Marriages & Children

Well, good morning. We’re glad that you’re joining us this morning. I’m Pastor Ben, and it is my pleasure to share from God’s word with you this morning. Did everyone catch all of that? Because there’s going to be a quiz. not too scary or anything, but that a lot of text, isn’t it? But it’s a lot of good text. And I’ll remind you again, you’ve already heard in the video and you can see it up here on the slide. We have that little OT PG 13 logo in there as well. So kids are of course welcome to be in here. It is your call and your discretion parents whether you want them joining us. But we do have kids ministry happening as she kids for sixth grade all the way down to birth and that’s available during this service because we’re going to cover what was covered in what you just heard. And as I hear that text, which we just heard from Genesis 29 and half of Genesis 30, it reminds me a really good but really bad TV. There’s a lot of stuff going on. Is there anybody out there this morning or anyone that’s watching online that loves to watch bad TV? 

Are there is there anyone that possibly, I don’t know, maybe not this year that might watch some TV shows that they wouldn’t want to talk about here at church? Yeah, maybe. Maybe those. They’re just like two to honest people. and maybe, maybe there’s something inside of us that we love watching a train wreck. Because it makes us feel a little bit better about our own life, doesn’t it? I think prime time for that was in the midst of Covid. There was a lot of garbage shows that came out, and they were a great relief in a dark time in many of our lives. But there’s there’s stuff that happens in these that it’s sinful, it’s lying. It’s it’s actually what’s make some of the shows interesting. But we’re going to look at our own episode. So if you would, you can bear with me. I want to give you caught up because if we’re in the episode or something, I got to do a recap. So last time on Dysfunctional Patriarch, which is what I’m now deeming our show. we’re following a patriarch. We’re following one of the men of God. We. We were with Abraham. 

They want Isaac. Now we’re on to Jacob. And so if you’ve been tracking along with us, you’ve seen that Jacob is a liar. He deceived his older brother using stew. Then he covered himself an animal’s hair to deceive his father. He’s able to get a birthright and a blessing. And if you want to dig into all of that, we have those messages online. You can go back and look at that. And then just last week, he’s on a journey because his older brother, who had been tricked out of so much wanted to kill, wants to kill Jacob. And Jacob is not only on the run away from his brother, but he’s on the journey to his wife. And so this week is a kind of a two parter. First half is called how I Met Your Mother’s and you heard it in the text. Second half is going to be Sister Wives. I’ll let you know when we kind of move from one part A to part B here today. And again, just for the sake of getting you caught up. this is where he’s. He’s journeyed. 

Jacob started down there all the way in the south, in Beersheba. That’s where his family was. 

That’s where Esau still has his brother who wants to kill him. He’s stopped in Bethel just last week where he saw this stairway to heaven. And now he’s continuing his journey over 450, nearly 500 miles that he’s journeyed to get to Haran. And so he gets there and he goes straight to a well, that’s what we actually see these reoccurring themes in Genesis and in Scripture as a whole, that when you’re looking for a wife, you go to a well, and that’s just what he does. He goes there, he starts up a conversation with the shepherds who are already there. He begins to ask because he’s not just looking for any wife, but he’s looking for someone that is related to him, someone in the family of Laban. And so he strikes up the conversation, and then all of a sudden, just like in like a rom com or something, the meet cute happens. Rachel comes up with sheep while he’s sitting at the well. Rachel came with her father’s sheep for she was a shepherd. 

Then Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban and Laban sheep, and he went over, enrolled to stone away from the mouth of the wall of the well, and watered his uncle’s sheep. So now he’s traveled 500 miles. But he sees this beautiful woman. He sees this one that is hopefully going to be his wife, the one that he’s traveled so far. And then he has to flex a little bit. He has to move this big stone. If you remember from the text he talks about how is a large stone moves a stone. Maybe he was trying to show off. We don’t know. But to impress her. And then these begin this conversation. She runs back to her father, Laban. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, his sister, whose hand he gave over to in marriage to Isaac decades before. Now, he sees his nephew coming back to him that he’s never met, in all likelihood. Laban embraced him and kissed him and brought him into his home. And there Jacob told him all these things, then label Laban said to him, you are my own flesh and blood. 

