Big idea: Take your pain to God; His promises and His pity are abundant.
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Well, good morning, church family, it's so good to see you this morning. Please stand with me for the reading of God's Word. We're in Genesis chapter 29 if you're visiting for the first time or reading the Bible for the first time, I promise you weird. By our standards, we don't have polygamy in our culture. Well, most places we don't have it in our culture. This is the foundation, or the founding, of the nation of Israel. So it's really significant. I'll get that in a little bit. But what you're going to see, what I want you to notice as we go through it, is the Lord's actions, what he sees, what he does, what he hears, prayers that he answers. Watch these as we go through this really interesting passage, and I think it's really going to encourage you today what the Lord does with sinfully messy people.
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When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren, and Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben. For she said, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me, she conceived again and bore a son, and said, because the Lord has heard that I am hated. He has given me this son also, and she called his name Simeon. Again. She conceived and bore a son and said, Now this time my husband will be attached to me because I have born him three sons. Therefore His name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son and said, This time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister, she said to Jacob, give me children, or I die. Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb. Then she said, Here is my servant, Bilhah. Go into her that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her. So she gave him her servant, Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went into her, and Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me, vindicated me, and has heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name. Dan Rachel's servant, Bilhah, conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. Then Leah saw that she was she had ceased bearing children. She took her servant Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son, and Leah said, Good fortune has come. So she called his name gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son, and Leah said, Happy am I? For women have called me happy. So she called his name Asher. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But she said to her, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, well, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come into me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night, and God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because of my servant, because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterward, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel. God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph, saying, May the Lord add to me another son. This is the word of the lord father. Thank you that you continue to communicate to us through your word, Lord Jesus. I. You come from the line of Judah. You have come into our world, entered our suffering, have bore more suffering on our behalf. On the cross, you have redeemed us. You are a merciful Savior. Holy Spirit. Thank you for what you have written. And this is strange to our ears. We don't have polygamy. We don't know the complications of it, but we do have infertility in our world, and we do know the pain and complication of that. And we pray that as we look at this passage and understand the big picture and the small picture, that you would help us see who you are, a God of mercy, a God of promise and a God who cares for people, even those who are sinfully messy. I pray that you'd be at work in churches in our city to proclaim the same gospel of the merciful God who releases captives, captive to sin, addiction and all kinds of forms of things that hold us bondage. I pray that You would help those who are in pain, those who are struggling. Help the preaching of your word. Be faithful today. Pray for Colin Skipper at Southside Christian church that you would help him. Help him be faithful. And pray that You would help that church. I know they have a vibrant outreach ministry as a food bank there at their church now, with extra people coming to that, may there be increased gospel opportunities for them. Bless that ministry of theirs. Now we pray that You would bless the hearing of your word, that we would turn and glorify You in Christ's name. Amen, you may be seated. Well, if you've been tracking with us, there's kind of a familiar story coming together, isn't there? The characters of the Bible stories are often doing wrong things, and yet God is still moving his promises along. I