Suffering Well

Suffering Well

Chet Phillips

Transcript

It's good to see y'all this morning. We are going to be in Genesis chapter 29 and Genesis chapter 30 today. We've been walking through the book of Genesis and we've been following the story of Jacob. We're going to pick right up where we left off and here's what we're going to see today. Jacob is, in some ways, he's on the run. They dressed it up as nicely as they could, but he stole his brother Esau's birthright.

He tricked his, he stole his blessing. He stole his birthright and his blessing, although Esau signed off on the birthright thing very foolishly. And then he tricked his father and he tricked his brother Esau and he dressed up like his brother Esau and he stole the blessing from Isaac whose eyesight had failed him. And so he was able to, by smelling like his brother and by putting on goat's skin hair, be as hairy as his brother, which again, extremely hairy. And so he was able to do that. And he, they found out that Esau said, I'm going to kill him.

As soon as my dad passes away, then I'm going to kill Jacob. And so Rebecca finds out that is their mother. And she says, Hey, you've got to go. You've got to get out of here. And they come up with this idea and it kind of fits with what's going on. But they say, Jacob needs a wife and he doesn't need to marry a Hittite.

So they bless him and he hits the road. Now they dress it up a little bit with the blessing and the send off, but he doesn't really take anything with him. He's on his own. And in some ways he's leaving behind him, busted up family. And he's headed off to go find a wife. As we read this story today, we're going to see the wheels fall off of Jacob's life.

And in so many ways, what, what's going to look like it's going to turn out really well is just going to hit a wall and fall apart. And so as we read through this, we're going to see how they respond. And I want us to ask a question. I want us to look at this and try to see how are we meant to respond in the midst of suffering? How are we supposed to walk out life in pain and suffering and difficulty? And I will tell you that America, that we as Americans are poorly equipped to handle suffering.

We're poorly equipped to handle pain and difficulty. We, our founding fathers started us off with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And by and large, we've bought into that. Well, the goal in life is happiness, that the point in life is happiness. And whether or not you think about that all the time, it's an undercurrent in how we walk through life that I'm supposed to be happy. This is why we say things like, well, we know God wants me to be happy.

Therefore, and then we'll immediately follow that up with, I can kind of do whatever I want because his, his primary goal is my happiness. And we've bought into this idea and that kind of runs underneath everything. And the truth is this, if your goal in life is happiness, we are poorly equipped to handle suffering because every time suffering and happiness step into the ring, it's a no contest. Suffering destroys happiness. Pain destroys happiness. When suffering and happiness face off, suffering is undefeated.

And so what happens in the midst of our suffering, our happiness flees, and we suddenly have the question of how, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to move forward? Tim Keller, who's a pastor and an author, in his book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, he says this, he says, in a secular view, suffering is never seen as a meaningful part of life, but only as an interruption. If you think about that, most of us, we've bought into that idea that suffering is an interruption in the midst of our good life. Suffering, difficulty, pain are causing us to have what we're going for be not achievable.

It's taking happiness away. It's an interruption. It's messing us up. It's removing from us what the point of life is. He says, with that understanding, there are only two things to do when pain and suffering occur. The first one is to manage and lessen the pain.

Then he says, this is why professionals now primarily talk about stress management. This is why we have high medication rates. This is why we have the primary goal is to just manage and lessen the suffering. He says, the second way, the first one is to manage it. The second way, the second way to handle suffering in this framework is to look for the cause of the pain and eliminate it, to fix it, find the problem and fix it. And I'm an American and that sounds smart.

You're in the middle of suffering. Make it manageable. And if it's fixable, fix it. The problem with that is there are some seasons of suffering, there are some types of pain that are not manageable and that are not fixable. And that biblically, we're invited into some things that there are times where we have to choose between obedience and suffering, disobedience and pursuit of happiness. There are going to be seasons in life where you get to choose obedience and difficulty, obedience and pain or disobedience and pursuit of happiness.

And we are ill-equipped to think that this is good, to think that obedience paired with suffering and obedience paired with pain is a good and loving thing for God to give us. As Americans, we're ill-equipped for that. We honestly need something, a purpose in life beyond the pursuit of happiness, something that's a little bit more resilient because happiness is too weak. The truth is you will face inevitable suffering and inevitable pain. There will be seasons in life where you are meant to walk in obedience in the midst of pain and in the midst of suffering and not to try to abort what is going on and not to try to just escape and not to just look to something to fix the problem and not just try to find a way to manage it and lessen it and get past it, but you're supposed to find a way to walk in it.

