on other people for your fulfillment, you will never find it.

You can't.

They weren't made to be your everything.

But there was one, and there is one, who is there to be your everything.

The one that every ache and cry of your heart can go out to.

The one who will never ever throw you away or leave you outside.

The one that will never speak unkindly to you, never insult you.

And that God is the one that wants a relationship with you.

And so often, we have God.

We have His Word.

We have His Holy Spirit living inside of us.

And we go, man, if I had that new toy, then my life would be great.

If I had that new job, everything would be perfect.

And the Lord even from this passage says, listen, I can give you blessings.

I can give you blessings that other people live all of their life wishing that they had.

But that will not give you fulfillment.

What you need is me.

And so I want to encourage you, even from this story, find your fulfillment in Jesus.

He's the one that loves you.

He's the one that died for you.

He's the one that reigns in heaven enthroned, ever interceding for you and for me, praying for us at the Father's right hand, countering the claims of Satan as he accuses us night and day before the Father of the sins, both that he thinks that we've done and the sins that we've actually done.

And yet Jesus intercedes for us, and the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, and he guides us into all truth, and he makes us one with all other believers.

And yet so often we go, God, why don't you love me?

Why aren't you giving me what I want?

And he goes, I gave you me.

Is me not enough?

And the truth is, if you're here in this room today, God's given you some other stuff too.

He's given you some health.

He's given you the clothes on your body.

He has given you a church family to be a part of.

He gave you a way to be here today.

So he loves you, and he cares about you.

And so when you wake up in the morning, don't go, okay, I really hope my kids call today.

Otherwise, I'm just going to have an awful day.

Don't go, I really hope that my spouse greets me kindly and that they don't like chide me.

I just really want to have a happy day.

Wake up in the morning and go, God, you live in me.

I was made for you.

Show me what you have for me today.

As you interact with people, people will let you down.

They will fail you as these people did.

You will fail others.

So the only safe, solid ground that you can possibly find is Jesus, the firm foundation, the forgiving God.

The last verses of the chapter, verse 22, then God remembered Rachel.

Now, whenever in scripture you see God remembered, this isn't like he forgot.

It's called to remember.

It's, I am going to take an action as a result of their presence in my mind.

And so God acts on Rachel.

He listened to her and opened her womb.

She conceived and bore a son, and she said, God has taken away my disgrace.

She named him Joseph and said, may Yahweh add, what is it?

The next two words there, another son to me.

Today, tomorrow, this week, you've got two ways to live.

You can find your fulfillment in the God who made you, created you, unique and special as his own masterpiece, who saved you, who placed his Holy Spirit in you, who gave you every aspect and every person in your life so that you could show them who Jesus is.

You can either walk in the fulfillment of that, or you can do what these gals do the whole way through the story.

You can over and over again go, I wish I had what someone else had.

I wish I had the love or the forgiveness or the relationship with this other person that someone else has.

You can be like Jacob.

You can live in your sin.

You can use other people as much as you want, but your sin will leave you broken.

Others' people's sin, that can break you.

Your own sin will not fulfill you.

It'll leave you empty.

You can look at, for as much as the sisters gave their slaves to Jacob, and he started having kids with those slaves, it didn't fulfill the women.

And you look at Leah, and she, even after having seven kids of her own and a couple other ones that were the kids of her slaves, she's still saying, well, the women call me happy now.

And Rachel, she has a kid finally, and she goes, well, God will give me another one.

This one wasn't enough.

This thing that I've been praying for for years wasn't enough.

I want more.

Today, what will you find your fulfillment in?

Will it be in Jesus or will it be in trying to find fulfillment in other people?

The choice is up to you.