mean, wrong, wrong, wrong. That's that seems like the point of every Genesis narrative, the people are doing wrong, and yet God is fulfilling His promises. Abraham lies about Sarah, wrong. Sarah gives Hagar to Abraham to have a baby, wrong. Rebecca and Jacob deceive Isaac to get his blessing wrong. Laban and Leah deceive Jacob wrong. By the end of the chapter, Jacob's going to end up with four wives wrong. Well, how do we know that? How do we know that polygamy is not okay, but it seems to be all over the Bible. So how do we know? Well, we know from how Genesis starts, Genesis couldn't start more clear on God's expectation for marriage. Genesis 224, says this, after God made Eve for Adam, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. That's God's design. One man, one woman, get married and become one flesh. It's not like what the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 with the Obergefell case legalizing gay marriage. Not one man and one man, not one woman. And one woman, not what Lamech started in Genesis chapter four with ADA and Zillah. He married two wives, bigamy. One quarter of the world's population still approves of polygamy. I got that from a sophisticated analysis through chat, GPT. But if you add Islam, Central African nations, tribal nations that value polygamy, the slices of LDS that still allow polygamy, you could, you could give a rough estimate, a quarter of the world approves of it now, far less practice it. I took cultural anthropology from an archeologist at Eastern cultural anthropology is how mankind works together their structures. She was doing some work in a central African nation, and she ran into a tribe, and one of the great men of the village had four wives. And the man said, you know, there's a saying among polygamists, it takes great wisdom to have more than one wife. She it. She illustrated it in my class at Eastern by this story. Like this is just trouble waiting to happen. Now we would all question, why would you even start it? I mean, it's hard enough to be a good husband to one wife. Why did you try with four
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and despite this, this is how God is going to found Israel. It's an important passage in the scope of the Bible. The 12 Tribes of Israel begin here. We're going to have 12 children. Dinah is going to be one. We're waiting for one more Benjamin, but 11 of the 12 Tribes are going to start here. The line of Judah begins in this passage. The line of Levi begins in this passage. Levi is going to be the priestly tribe. Judah is going to be the kingly tribe. Jesus is going to come from the Lion of Judah, Revelation five. He is called the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he's going to take the scroll that day in the future and begin his reign in judgment to bring peace on earth. This is the birth of the nation of Israel, and Israel is going to be essential to the storyline of the Bible. 12 Tribes are going to come back and conquer and live in the land. They're going to be exiled. There's going to be a promise of a return, and the last book of the last book of the Bible, chapter 21 the new heavens and the new earth are formed, and the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven. There are 12 gates around the city, and at the top of the gates is a name of each of the 12 tribes of Israel. Nobody gets to God without going through Israel. It's essential. So here you have a consequential passage for Christian history, for Jewish history. This is how they start you us. And what is interesting, fascinating, powerfully moving, is that God always works out His redeeming purposes through the pity he extends to suffering people. God always works out His redeeming purposes through the pity he extends to suffering. People. They suffer under the curse. You suffer under the curse. Nature has a problem with it. It has decay and problems and disease, infertility. They suffer consequences of their own sin, guilt, and then the consequences in relationship. They suffer injustices. You suffer injustices. And throughout the whole of the Bible, God shows pity on those who take that pain and turn to him alone, those who turn to him alone. There's a lot of places you can turn when you're in pain. We're going to see that today. But what ends up happening here is God shows pity on Leah and Rachel, despite them having a lot of mixed motives, a lot of problems. They are sinfully messy, and yet they go to God with how they feel, how they're handling it, and God has pity on them. Outside of the big picture of what's going on here? There is a powerful application point. Take your pain to God. His promises and his pity are abundant. His promises and his pity are abundant. You can take your pain lots of places, alcohol, drugs, some kind of escape, video, TV, you name it. You can take your pain a lot of places.