So we're going to read this story today and we're going to watch Jacob and his family respond the way we want to. Manage it, lessen it, fix it, find something to satisfy, find something to get past, and it's not going to work. And then we're going to finish our time looking to see if there's something better, if the Bible holds out something to us better, bigger, more meaningful, if it gives us a better answer to suffering. So let's pray and then we'll start reading. God, we have a heavy task at hand, and in so many ways we're trying to look at your word and swim against the current of our culture, and in so many ways we are going to translate this poorly as we filter it through the way we want to think about the world.

And we ask that your Holy Spirit would enliven us to see your word, to respond well to it. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Starts off happy. So that'll be good.

Then Jacob went on his journey, chapter 29, verse 1, and came to the land of the people of the east. So his journey is to go find a wife. They specifically told him, go find your uncle Laban, marry one of his daughters. Culturally, that's not uncommon or weird. Culturally for us, that's terrible advice. So don't go find your uncle and marry one of his daughters.

But for them, this is fine. Let's keep moving. He's looking for his cousin. As he looked, he saw a well in a field and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it. For out of that well, the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large.

And when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep and put the stone back in the place over the mouth of the well. So Jacob said to them, he shows up, he's some shepherds. He says, my brothers, where do you come from? And they said, we are from Haran. That's where he's supposed to go find his uncle. He said to them, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?

That's his uncle. They said, we know him. He said to them, is it well with him? How's he doing? They said, it is well. See, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep.

Okay. Prime, marriable, lady. He's, he's made it to the right place, about 500 miles from where he was. It took a month or more. It seems as if he just walked. That's what I said.

They, they dressed it up like they were blessing him and sending him out. But last time they went to get a wife, there was 10 camels and a bunch of people and a bunch of clothes. And there was like a big caravan. And they were like, go find a wife. Boy, bye. Like that was it.

They just sent him out. He, he walks off, you know, he took his nice rock pillow and went and took a nap. And that's, that's where he is. So he shows up, but it's worked out. He's in the right place. She's coming towards him.

And so he says, he said, behold, it is still high day. It's not time for the livestock to be gathered together, water the sheep and go pasture them. But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. So, he gets the information he needs from them. They say, that's your cousin.

He says, well, y'all need to go on somewhere. It's basically, he's trying to get a little bit of alone time. He wants to talk to her. He wants to have this, not have an audience. And they say, no, no, no, we got to wait for all the shepherds to get here and move that big rock. So, while he was still speaking with them, this is verse nine, Rachel came with her father's sheep for she was a shepherdess.

Now, as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, we find out later that she's pretty, his mother's brother and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother. He got pretty girl strength. And a lot of the guys in the room understand what that is. I once carried a two, it was a two man Job, but I carried it upstairs by myself because I thought my now wife was pretty. And she doesn't realize this, but she married me and I won. Halfway up the stairs, I almost fell.

And I was like, you better not. That's what happens. He sees her and he walks over and he's like, let me pick this stone up. Oh, flex a little bit. I got this. Oh, what?

A bunch of men have to do it. Watch this. And then he waters her sheep. He's trying to make a good impression. And then it says this, it gets weird. And I love that.

I think he kind of did this out of order and it was probably fun. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. First of all, it's not a romantic kiss. This is a normal greeting. It wasn't like, he was like, do you like that? Watch this.

It wasn't like that. Normal warm greeting. Uh, they still do this. They still practice this, uh, uh, overseas. Ben Johnson, who went to Lebanon for about 10 years. Uh, they practice it there.

It said it took him a while to get used to it. But then one of the first times he came home, he had just gotten off of a long flight. He had to run by his home church to do something real quick. He saw the facilities guy. And without thinking, he grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek. He said, the guy about threw him across the hall.

So what are you doing boy? And so, uh, normal here, normal Middle East, not normal in our culture, but that's a normal thing for him to do. So he kisses her. It's a warm greeting after serving. And then it says he wept aloud. Now they're a little bit more emotionally involved.

They respond more emotionally than Westerners do, but it's still kind of weird for him to just start crying. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman, that he was Rebecca's son. And she ran and told her father. So he goes to, he goes to kiss her. And it's like, he's overwhelmed with how well this has worked and how he's come to the right place and met the right person. He just starts weeping out loud, which had to be weird for her.