Again, likely he’s never met him before, but now here he is. He lives with him a month, as you heard. There. And not only was there, Rachel, but we see that Laban actually has another daughter. You heard it in the text. He had two daughters. Older. His name? Leah, and the younger is Rachel. And then these fun facts that gives us Leah had weak eyes. Fathers, if you have daughters, don’t refer to them as having weak eyes. I don’t think it’s very flattering, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, I will work seven years in return for your younger daughter, Rachel. Now, there’s not a consensus over what week eyes actually means. Some say that it could have been something with her eyes. Some say that actually means to her eyes actually look younger than she actually was. That she was still actually beautiful, but not as beautiful as Rachel. But either way, right there in the text, you can see that Rachel is pronounced in her beauty and has caught the attention of Jacob. 

And it’s important to note, because it’s going to return as we continue to move through this story. And then Jacob strikes up this deal and not have, you know, a whole bunch of gold not having gold rings and, and cattle and sheep and things to hand over in exchange for Rachel? Jacob says, I’ll work seven years and this is a this is a high cost for this daughter. He is saying, I really want to marry her. I’ll do whatever it takes to marry her. She is so lovely. She is so beautiful. I will work seven years, but up until this point we haven’t known Jacob to be an honest guy, have we? What’s interesting is he actually follows through on this. Laban says it’s better I give her to you than some other man. So? So Jacob served seven years. He actually did it, but it seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. Oh, now, if you’re gonna be my live audience, can we all have a. Oh. Oh, that’s so cute. You know, it’s so lovely. It’s a it’s only a few days, seven years. So that he could be with her, that he could marry Earth, as we’re going to see that he could sleep with her. 

And in today’s society, can people wait seven dates? Here he is waiting seven years of labor for her. Because of her beauty, because of how much he loved her and that he was going to put in all of that work. And he does. And then a line that is not so sweet. He says to Laban, his soon to be father in law, I give you my wife. This is my translation of my time is complete. I want to make love to her. Seems a little crass, but he just serves seven years, so maybe he’s a little tired. I don’t know, but he did the work. He was actually honest. In this case. He’s not trying to swindle him. He’s not trying to, you know, use to use for like trying to deceive him in any way. He does seven years of work for his uncle in exchange for Rachel. He’s honest. He finally gets it right. But the problem is it’s still in this family. And this is a dysfunctional family, isn’t it? So the deceit and dysfunction doesn’t stop with Jacob. Actually, we see that Laban’s the next to be deceitful. So Laban brought all the people together for this wedding. He gave a feast. 

And then when evening came, he took his daughter. Leah. Well, that can’t be right. He worked seven years. Jacob worked seven years for Rachel. But the father takes his older daughter. Leah brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. And again, we we can’t add to the text. And there’s those that would speculate what’s going on here. How could he not know? Seven years? You could probably tell these sisters apart, you would think. But it’s a wedding feast. So maybe Jacob visited the keg too many times. Maybe there was a really thick veil, or it was dark in the tent. Or were they going to have their first wedding night together? Regardless of whatever it is we know, we know that Laban had ill intent, that Laban was deceitful. We don’t know exactly what part Jacob played in this, but now he wakes up and what we see is that he didn’t have an idea of who it was. When morning came, there was Leah. And so Jacob said to Laban, what is this thing you have done to me? 

So already we hear that she has weak eyes, and now her husband of about a few hours is pointing at her, going, what have you done to me? I think her self-esteem is doing pretty well. I served you for Rachel tonight. Why have you deceived me? Now? Here the deceiver has been deceived. Laban replied. Well, it’s not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one finished this daughter’s bridal week. Then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work. You can see that Laban had this in mind all along. And he did not make it known to Jacob, and now he deceives him. And then in this odd exchange was actually what’s transpiring here is he’s married to Leah, sleeps with her for a whole week, and then at the end of that week, then he’s able to sleep with Rachel, the one he’d been waiting seven years for. But then he has to work another seven years now with two wives. And still for this uncle who deceived him. And he doesn’t push back and he doesn’t run away. He stays married to both. 

 Boy, this, I think, actually hits home with us. If you look at this up to this point, we know Jacob is a deceiver and then he’s deceived. What about you? How do you feel when others sin against you? Just as you’ve sent? Give me something really simple. Like gossiping. You get this, like, really juicy bit of news about someone. And you want to gossip. You want to tell someone else, or someone’s asking you about it. And rather than saying, you know, no, I’m not going to share that. You just kind of engage in it. But you know that I feel so good to share that gossip. But if you’re on the receiving end and you overhear people tossing your name around talking about things they shouldn’t be talking about you or your family or whatever it may be, it doesn’t feel very good, doesn’t in a House of boys, it’s not necessarily gossip, but it usually has to do with physical altercations. And just yesterday I had a pull aside. Our youngest, as many parents are probably familiar with this conversation and had to remind him that other people have feelings and that when you bite them, it doesn’t feel very good. 