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You can take your pain to the people in your life by being mad at them, blaming them, hurting them. Are you going? You could take your pain to God. All people, all of us in this room, have some pain points in our life right now, some suffering, and if we were to understand it under the sovereignty and goodness of God, all pain points are summons from God to come to Him. The fact that God sees, cares, hears and answers our prayers are a summons for us to pray, and it doesn't matter if we're receiving the consequences for our our own actions and sinful choices. Graces, the pain of those consequences and the guilt of those consequences is a reason to go to the Lord. It doesn't matter if we're receiving hatred and injustice from somebody else. Doesn't matter if they are consequences of the fall or if God is withholding blessings from you and other people are getting them in abundance. God sees all the suffering of all the world, and it's a summons to turn to Him. God sees your suffering. The hymn line, the refrain is, he is full of pity, love and power. I must arise and go to Jesus, take your pain to God. His promises and his pity are abundant. We're going to take this in the episodes that they happen, there's three sets of four. In the chapter, Leah has four. Then the concubines, the wives that are given to Jacob, Bilhah and Zilpah, they have four. And then there's the episode following the mandrakes. You're going to go, what's mandrakes? I'll kind of explain it. We don't have mandrakes. We don't have love apples. But then they have four more. And these three sets of four, you can see how God is working despite the mixed motives, mixed intentions of the sisters who are here together. So let's take that first set. I could summarize this first set of four by this pray to God, who sees when you are hated. Leah was hated. God saw it. Verse 31 says, When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Last week, Josh walked us through the devious way. Jacob ended up with Leah and Rachel instead of just Rachel, Jacob thought he was getting just Rachel. He wakes up in the morning of marriage night, and it's Leah. Jacob naturally loves Rachel. One of the things you have to understand about polygamous cultures, though, is in cultures that allow polygamy, they have requirements for good treatment of both wives. You're going to see it later in the Bible, when people who came into the promised land were already married. In Egypt, there were requirements about caring for providing for and loving both. But it says here Leah was hated, and in some ways there's some sympathy for Jacob. He loves Rachel, and now he's got Leah. He didn't want Leah. Only some sympathy, though he out of love and pity for Leah, God opened her womb. He allowed her to get pregnant. And it's interesting, Rachel, who is the loved one, can't get pregnant. Her womb is closed. She's barren, and Leah, who is the unloved one, has four kids right away. What's going on? Well, one of the major themes that repeats over and over and over in the Bible is that God does the unexpected for his saving purposes. What's expected? How would you expect God to carry his line through through Rachel, the loved one, but it's actually the unloved one, the unexpected, in some ways. That's how you could say this whole passage makes sense if you wanted to say that God founded our nation. We are a holy and righteous nation, we're following the Lord in holiness, in strict obedience of His Word. Look at our past. That proves it. It does not prove it. This is an unexpected choice to use Israel like this. That is so that God can display the glory of His grace to undeserved sinners, and the grace that I picked out of this is what we call pity. Pity. Pity is when God, who is infinitely superior in rank, sees someone suffering and acts to relieve it. If you go look up pity in a modern English dictionary, pity usually has the connotation of of somebody who is of a higher rank looking down at in with a tone of superiority over somebody who's suffering. Well, I'll help you, you poor soul, with a tone of superiority. That's not how it is in the Bible. That's not how it is for God. Now God is superior in rank, but God sees the suffering and the pain of his people. He has compassion, and he moves to act. Leah hopes. Leah hopes that having children will turn Jacob's heart, says Leah conceived, bore a son. She called his name Reuben. This is verse 32 for she said, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me. Reuben means look a son. God looked at me. Look, I have a son, and remember how important sons are in the ancient Near East, that's how you multiply your prestige. That's how you multiply your wealth, that's how you multiply your family connections. She's right and she's wrong. God did look and have pity on her. God saw that she was hated, and she gave her the gift of a child. But her husband doesn't love her. How do we know next child? Verse 33 she conceived again and bore a son, and said, because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also, so she called his name Simeon, the Lord hears God's listened. Now notice that the Lord heard. How did the Lord hear? Leah? Well, he could have heard people talking about her. He is all seeing and all knowing. He could have seen the situation, but almost certainly she had poured out her heart to God in her suffering and in her pain, the Lord has seen that I am unloved now he loves me. First she gave birth to Reuben. I think Sayers texted