And she's like staring at him. And he's like, no, I'm your cousin. It's cool. I was came from so far away, but bro's going to kill me. Like she runs and tells her, her dad. And it says, Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son.

He ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him. And brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh. And he stayed with him a month. We don't know what all these things are, but he told him all the things.

So how, how much he included. I have the birthright. I was the younger son and all that stuff. We don't really know, but he at least tells him enough to know. I am Rebecca's son. So he stayed with him a month.

So it's been a month. Then Laban said to Jacob, because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? So Jacob's just been living there and working. Tell me what shall your wages be? So he's saying you should earn something.

You should be able to begin to grow your own personal wealth. It shouldn't just be, you are treated like my servant. You're one of my kinsmen. Now, Laban had two daughters. So, this is the marriable group. This is what he was sent to do.

The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. There is some question as to what it means by Leah's eyes were weak. This isn't a super common phrase. Some argue that it's a compliment.

It's saying that her eyes were tender. They were distinct from others. They were like a beautiful look. And so there, if that was the way you took it, it would be saying, Leah had pretty eyes, but Rachel was pretty from head to toe. That's what it would be saying. Most commentators and most people believe that it is saying something negative about Leah, because what it says about Rachel after but is something really nice.

So it thinks it's saying she needed glasses. She squinted a lot. Her eyes didn't line up correctly. She had some kind of eye malformation or difficulty or sickness that made him really watery or puffy or something. So it's saying Leah was older, but Rachel.

That's kind of the tone of the text. Leah, but Rachel. And for those of you who grew up with siblings, maybe you feel a distinct pain when that's phrased that way. Because there's something about having siblings that make you consistently just compared to one another. And it's hard for parents to not have some amount of this one, but this one in different categories. And I know, I'm sure that was really tough for my brothers growing up.

They're not here. I can say what I want. But that's what's happening. And so it says, Leah, but Rachel. And so it says, Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel.

And Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him, but a few days because of the love he had for her. Now that is one of the nicest things that has been written in the book of Genesis. This has been a rough book. That was sweet, y'all.

He said, it seems like just a few days because of the love he had for her. He said, I'll serve you seven years. Now it was normal for someone who was going to marry to pay a bride price for the bride, to offer something to the parents of the bride, because you're removing them, removing the bride from their household. And so he offers seven years of labor. He says, seven years. My energy, my effort.

You're not paying me anything. I get some room and board, and I want to marry Rachel. And Laban says, yes. If this were an American story, if this were a Disney movie, we're getting real close to the end. They're about to ride off. It's going to say, happily ever after.

The sort of bird or teapot is going to sing something at us. This is real life. It's not a Disney story. And this is not going to work out well. Verse 21. Then Jacob.

Oh, because it's been seven years. It seemed like just a few days. It's been seven years. Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife that I may go into her, for my time is completed. Bruh. Maybe word that differently next time.

Not a super gracious way. Say the thing about how it didn't feel long, because you love her so much. Like, you know, lead with that. But he says, give me my wife. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place, and made a feast.

But in the evening, he took his daughter Leah, and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah, to be her servant. That's going to come up later. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. Okay, so there's a big feast. It's fair to assume there's alcohol.

It does not lean hard into that. It's not saying that Jacob was blind, drunk, or anything, but it's fair to assume there's some alcohol. When it gets dark, depending on the time of year, depending on the moon, it's dark. She would have been veiled. And also, given the way Jacob worded his, let me have my wife, I don't think he was super talkative. when she was brought into the tent. So what happens, is at some point, Laban worked out this plan, I think, assuming, seven years gave him plenty of time to marry Leah off, and then not so much.

Nobody seems very interested in marrying Leah. I think if he had some actual other offers, he might have done something different. He comes up with the idea to get a bride price for Leah, and to marry her off. You could argue that he was trying to be kind to Leah. I think, as we see Laban's character play out, not so much. He's trying to be kind to himself.

And he's setting his daughters up for some difficulty. And in some ways, Jacob's met his match. So he swaps Leah out. He had to tell Rachel, nope, Leah, veil up, you're on deck, let's go. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, what is this you have done to me?

Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? Now, if we'll just think about being Leah for a second. Seems like nobody wants to marry you. Jacob shows up. He does not choose you.