 And I don’t believe this time around. But many times I’ve said something along the lines of, and how would you like it if someone bit you? But for some reason we are just these agents of self-justification.

Well, you don’t have all the facts. Well, you don’t understand my circumstance. Well, you don’t you don’t really know my situation. And well, in my situation, it’s okay for me to bend the truth a little bit. It’s okay for me to lie a little bit or gossip a little. It’s it’s a little bit. And the broader thing is you just really trying to keep the peace. I’m really. But if you zoomed out for just a moment and thought about how your actions and your sin will be felt if you were on the receiving end, it kind of brings to light what’s actually taking place. When you said the impact that you have when you sin, but Jacob goes forward, like I said, he goes forward with this. It says he did. So he finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his other daughter, Rachel, to be his wife. Laban also gives us, ten minute maid servant. And now Jacob makes love to Rachel. 

So he’s sleeping with two women in one week span. and Rachel, his love for Rachel was greater than his love for lamb. And he worked for Laban another seven years. He worked for the man that deceived him. But in the midst of all of this, it’s clear that there’s favoritism taking place. As we’ve seen, being passed down from generation to generation, this dysfunctional family. And now he’s not playing favorites with kids anymore. Playing favorites with wives. And we have to take a little, little detour for a second, because what’s going on here is one of the first times that we see something in Scripture called polygamy, or being married to multiple people at the same time. And so there’s this lens that we have to use as we look at Scripture, there’s these two terms prescriptive and descriptive. So really quickly, when you’re reading a text, especially something here in the Old Testament where we see something that’s so foreign to us. Let me go. Wait, wait a second. God’s promise was like, with all these people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 

And so does that mean that, like polygamy, being married to multiple wives or multiple husbands? That’s okay. And what we understand, that’s what’s taking place here is as we read this text, it’s a description of what’s taking place nowhere in this text or anywhere where there’s multiple wives in Scripture. Does it condone it? Does it say that God blesses those other unions? At other times? There are things that are prescriptive. When we read the Ten Commandments, that doesn’t only apply to the people back then, it applies to us here now. And so for just a moment, we just have to take a look at this polygamy thing because believe it or not, this still happens in this day and age, doesn’t it? There is still polygamy here in our world, in other religions and and even in our country. And they do. There’s ways to go around it. But let’s see what God’s Word ultimately has to say on it. The first problem with polygamy, having multiple spouses is that that wasn’t present in in the garden, in perfection in the garden before the fall, there was just one man and one woman. 

We see in Genesis one verse 27, it says, this God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them male and female. He created them. So there’s one man, one woman, and then just one chapter later still the story of creation before the fall. Therefore man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh, one man, one woman. That is the union of marriage. And not only is it present in the Old Testament here, preceding where we’re at with Jacob and his multiple wives. But then Jesus in the new attests New Testament reaffirms that marriage is between one man and one woman. And it’s actually while he’s doing a teaching on divorce and what he cites in Matthew 19. Interestingly enough, in verses four and six, he cites those two verses we looked at having you read that from the very beginning. The creator made the male and female. He said, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother. They’ll be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 

 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate, and that should be enough. It’s their creation. It’s there from Jesus in his earthly ministry and teaching. In this, he’s reaffirming that marriage is between one man and one woman and pointing back to Genesis. But we can take it a step even further that marriage, the union of marriage between one man and one woman, is actually an image of Christ and his church. And so if we move forward in the old Testament or not in the Old Testament, but rather to the New Testament, and we go to the book of Ephesians, we see this. It’s citing the same verses. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I’m talking about Christ and the church that one of the images, albeit a broken image most of the time with sinful people, a part of it, an image of Christ in His church, we see that in the relationship between a husband and a wife, one man and one woman. 

Earlier in this text in chapter five, it’s reminding husbands of the high calling to be a husband, to love your wife as Christ loves the church. And so if we actually apply that to our relationships and how we move forward, it’s not only to speak against polygamy and having multiple wives, but. How’s your relationship with God? Because God’s monogamous. God wants a people that he’s set apart for himself, that are holy and righteous, and that for him that those people would worship him and him alone. But all too often we are we can be Christian and we can, well, we worship God. We come here on Sunday, we watch whatever we worship. But what else takes priority in our life? And we might not make altars. What do we give our time, attention and affection too much? In the same way that if you’re in a monogamous relationship, you don’t have to be polygamous or polyamorous to be unfaithful, because you could also neglect your spouse because you have a union between that one.