me right away on Monday morning. Says she is the mother of all sandwiches, Ruben sandwiches, like this passage is weird enough. Did you have to add that? Yep, did Leah had prayed, poured out her heart to God in a lamentable situation, and God had pity again, Jacob still didn't love her. Again, she conceived and bore a son. Says, Now this time, my husband will be attached to me because I have born him three sons. Therefore the name was called Levi, which means attached. She is starting to adjust her expectations. Well, maybe he won't really love me like Rachel, but maybe he'll have more attachment to me. Wrong again. She conceives again and bears a son this time I will praise the Lord. She is finally coming to a sense of peace for now. Therefore she called his name Judah, which means Yahweh be praised. The end of this first episode about Leah getting pregnant, she goes from wishing that Jacob would love her to being content. Looking at the blessings that she does have. We have to say it, she's content for a while. She could step back and say, I prayed that God would give me my my husband's love, but God gave me something better. God gave me something better. His love and four beautiful baby boys. The commentators are right. All 11 of the children until we get to 3022. Are Born in seven years. So there's a lot of babies coming along very quickly,
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significantly. As we step back, it's through Levi that the priestly tribe would come. God gave her something much better than merely Jacob's love. Levi ends up being the priestly tribe. It's through Judah that Jesus will come. She can look back and see the kingly nation as she has her place with the Lord in heaven. She is watching the story of Judah unfold, and Jesus, the great offspring is God's pity incarnate. Jesus saw our suffering and came. Came to suffer with us. Came to suffer for us. Remember God's pity in our suffering, and God's answer to our prayers will rarely be what we asked for. What did she ask for that my husband would love me? What did she get? A clear knowledge of God, the Father's love for her and four boys, God's pity and our suffering. Of God's answers to our prayers will rarely be what we ask for, but they will always and ultimately be better than we expected. And to her credit, she took her pain to God, whose promises and pity are abundant. Let me say it multiple times today, however you are feeling and thinking about a situation, however you are suffering with mixed motives or true motives, whatever the situation is, take it to God alone. Take all the pain to God in prayer, His mercy will sort out and give you what is best. I mean, you might be here. You might be here in a marriage situation, and you are the unloved one. You might be from a divorced situation, and you were the unloved one. You might be in a situation where the other is having an affair, a virtual affair through pornography, or an actual affair through work, and you're the unloved one. There might be multiple spouses with multiple children from multiple places, and you feel like you're the left out. One, take all that pain to God in prayer and in His mercy, He will give you what is best. Pray to God who sees your pain. Number two, pray to God, who hears your desperation and envy. This next section moves now into Rachel's desperation. Each woman has her own story with God. What I find so fascinating here is each woman prays to God, and they're in a rivalry. One person in a rivalry, the other person supposed to be all wrong, and you're supposed to be all right. But that's not what's happening here. There is desperation, there is envy. The attention turns to Rachel. She's infertile. She aches for a child. Verse one, when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister, just to put the full situation out there, don't let it slip by in all the world, then much of the world now, it was a cause of shame to be barren or infertile. It was assumed wrongly. It was assumed that she had sinned or was out of favor with God. Barrenness was a stigma, as if it's the woman's fault, some kind of unwillingness in her heart, Rachel would have suffered verbal abuse from family from the village. Her pain was compounded. I imagine Rachel looking at Leah if they would have had such things at the gas station back in her day. You know, Have you ever bought a Pez dispenser like my sister seems to be having babies like a Pez dispenser gives out candy. There's another baby, there's another baby. Not an accurate view, but you get the feeling the 10 Commandments. Command, the 10th Commandment, Exodus. 20 says, You shall not covet. Shall not covet. Envy is a form of coveting. Envy is a feeling of resentment, wishing that you had what someone else had. And there's this is not whitewashed. Rachel envied her sister. Is envy wrong? Yes, but the Envy was born out of a natural and good desire to have children. She wanted children. Children are a gift of the Lord. If she didn't have children at some point, there would be no social security, so to speak. There's no later person to take care of you in your old age. So she could have been destitute. She could have been an outcast. All of this how she feels about her sister, her. How she feels about her future come together in extraordinary desperation and anger, anger and envy. She says to Jacob, give me children or I shall die. I mean, her feelings of envy had given away to complete despair. Her emotional pain was so great that she might she thought she might die of it.