He chooses Rachel. And by the way the text is written, that seems common. Leah, but Rachel. Then, you have one night with him where he would have been, in some ways, passionate, in some ways, loving. And you know, she has to be nervous and anxious about what's going to happen in the morning. And what happens, I'm assuming the look on her face was never forgotten.

The look on his face was never forgotten by her. When he saw that it was her, and the first thing he did was run out of the tent to go talk to Laban. And I assume that the pain there, and the pain for Rachel, who, as best we can guess, probably appreciated. Jacob probably loved him, and we're never told, but we know that he loved her, and a lot of times, when someone loves you, that's a very attractive quality. Would have been looking forward to getting married, and wasn't able to, and this is a mess. Laban said, this is verse 26, it is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn.

Ooh. If you know Jacob's story, that's a sick burn. He says, oh, maybe where you're from, the younger gets to be treated like the firstborn. But we're 500 miles from your mama's house, and that's not what we do here. So he swapped Leah out.

He says, complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also, in return for serving me another seven years. That's part of the reason why he views them as property, this one, the other one. And he's not super loving towards his daughters, gracious or setting them up for anything good. So there would have been a week where they would have kind of been a honeymoon week. He says, finish your week, and then you can have Rachel. Jacob did so, and he completed her week.

Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant, Bilhah, to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years. What could have been beautiful is now set up to be a train wreck. What could have been joy filled, and the truth is, that's so often how life works. We think we're on the right track, we think everything's going well, we think we've done what we needed to do to be headed in the right direction, and then in a night, over the course of a few weeks, this fell apart, and now he's married to sisters.

He loves one, he doesn't love the other, and there's no way at this point it's set up to be difficult and painful and hurtful for everybody, and that's the way we feel. So many of us can look back and go, it was all going well until, that's when it fell apart, and that's when the pain happened, and that's where everything came in that got messed up, and from that moment, so many of us have been trying to manage and to fix. If I could just get past it, if I could just get to this, if I could just have this happen, if this would just go away, if this could just be like this, and we're going to see that's what they do for the rest of the story. Verse 31, when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

Much of the rest of this story is going to deal with child birth, and we're going to see some joy and some pain and hurtfulness mixed in here, and what we see in this very first sentence is that God is in charge of conception, and that's going to be pulled through the rest of this story, that God rules and reigns sovereignly over conception. This is why we ought to take life from conception very seriously, and this is why it can be so painful for those who struggle with infertility, and those who have struggled with poor choices here, and abortion, and those who have conceived a child, but not been able to carry the child full term, and have lost babies. This is painful. So I would just ask that as we continue to read through this, that you would stay, that you would listen, that you would see the pain here, and that hopefully we can reach some redemption on the other side.

But this is painful. And Leah conceived and bore a son and 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 borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi.

And as she conceived again and bore a son, she said, This time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. There's a few short verses, but it drags out over the course of at least about five years. Maybe longer. What we see is that she kept saying, she has the first one and she says, Now my husband will love me.

But then she has another one, several years later, and says basically the same thing. Because the first one didn't fix it, so she says, Now. Now God's seen I'm hated this one. And she has a third son years later and says, Now. Finally she reaches the fourth one and she says, This time I'm just going to praise the Lord. And it seems as if she's reached a little bit of a place of peace, a little bit of understanding that this idea that if I can just have this, this will fix it, this will solve the problem.

She's looking ahead every time she has a child and says, This will be it. She's looking to some sort of circumstantial fix to the pain that she is in. And a lot of times when we talk as church family, we'll say, You're going through a season of difficulty. And sometimes what we don't mean by season is summer, spring, fall. We mean this. She's walking through six years, five years, ten years.

And every time she gets pregnant, this hope swells in her heart. This time. This time he'll care about me. He's certainly sleeping with her. This time he'll love me. This time he'll be attached to me.

This time he'll care about me. And it doesn't work. Never happens. Chapter 30, verse 1. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die.

And 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? She looks, She has Jacob's love, but she doesn't have any children and that meant a lot culturally. It still does. There's a lot of hope and life wrapped up in that. But she, there it meant that you were honored, that you were blessed, and she has no children.

She says, Give me children or I'm going to die. You see, she has his love, but she wants children. Leah has children, but she wants his love and everybody's looking for a circumstantial fix. They're looking to something and saying, If I could just have this, then I'd be okay. Then I'd be at peace.