But you prioritize work over your wife. Could also be the case that wife that that you prioritize your children over your husband. And so that union that’s meant to be between one that monogamous relationship, that mutual love and respect, that God’s designed between those two to become one, just as he’s designed us to be with him in that monogamous relationship between the created beings and our creator, that we mess stuff up with sin. But we see it just playing out before us and this very kind of explicit way with multiple wives, not with work, not with children, not with hobbies, not with other things, but with actual other women. This is a snapshot of what it looked like for Jacob. We heard about all these characters. And so to give you a visual, as we kind of continue to move forward, we have Leah, the older sister and her maid servant, Zilpah. We have Rachel and her servant. And as you heard in that text, that Jacob eventually ends up sleeping with all of them, not married to one, not married to two, but now essentially married to four women. 

And we could ask Jacob that question, that doctor fill question. And how’s that working for you? So we’re shifting our gears from how I Met Your Mothers into Sister Wives, picking up in Genesis 30, verse one. It doesn’t go well. When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, give me children or I will die. She is the more beautiful sister she is, the more love sister. But it’s still not enough. She’s at odds with her sister. She’s competing with her sister and her sister. At this point in the text, we’ve already zoomed ahead. Her sister has four sons and she doesn’t have any, and so she’s looking for something so that she can she can be enough, but she she has his time, attention and affection. But it’s still not enough. What are you. What do you need to be? Enough. She has it all. She just doesn’t have a son. And so she fixates on her deficit rather than her abundance. Just yesterday, we were celebrating my middle son’s fifth birth there. And so it. It’s a beautiful day, beautiful weather, but bounce house outside. Inside, the decorations look like, you know, someone just threw up. 

Pokemon are everywhere. Pokemon balloon Pokemon streamers, Pokemon table cloth, Pokemon cake everywhere. Everything is Pokemon. So if you were to guess, my son is a big fan of Pokemon. Yeah you’re right. How did you know? so we move forward. We have the cake, we have the ice cream, sing the song. We’re doing all the things comes the time for presents. He opens presents, and they’re. What kind of presents? Pokemon presents. Oh, he gets this stuffed animal that talks and this other big plush one. And this toy with Pokemon things and all this stuff. Even in a remote control car. Not Pokemon, but still pretty cool. and at one point my wife asked my son why? Oh, so you’re pretty thankful. And he’s saying that he’s grateful and he’s thankful, but then he just kind of. Gets to the tail end and he’s realizing there’s no more presents as well. I didn’t get a Venusaur. You two are a mewtwo card. That’s why I really wanted with all these smiling family and friends that are this time to give him these gifts. He is literally sitting in abundance of Pokemon, but all he could see was that he didn’t have. 

Are you that five year old? Are you sitting in abundance? It might not feel like it all the time, but if you were to reflect on all that God has given you your health, your wealth, your family, whatever it may be, if you were to pause and look at that, but so often we just look at the deficit, we look at the thing that we have, what I really want, what I really need to be enough for Rachel. She needs a son, her own son, to beat her sister. For us. Fill in the blank. Our hearts do a great job of creating idols. They’re idol producing factories. So it could be anything. It could be a little bit more money, a little bit better health, a little bit bigger house, a little bit whatever. We just need a little bit more so than we could be enough. And it’s always that somebody else has it and we don’t. And what we do in that is we neglect this view and be appreciative of all that God has in fact, given us, because we just fixate on the thing that we don’t have. Jacob responds in anger to her and says, am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children?

You can feel the tension here. It’s not his fault. He’s. What do you want me to do? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t make you have children. Obviously your sister has children. At this point. It’s not my fault you don’t have any children. And what’s so disappointing? As I look at this text and as we’ve been walking through the book of Genesis, if we just to go a few chapters earlier to Genesis 25, we saw a barren wife in Rebecca, Jacob’s mom, and we saw husband Isaac seeing his barren wife and all that, the strife that that caused her. And do you know what Isaac did? His knees hit the ground and he prays. And the next thing we see is that Jacob and his brother are born. This must have been a story that Jacob was familiar with. It’s quite literally the story of his birth, but for some reason he misses it. He doesn’t respond in that way.