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Lots of people feel that way about lots of things that they experience. This is so hard it might kill me. Now. Jacob's response emotionally doesn't seem good. His anger was kindled, but his direction is what Rachel needed. Verse two, Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, not approving of that statement, but the facts are here. We could say it that he matched her drama with counter drama. You're acting like you're going to die. I'm angry. And he said, Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? He's right about that. God is the one who is withholding the child, a child from you, starts forcing her to redirect, which she doesn't do very well. She pulls out a scheme that her Great Aunt Sarah used with Hagar. Abraham wasn't having an heir through Sarah, so she gives Hagar, her servant to Abraham to have an heir. Hagar has Ishmael. That wasn't a good situation. Verse three, she said, Here is my servant, Bilhah, go into her so that she may give birth on my behalf. That little phrase, give birth on my behalf is a Hebrew technical phrase for getting a surrogate wife for the purpose of an adoption. This was a legal way in the ancient Near East you could get an heir to your line. Bilhah being a servant, likely at the level of a slave, was given and she conceived, bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me. Some of your translations use vindicate God has vindicated me, and that's the right translation. God has vindicated me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan, which means judge or judgment. Now, how is Rachel vindicated? Well, first, you have to remember that Leah did cheat her way into the marriage. Imagine how she not being able to get pregnant these four years. Is Watching her sister get pregnant, and she is saying, You're not even supposed to be in the marriage, and here you have four children,
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and she's in a desperate cultural, social situation. God allows the surrogate adoption process to work, causes it to work, to relieve her suffering. She is vindicated. And a lot of times the idea of an ancient Near East judge was the person who went to protect the poor and the needy, especially the widow and the orphan. God has acted on her behalf. She has a second son through Bilhah. Bilhah conceives again, bears Jacob his second son, Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed in that little phrase, mighty wrestlings, literally is wrestlings, Elohim, wrestlings of God. And so sometimes it's translated as mighty wrestling sometimes it's translated as wrestlings of God. It's not hard to put it together. She was in a fierce competition with her sister to have offspring, and she was wrestling with God out of absolute desperation and envy. We're going to see Jacob wrestling with God. Chapter's coming soon, and God heard her prayer and gave her Naphtali wrestling, now that Rachel is starting to catch up. It's four to two, Leah's like, I'm not going to let her get ahead. Leah saw, remember our key word, saw God. Saw Rachel, saw Leah saw, when she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant, Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Again, it's to raise up adopted children, both for her and for Jacob. Jacob Zilpah bore a son. Leah said, Good fortune has come. The word would say, the world would call it lucky. I've been lucky. Christian would say, surprise, Grace, good fortune. His name is gad zilpel bora's second son, Leah said, Happy am I for women have called me happy now she's got six in the brood for Jacob. But we have moved from bigamy to polygamy. Bigamy, wrong. Polygamy, more wrong. And yet we have the pity of God, the mercy of God, who has a great plan to raise up a great nation. What you have to see at this moment in this section is God's answering another prayer, Isaac's prayer back in chapter 28 when he blesses Jacob and says, May you become a company of peoples God's answering another prayer. Why are they still? Why are they sinning and still being blessed with children as an answer to Isaac's prayer as an answer to his promises to raise up a great nation. But remember, Leah and Rachel aren't only sinning. That's not all they're doing. They are sinning, but they are wanting, right and good things, children. It's a good desire the ancient Near East, it was a way to care for the future. Now think of the sum. Then here, what every man or woman should want and should want to do is to do the right thing with the right motives and the right way. All those who have trusted Christ as Lord and Savior had their sins forgiven, have the Holy Spirit put in them. Now, have the Holy Spirit, and they should desire to do the right thing with the right motives in the right way. But what we have here is a Seth of twisted motives and actions. Envy is wrong. Longings for children are not. Rivalry is wrong. Wanting justice is not. The fact that Rachel turned to God and wrestled with him