Then my heart would settle. She's looking and saying, If I don't have this, I'm going to die. I have to have this to live. I have to have this to be okay. It's not worth living if I don't. And how often do we do that?

My whole life is hanging on this. I've just got to have this. And if I can't, I don't know what the point is. And if I can't, I don't know how to move forward. Verse 3. Then she said, Here is my servant Bilhah.

Go into her so that she may give birth on my behalf that even I may have children through her. So she's looking for a circumstantial fix. This is not coming from a place of faith. This is not coming from a place of hope. It's just that I need children. I've got to have them.

She goes through this process which was common culturally. There's a lot to the Bible just tells us happens without telling us how to think about it and how to approach it. And a lot of times, especially in Genesis, we're just going to hear some stories. The Bible's going to keep moving. There are places later in Scripture where we see this is not a good idea. This is not the way to go about this.

Not to have multiple wives. Not to approach it this way. But she does this. It's common. 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 and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Do y'all see that? She said, he's also heard my voice. That's pointing back to Reuben where she said, God heard me. And she says, yeah, God also heard me.

Which means that Jacob knows that these names meant something. It was common that all the names of these children were saying, Jacob will love me now. And it still didn't work for Leah. Each child she named was a cry for help and he doesn't even care. And then Rachel says, ha ha ha, he heard me too. You're not the only person who can pray.

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. This is a terrible home to live in. She named her child Wrestle because she's fighting with her sister. The amount of unrest, venom, pain here is overwhelming.

And some of you can picture this so clearly because you know what it's like to live in a house like this. When Leah saw that 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. She called his name Gav. 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.

So at this point, Leah seems that she's no longer just pointing back and saying, these children will give me love. These children will draw Jacob to me. She's just saying, I just want children. They make me happy. They're where life is and she's putting her hope in them. In the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben, that's the oldest, went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother, Leah.

I'm not sure how many botanists and horticulturalists we have in the room. I think many of you were like, wait, I've only heard about mandrakes in Harry Potter. Are they real? They are. They look similar to the little things they pull out. They're all twisted up and rudy and they're all little people and they've been treated to have special powers since forever.

I think too much of them. They're kind of a hallucinogen and they can kill you. The Bible is not advocating the way they think about this but they understood mandrakes. They call them love apples. So they understood when they found this and it was a rare find that this was some sort of fertility drug, some sort of aphrodisiac and so it was much appreciated especially in the middle of the fight that these two sisters are having.

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? I can't imagine living in this house. Her response is, you took my husband, which I'm assuming that Rachel would feel like, no, you took my husband. She says, you want my mandrakes also?

You want my super special fertility? I'm going to help you have babies? But she said to her, is it a small matter that you've taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. So he spent most of his time with Rachel.

She says, you can have him for the night. Give me the mandrakes. She believes that's going to help her in her infertility. 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.

This is healthy. Jacob is not leading his family, is not setting them up for any amount of joy. He got pushed into this by Laban who deceived him, who tricked him. And then Jacob at this point is just, it seems, one of the ladies in our teaching team said that it seems like his goal is happy wife, happy life. Like he's just this kind of, whatever they say, he's not trusting in, hoping in the Lord. He's not trying to lead here.

He's just doing whatever they say. He's mostly silent. I think he's just trying to manage the circumstances that he's in. Later, we see later in Genesis when he meets the Pharaoh, he says that his days were few and evil. He's not joyous. He's not trusting.

He's not walking with the Lord. He just is here. He's kind of dead inside. That's what it seems like. So he lay with her that night, verse 17, and God listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

And Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar. Now that statement she says there, God has given me my wages because I gave him my servant to my husband. The Bible is not saying that's a good theology. It's just saying that's what she said. Also, the theology defined here is that mandrakes don't help you with conception.

God does. And again, for those who struggle with infertility, that truth that God is sovereign over that can bring more pain than to just think it was random. It can be more hurtful than to just think there's, you know, it is what it is. But that's the truth that's found here. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment.

Now my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons. She hasn't fully moved off of the idea that children are going to make her husband love her, appreciate her, honor her. She's still clinging to this, longing for this, and it has been years. And in some ways, who can blame her? But nobody's joyous, nobody's hope-filled, and everybody's looking for something else to fix the situation.