He responds in anger to his wife, and rather than going to God in prayer, he’s he’s scolding her for having dared ask such a thing. 

 But the good news in this is that God is faithful despite our dysfunction. Amen. We see God’s faithfulness in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and we see him in my life. And I pray that you see him in your life as well, that it’s not that God has chosen us because we’re just we’re good enough. And he likes us because we’re great and we’re so faithful, but we’re messed up, dysfunctional people and that he’s faithful to us despite our unfaithfulness. He moves forward and he sleeps with Rachel’s serve and he goes along with it. And this is the same thing. And again, this is so interesting to me because there wasn’t TV. There was no Netflix back then. There’s no Apple TV series for Jacob to watch. So the thing that he would have done gathered with his family was he would have heard stories, he would have heard the story of his birth. He would have also heard the story of his grandfather and grandmother when they were barren and when they couldn’t conceive. 

And when they handed Abraham over to a maid servant to sleep with her. And seeing how that worked out. The problem is, is it’s not just for them, is for us to, is that we repeat the same sins and somehow we expect different results. We see sin out there in society. We see it in our family tree. We see it in our parents, our grandparents, our cousins, our coworkers, and we see that sin out there. But there’s something again, in our own self-justifying, soft, self-justifying selves that we just what I feel in my case, it’s a little bit different. And, you know, it’s not that big of a deal. If I say no, it’s not that bad. If I sleep with a maid servant, that didn’t work out for your grandpa, we can do this very same thing. And even in our own lives, it doesn’t even have to be out there. We can continue in the same sins and somehow expect different results or. We don’t expect different results. But we expect the same grace. And God surely forgives us of all of our sins. God surely gives us new mercies every day. But there is something to be said about when we cheapen 

God’s grace. When we go into sin fully knowing that it is a sin and that it is contrary to God’s will, and we cheapen his ultimate sacrifice. That we know the outcome of it, but we go forward with it anyways because we just let the flesh take over. We don’t wage war against the sin in ourselves. And Jacob goes along with it. So we’re focused here on Rachel too. So Rachel has made all this happen. She’s handed over a maid servant. And then later on, even after her maid servant has had some children for her, it’s still wasn’t enough. She still needed her own sons. So her oldest son, Reuben goes into the field. He gets some mandrakes. He brought them to his mother, Leah. But Rachel comes over to land, says, please give me some of your sons mandrakes. But Leah said to her, wasn’t it enough that you took my husband away? And the live audience went, oh, will you take my sons mandrakes, too? And so they strike up this deal. Very well, Rachel said he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes. 

Okay. I want to make sure you’re all tracking with me. Leah has four sons. Leah’s maid servant has had already had children. Rachel, who’s been barren this entire time. She is beautiful. She is loved. She still has not had her own sons, but her maid servant has. And now there’s this argument or discourse over fruit. Love to give you context. Mandrakes were known by another name at that time. They were known as love apples because of their aphrodisiac effect or thought there to be. And not only that, but it was thought that mandrakes potentially could help those that were infertile. So she wants these mandrakes because she’s trying to do anything. She’s trying to take it into her own hands. I need these mandrakes so that I can eat them so that I can conceive. She’s no longer trusting in God. She’s just trying to take it by her own might and by her own will. And then this bizarre turn of events. Jacob comes in from the field that evening, probably wants to sit down and watch a game or something. Leah went out to meet him, said these sweet words in his ear. 

You must sleep with me. She said, I have hired you with my sons mandrakes, and if you wish to see Jacob, go along with it again. All right? Okay. Who am I supposed to sleep with now? He just. He’s just going along, going with the flow throughout the whole thing. And just how unromantic. How how now this this act, this union and marriage, this gift from God that his sex has now just been boiled down to just just procreation. It’s no longer because he doesn’t. It says that he doesn’t love her like he loves Rachel, and that likely the reason that she made this deal is Jacob is no longer sleeping with her. And out of this, she actually conceives another son again to help us just kind of visualize what’s taking place here. 

We see these sisters laying Rachel their maid servants, and then we see the 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Israel that are to come, coming through them. Because God works and God is faithful in our dysfunction. Now they took matters into their own hands, but God still works through all of this. I picked on Rachel a little bit. You know Rachel, she thought she was going to die. She didn’t have a son, so she helps her husband Sam, and then she just trust him in these mandrakes more than anything. And later we do see. And you do see there that she does have some sons eventually. But I want to go back for a moment and look at Leah. Is there something really interesting that’s happening when she’s giving birth to her first few sons? And again, remembering for context, that her father took her at night and put her in the tent of this man, that he would sleep with her. She was never intended to marry him. Now she’s married to him for life, and we know that he doesn’t love her. She’s one with weak eyes, she’s unloved and her sister is jealous of her. 