does mean she did have some faith. So every single who's moved into their 20s and 30s without finding a spouse has probably felt the mix of all these feelings. Every couple dealing with infertility has felt all of these feelings. Every spouse who is hated by the other has these feelings. Every person who's on their second or third or fourth marriage and a cadre of kids from a variety of places has felt all of these feelings. You're going to have a mix of the righteous and unrighteous. But what the key in this situation is where you turn? Where are you going to turn? Rachel and Leah still both turn to the Lord and recognize the Lord's work. Take your pain to God, His promises and his pity are abundant. We see the children by Leah, see the children by Bilhah and Zilpah. And third, we're going to see the competition heighten. Number three. Pray to God who acts according to His good timing. We'll see it when we get to when God finally acted on Rachel's behalf. Pray to God who acts according to His good timing. God acts and answers prayer with what is best when it's best, he answers prayer for what is best when. In its best. And it doesn't matter if you're worthy or shameful. What matters is that you don't go anywhere else but the Lord, the Creator and Redeemer. Why? Why is that best? Because he alone is Lord. He alone is full of pity, love and power. This is something the Israelites had a hard time believing. Later on, they kept turning to false gods, thinking that they would be the rescue. The last episode centers on a strange fruit, The mandrake. This is The mandrake story you're reading that. What are mandrakes? They still call them love apples in the Middle East. Love apples. It's a low growing plant with broad, wide leaves and the fruit, kind of a small not pomegranate, a small size apple kind of thing, as it ripens, it has a pungent odor. So lots of times, things that taste bad but are still edible, or smell bad, but are still edible. Are considered fertility helps oysters are considered a fertility help an aphrodisiac. You know, gelatized Meat snot, supposed to supposed to help a couple, really? I mean, you know, it just must be gross, you know, that'll help you. It's gross, so it must help you get pregnant. That's what, that's what's going on here Reuben, who is five or six out at harvest time, and he finds mandrakes in the field. They are ripe, they are smelly, they are ready to use. He comes home and brings them to Leah. Rachel says to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes like this could help me. And before you laugh, the scholars say it actually doesn't work. Oysters don't work either, but it actually doesn't work, but don't laugh. Don't laugh. I was just listening to a news story, health news story on the drive a couple of weeks ago, and there's a fertility diet, one for men, one for women, to help various needs, and they're trying to scientifically help couples get pregnant. There's no crime in trying to get pregnant using whatever natural or medical ways it could. That's not the problem. Problem is this. I it, there has been a rift between Rachel and Leah. Both of them believed there were fertility properties.
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Leah answers back, it's a is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes Also, apparently, over the couple of years, Rachel, who was more loved by Jacob, had manipulated the situation so that Jacob didn't give his proper duties to Leah, and she is now isolated and alone. She's got the four kids, but she has no no caring husband, helping her, helping them. Isn't that enough that you've taken away my husband? Would you also take away my son's mandrakes also like you're going to stop me from having kids anymore? So Rachel says, well, let's make a deal. Rachel said, Rachel said, well, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. Now we have hit rock bottom. We're trading favors for mandrakes. Jacob came in from the field in the evening. Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me for I have hired you for my son's mandrakes. Guys are laughing like, okay, no response by Jacob, by the way, which is pretty typical male response. Whatever you say, Honey, you must come into me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night, and God listened to Leah circle. That was this a good scenario. I mean, this is, this is that we have gotten down from envy now to a verse. Version of prostitution within marriage, and God has pity. God has pity. He listens to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob, a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. She's looking back at giving Zilpah to Jacob, saying, I'm trying to build up the family and build up Jacob's heritage, culturally appropriate, biblically not. But she says, God has given me my wages. Now notice, it's not attachment, it's not attachment, it's wages. Her expectations have gone way down. She had hoped to get her husband to love her now she's just hoping for her wages.