Verse 21, After she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah, then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. It's helpful to note that when Rebecca could not conceive, we were told that Isaac prayed for her. It doesn't seem like Jacob's praying. It seems like it's just intentionally kind of saying, listen to Rachel, listen to Leah. Jacob is just there playing no real part in any of this, except for the conception part when they pass him back and forth from 10 to 10. 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. That's one of the saddest lines in this to me. Rachel has been hurting and pleading and wanting to have a child. She has a son. He's born. She says, God's taken away my reproach.

And you're like, yes, praise him. Yes, trust him. Yes, see that he's good. And what she says is, may I have another. Her heart, even in the moment of naming this child, has not settled. She is not satisfied.

There is no joy. There is no hope. And that's the way it works. When we hang everything on our circumstances, we will not find satisfaction. It will always be short-lived. And the truth is, as you read this story out, and we'll see it in chapter 35, she has another son, and she dies in childbirth.

The thing that she thought would give her life and purpose and meaning ultimately is what kills her. We're going to stop there. Nobody here does anything for us other than model for us over, in short verses, but over a long period of time, how we so often walk through life. If I can just have this, then I'll be satisfied. If I can just make it here, then I'll be okay. Nobody's happy.

Everybody's chasing it. We have to have something more resilient than happiness because we are going to walk through pain and suffering and hurt, sickness. Should the Bible give us any help here? First thing I want to show you is that what just happened here, and then when she does have her next son, Benjamin, is that the twelve tribes of Israel were born. God's promise that He made early on that I'm going to make you into a great nation, that in the midst of this pain and in the midst of this difficulty, He is accomplishing that. In the midst of two wives and two extra wives, He is accomplishing His promise.

In the midst of what is brokenness and sin, God is working towards His glory, towards His accomplishment of His promise, towards ultimately everyone's good in the midst of. He's working actually through it. It has not derailed His plans. That this is ultimately the tribes that will be the nation of Israel. And this is where God shows us how He works in and through suffering. And ultimately as Christians, we know and hold that to be true.

That Jesus Christ suffers. That He's the suffering servant. That He's a man of sorrows. That He's acquainted with grief. That God does not sit far away from our pain. He does not sit far away from our suffering.

It is not just an interruption, but He uses it and works through it for redemption and for good and for His glory and for His purposes. That if we are Christians, if we are people of the cross, we cannot just believe that suffering and pain and difficulty are an interruption to our otherwise meant to be happy lives because that is a false understanding of who God is and what He does and how He works in suffering and what His ultimate purpose is in the world. It is not our temporal happiness. It is His eternal glory. And the beauty of the gospel and the beauty of the scriptures and the beauty of this story is that when we are caught up in His eternal glory, we will have unending satisfaction and unending joy.

And when we aim at temporal happiness, we will never get it. We will have glimpses of it. We will have moments of it. We will have tastes of it. We will get to what we think we see other people having and enjoying it. But what ultimately happens is what happened with Leah and Rachel.

Well, Rachel is looking at Leah and saying, see, she has got the happiness. And Leah is looking at Rachel and saying, see, she has got the happiness. And the truth is we will spend our time looking into the dirt at temporal things that will not satisfy, that will not fill us up, that will not fix the problem. And ultimately, we will die and we will have missed the point, which is that God works for His glory and in that, we get joy and we get good. It's what Romans 8 says. We're going to pull it up on the screen.

I want to read that to you quickly. It says, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him, that we might be swept up in His glory, that we might be brought in to His glory and it says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The sufferings of this time are not worth comparing to the glory. Do you know what defeats suffering? God's glory.

Happiness can't do it. Your temporal, circumstantial satisfaction will not satisfy, will not fix the problem, but if we get swept up in God's glory, in His story, in His purpose, if we get brought into what He is accomplishing in the world, if we lean into His eternal purpose and His glory, then we are equipped and we are prepared for all of the temporal suffering that we will face because it's not worth comparing to the glory that is to come. That what we face here on a daily basis and that what we walk through for seasons of life, for decades, when we get the diagnosis back and we are staring down the barrel of pain and torment and torture and death, if our goal is happiness, we are not prepared. When we get the news that our spouse has cheated on us that they are leaving, we are not prepared.