There’s a lot of strife in her life, and we see this bubble out as she names her sons. When the Lord saw Leah was not loved because God recognized it, he enabled her to conceive. But Rachel remained childless. Now Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, it is because the Lord has seen my misery, and you see the thing that she’s longing for above all else. Surely my husband will love me now. The name Reuben quite literally means see a son. And she names her son. She’s saying to her husband, see, see, I gave you a son. Do you see me now? He goes forward. She conceived again and she gave birth to a son. And she said, because the Lord has heard that I am not loved. He gave me this one too. So she named him Simeon, which is to mean the one who hears. Jacob, do you see me? I gave you Reuben. Do you see? I’m your wife, the one that you were tricked into sleeping with. The one that isn’t as pretty as my sister. The one that you love so much. 

Do you see me? Do you hear me? I’m giving you Simeon now and then. Third. She conceived. And now, at last, my husband will be attached. He’ll join himself to me, because I have borne him three sons. So his name was Levi. Attached. Joined two connected. And in all of this, all she’s trying to do is perform. She’s trying to earn. She’s trying to get love. She’s trying to get approval. She’s trying to get his attention and his affection. And even by giving him sons, she’s not getting it. She just wants to be enough for her. It’s different. Rachel was jealous. Rachel wanted to take matters into her own hands. But. But Leah, she just finds herself in a situation. She’s just thrown into. This broke and messy situation, and she’s trying to do all that she can to be enough. We have to recognize is this what is it that we can do when we’re seeking love and affection and attention of another person, or.  

If we’re seeking the love, attention, and affection of our Heavenly Father, what is it that you can do that is ever enough? And the answer is nothing. There is nothing that we, in and of ourselves, that we can do to earn his attention, his affection, his love towards us. That’s likewise there’s nothing you can truly do to earn someone else’s love, because our love is not earned. It is something that is given. So after giving birth to three sons, Leah conceived again. She gave birth to a son and she said this time I will praise the Lord. So she named him Judah. At the birth of her fourth son, she finally takes her eyes off of her husband, trying to seek fulfillment, trying to seek love, trying to seek approval in him. And she turns her eyes up to her creator. And she says, you know what? I’m stuck in this mess. I’m not as beautiful as my sister, and my husband loves her more. I’m in this messy pile, polygamous relationship and I don’t have a way out of it. I’m I’m giving him sons. I’m still not enough. 

But you know what? Even here in the middle of this broken mess, I am still going to praise God despite what’s going on in my life. And that name, Judah quite literally means praise. That in her weakness, in her unloved ness, that here not only is she turning her eyes to Jesus, but it is here, through this son, that the promise that was given to Abraham, that went to Isaac, that went to Jacob, now is going to come through this unloved. Sister Leah, to her son Judah, who will eventually be in the lineage and the line of Jesus. Because God is in the nature of taking weak things and making them strong, of taking broken things and making them beautiful, because that is who he is, quite literally, himself in Jesus, in Isaiah 53, where we hear this prophecy of Jesus and all that he was going to come to do, it starts this way and that he grew up, that is, Jesus grew up like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He came like Leah, with weak eyes, weak human flesh, nothing about His Majesty, nothing about his might, nothing about his glory that would naturally draw us to him, but rather he comes in lowly, humble submission, not only to become human, but to become a servant to us and a servant to die the death that we deserved. 
That now, through his death and his resurrection, he is our King. And so for you this morning, if you are in a place like Leah, where you feel unloved and unseen, where you don’t know if there’s a way out there, you’re just looking at that deficit like, I just don’t have enough. I just need more to be enough that you recognize this, that in Jesus, that you have more than enough, that the brokenness of this world and the strife and the pain that you face here in now is not worth comparing with the glory that is to come. And so much in the same way that Leah was there in a broken, messed up relationship, and all she could do is cling to a God who was good and who loved her. Now here on the other side of the tomb and the cross, we are still waiting. We are still waiting for the day of our resurrection. We are still waiting for our day to see Jesus face to face. And because of that hope that we ultimately have, we can face each and every day, each and every day where we might feel unloved. If we don’t have enough, where we feel weak, we know that he is strong in our weakness. Amen.