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Leah conceived again, bore Jacob, a sixth son. Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. And even if Jacob didn't honor her as a mother of six boys, which almost certainly he would have that culture that time, six boys meant a flourishing future. Zebulun honored one. He may not love me, but he'll respect and honor Me as the woman who brought him six sons to complete her births. Afterwards, she bore a daughter called her name, Dinah. Dinah is going to show up in later stories, and she has her seventh complete family. God took notice of Leah, verse 22 then God remembered Rachel. Leah has two more, three more Now Rachel, then God remembered Rachel. Whenever you see God remembering something, don't think of it as a reminder on your device that you should do something on time. For God to remember is for God to take notice and act to answer his covenant promises. He remembers and then moves to act to remember his covenant promises to Jacob. He remembers Rachel to fulfill his promises through Rachel. He remembers Rachel. God listened to her and opened her womb again. God's hearing her prayers. He's listening to her, to her anguish, to her sinful anguish, to her envy, to her manipulation through the bargaining of mandrakes, for Leah to have a night or two with Jacob. He is listening to the pain that's at the root of all of it, and with pity, he opens her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. He's taken away my shame. She called his name Joseph, meaning the Lord adds. May the Lord add to me another son. There's heartfelt thanks. There's a belief that God, who can give one, can give another. She had taken her pain to the Lord, and in his pity, he answered her,
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you have various deep pains in life, relational pains, social pains, emotional pains, physical spiritual pains. The one thing this passage doesn't tell us is what Leah and Rachel prayed. So how do you pray? I thought of one very old kind of prayer. It dates back to the Psalms. The Psalmist might pray, have mercy on me, Lord. In the New Testament, there was a Greek phrase Ian Kyrios, have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy. On me or flip it around. Kyrie elean Lord, have mercy. They have been used in liturgy since the synagogue and in the Christian tradition. John Calvin, as the Reformation unfolded, didn't toss it aside as a Catholic set form piece in his services, where they had a call to worship, they would read scripture, they would sing a few songs, and at our time that we would call confession, he wrote in the kyrie's they were just called kyrie's, Lord have mercy. I put it there for you. This kind of phrase was used throughout the Gospels for any kind of human suffering and blindness in which the suffering person with the sick children says, Lord, have mercy on my child. Or the blind would say a son of David, have mercy on me. Even the thief on the cross had some version of this. These are taking your pain to God. This hurts. I need mercy. The first place to start, if you're here today and you haven't turned from whatever you're worshiping to the one and true God, you need to turn to Jesus Christ, because the greatest suffering that you could ever experience is the judgment and separation from God from all eternity, and that's what your sins deserve. You're a guilty sinner, and so the way you might say this, Lord and Savior, I'm struggling with my guilt, and I know judgment is coming. I need your forgiveness. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Guilty sinner. Don't think that God, a holy God, doesn't care about your sin. Judgment Day is coming and you need forgiveness, and God pities the sinner who's suffering under judgment, and he will relieve your judgment if you turn to Christ, it could be anything. It could be physical pain, it could be envy. It could be a suffering of a loved one, Lord and Savior, I'm struggling with our friend Stacy, just went through cancer surgery. She needs your help. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
52:50
You can fill in the blanks. I'm a sinner in this pain. Lord have mercy. Christ, have mercy. I'm suffering deeply. Lord have mercy. Christ, have mercy. I'm unworthy. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. And the answer will be first to change you. And if it's for your best, it will be to change the circumstances. And either way, we should end up where Leah did in Act One, praise the Lord. However he answers, praise the Lord Father, thank you for this beautiful picture of your pity and your grace and Your mercy in a convoluted and messy, sinful situation. All of us find ourselves coming out of these situations or in them, and we say, Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Christ's name. We pray, amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
View Resources by Dan Jarms
As we continue reading through Genesis, we see God’s grace and faithfulness to keep HIs promises to Jacob and his family. We see people like Jacob and Judah learning to fear God and to obey Him through many sins and failures. We begin with the J...