If we get the news, if we find out that our parents have passed, if we pull through an intersection and are hit by a truck and we stand and weep over the graves of our children, we are not prepared unless we know that there is a God who joined us in our suffering and in the midst of suffering brings about purpose and sweeps us up into His glory and gives us an eternity filled with hope and gives us something bigger to lean into and something stronger to hold on to. 2 Corinthians 4, Paul's talking about the suffering that they're facing as they try to proclaim the gospel and he says, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into Your presence. That life lived for God's glory gives us hope beyond our suffering and purpose in our suffering. And this is the hope beyond our suffering.

That this will not last. This is not eternal. This will not win. And if you are in Christ, you will rise. That the God who raised Christ from the dead will raise us from the dead and this death that works in our bodies will be conquered and we will stand in glory forever. He keeps going.

He says, for it is all for your sake so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. He's actually saying that they, the apostles, are suffering so that more people might know Christ and ultimately be brought into His glory. so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. He says, we are not crushed even though our outer self is wasting away.

Some of us are in situations where we feel like we are wasting away. We are decaying. We are being crushed. We are being destroyed. And He says, even though that's happening, God's Spirit works in us and He enlivens us daily and He gives us hope and He gives us meaning beyond this. He gives us a way to work through it and ultimately He gives us purpose in it because He is preparing in our sufferings.

He is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory. That there will not be a tear shed. That there will not be a drop of blood that hits the ground. That there will not be a moment of anguish for a Christian that does not roll into God's divine purpose that you might be able to handle how wonderful it is to be in His presence. That it is through our suffering we are prepared to enter into the glory that He has. That we are brought into and swept up into His better purposes that we might be able to handle it through His suffering.

Because Jesus walked through suffering to bring us into glory and we follow Him in suffering so that we might enter in as well. As we, verse 18, look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient. Meaning they'll pass. But the things that are unseen are eternal.

He's saying that the way that we are able to stand in this is that we fix our eyes beyond our circumstances. And this is so difficult to do. Paul at the beginning of this chapter says that they're afflicted, they're perplexed, they're persecuted, they carry around death in their bodies, that they're struck down. But we have to remind ourselves of the glory and the good that is to come. We have to look towards what is eternal and where our hope is found that we might rest in Him. I'm going to pray and we're going to sing more songs at the end than we normally do that we might walk our minds towards the Lord, that we might fix our eyes on Him, that we might see Him in His glory and be brought along with Him.

And then during this next song we will take communion that those of us in the room who have placed our faith in Jesus might sit for a moment, talk with the Lord about where we have trusted other things, talk to the Lord where we have been looking towards our circumstances to solve our problems and help set our minds on what is eternal, on where our hope is and where God's glory is that we might be brought along into a bigger purpose that creates in us a resiliency in the midst of suffering and pain. That you would come and take communion where we celebrate that Jesus' body was broken and His blood was shed, that it was His suffering where God twisted and bent the course of history towards His glory and His fame and His name that He had been working towards that as the pinnacle of history and that we as Christians are prepared to walk through what we're walking through. I don't know what you're going through right now and I don't know what you're going to face in the days to come and I don't know what you're trying to live down in your past but I know that God does and I know that it is not wasted because God works in suffering that we might know Him and that we might be prepared to be in His presence. We don't know why we suffer the way we do and we don't know why you suffer in one way and someone else in another way but we know that God is good and that He loves us and that He has a purpose in suffering and therefore we can trust Him and we can walk through the darkest of days with a hope that will not die.

We will weep. We will doubt. We will hurt. We will have moments when we feel we cannot move forward. Paul says that they were crushed beyond what they could bear and then we will lean into an eternal God who has an eternal glory and trust that it's for His name and for His good and that in that we will be brought into what matters. We fix our eyes on what's eternal.

So sit, pray, lean into the Lord, try to fix your eyes on Him. If you've been looking towards something to say, if I could just have this then I'll be okay. If I could just have this then I'll be satisfied. Repent and trust in the Lord and then we'll take communion. Let's pray.

God, we thank You for Your grace. We thank You for Your goodness. We thank You that our suffering has meaning and purpose and hope. That it is not an interruption, that it does not mean that the good plan for our life has fallen apart but that You work in suffering, that You work through suffering for Your glory and for our good and that we can look beyond our suffering because our hope is fixed in a resurrected Christ and that we can have purpose in our suffering because You are preparing for us a glory that is not worth comparing. Look what we're going through now. We pray that we would point to You well in our suffering as we weep as we're broken and as we trust.

In Jesus' name. as they do nothing. Let's keep it.