The Struggle for Love – Timothy Keller [Sermon]

follow along as I read to you from the uh passage on which the teaching is based it's printed in your bulletin going to read Genesis 29 verses 15 to35 and laan said to him just because you're a relative of mine should you work for me for nothing tell me what your wages should be now laan had two daughters the name of the older was Leah the name of the younger was Rachel Leah had weak eyes but Rachel was lovely in form and beautiful Jacob was in love with Rachel and said I'll work for you seven

years in return for your younger daughter Rachel laan said it's better that I give her to you than to some other man stay here with me so Jacob served seven years to get Rachel but they seem like only a few days to him him because of his love for her then Jacob said to laan give me my wife my time is completed and I want to lie with her so Laban brought together all of the people of the place and gave a feast but when evening came he took his daughter Leah and gave her to

Jacob and Jacob lay with her and lean gave his servant girl zilpa to his daughter as her maid servant and when morning came there was Leah so Jacob said to laan what is this you have done to me I I served you for Rachel didn't I why have you deceived me and laan replied it's not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one finish this daughter's Bridal week then we will give you the younger one also in return for another s years of work and Jacob did so he finished

the week with Leah and then laan gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife Laban gave his servant girl Bila to his daughter Rachel as her maid servant and Jacob L with Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah and he worked for Laban another seven years and when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved he opened her womb but Rachel was Barren and Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son she named him Reuben for she said it is because the Lord has been seen my misery surely my husband will

love me now she conceived again and when she gave birth to a son she said because the Lord heard that I am not loved he gave me this one too so she named him Simeon again she conceived and when she gave birth to a son she said now at last my husband will become attached to me because I have borne him three sons so he named him Levi he was named Levi she conceived again and when she gave birth to a son she said this time I will praise the Lord so she named him Judah

and then she stopped having children this is God's word we're moving through in these weeks the life of Jacob uh that very ancient figure in the Book of Genesis and yet an incredibly modern figure uh Jacob is a man with an inner vacuum an inner emptiness Jacob's a man with uh uh as we're going to see a little more uh and reasons why an inner sense of emptiness and he's desperate for other people's affirmation uh other people's blessing uh for success for approval and so on last week in Genesis 28 chapter 28 we saw Jacob

had his first encounter though with God a personal encounter and he enters into a personal Covenant relationship with God in chapter 28 but here in 29 we see something very instructive for us all that though he's begun his relationship with God that does not immediately create a remedy a full remedy for his inner emptiness uh self-discovery uh self- knowledge I I inner emptiness these things are not remedied quickly even by a firsttime encounter with God and so what we see is part of the process of inner transformation still entails tremendous mistakes and disasters even after

he's had this relationship begun with God and this today we see one more family disaster if you've been with us during the series you'll see we've already had one one more family only disaster and yet God is clearly as we're going to see at work in not only Jacob's life but the life the lives of those around him the theme today the theme of this passage is that people with an inner emptiness give themselves to a hope very often they give themselves to a hope and that is a hope for what we'll call one true

love people with an inner emptiness have a tendency to give themselves to the hope that out there somewhere there's that right person that that he or that she that's going to somehow make my life right going to fix it but what we're going to see here is three things first of all we're going to see what is behind that hope for one true love then secondly we're going to see the disillusionment that generally accompanies that hope for one true love and then lastly what will actually fulfill that hope what's behind the Hope what usually that

this illusionment generally accompanies The Hope and what will ultimately fulfill it so number one we see first of all what lies behind this hope for one true love uh we see it when we take a look at the very beginning and see how uh Jacob got into the situation uh it starts off the passage starts off with laan saying just because you're a relative of mine should you work for me for nothing tell me what your wages should be now let's give the context if you haven't been here with us let me get you up

to date uh Jacob's grandfather Abram God came to Abram and said to him I'm going to save the world through your family out of your descendants will come one the Messiah who is going to deal with sin and death but what that means that in every generation of Abram's family one child will be the bearer of the Messianic seed one child the Messianic strain one child will be the one that God walks with and blesses and who passes the faith on to the next generation and we saw back in chapter 25 and 27 that Jacob

is the one in that generation that God though Jacob is the second of two boys he's the younger son uh God had said through a prophecy the Elder will serve the younger Jacob's the one but Isaac his father loved Esau his older brother preferred Esau and Jacob Liv grew up shunted rejected second best resentful and finally we saw that what Jacob at one point does is when his father is very old and very blind and near death Jacob dresses up at Esau and fools his blind father into giving him Jacob the deathbed blessing of the

firstborn and as a result Esau his brother is furious with him vows to kill him and Jacob has to run for his life and everything has fallen apart now Jacob has no family to be the head of he has no inheritance he has no money he's penniless that's the point here in the beginning and he runs far away just to survive to be with the relatives of his mother who he will never see again the only woman the only person in the world that loves him and now he's starting to work he's tending the flocks

of his uncle Laban and Laban comes to him and says look let's have let's negotiate a contract uh what should your salary be you know you're penniless but you're working for me fine let's come up with a negotiation and when Jacob answers laan in verses 161 17 18 now we see how Jacob is coping with the screw up of his life with the with the mess of his life with the ruins that his life is in how's he dealing with the unhappiness how's he dealing with all the hopes there have been dashed how is he

dealing with that inner emptiness now and we see it immediately when he says I'll tell you what my wages should be I'll work for you for seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel now immediately we see a few things quickly first of all we know from verse 17 that Rachel is beautiful absolutely stunning sexually attractive beautiful when it says she's lovely in form it's a word for Hebrew word for her figure So it's talking about her sexual attractiveness the beautiful word probably has more to do with her face she was stunning but secondly

we see that Jacob is now absolutely in love with her because when he negotiates a price he says I'll work seven years now we know from both archaeology and from history that uh 30 to 40 shekels was a normal price that a Suitor paid the family of a bride someone he wanted to marry but if you add this up uh one and a half shekels is the normal going wage per month of a typical laborer and therefore what is Jacob offering he's not negotiating he's offering an exorbitant sum he's offering an enormous sum which means

he's utterly out of his head with love I mean he's not he's not pushing a bar he's not you know driving for a hard bargain absolutely not and he's we we see that the seven years went by it says you know it was only a few days he's so much in love but it's actually verse 21 that we would ordinarily Miss I think that really shows us just how deep in Jacob is here it says and then Jacob said to laan give me my wife my time is completed and I want to lie with her

now Robert alter who who is the a Jewish scholar and probably the leading uh expert in Hebrew narrative right now Robert alter in his commentary on Genesis says what's that this verse and it's not that easy to see in the English it's actually not that easy to see for us modern people that this verse has been a problem for Jewish rabbinical commentators for centuries and the reason is because it's utterly out of character it's utterly beyond what was customary it's utterly Indiscreet what he's literally saying is my time is completed give me my wife I

want to have sex with her and it was just so Indiscreet for the time it was so out of character for the and customary he says that for centuries Jewish rabbis have been trying to explain or Justify the baldness the brusk the crassness the grossness of it but what Robert alter says it was very clear is the narrator is telling us something very simple here is a man who is emotionally and sexually overwhelmed with longing for Rachel he's overwhelmed with emotional and sexual longing for her he will do anything for her now what do we

see why is he like this and the answer is this is how this is how he's dealing with the failure of his life he's looking at her and saying oh my word I don't have you I never got my father's blessing now I've lost my mother I'm out here everything in my life is falling apart but Rachel oh the most beautiful woman in in the whole territory if I got her if she was my wife finally something in my life would be going right finally something finally be something about my life that would be worth

it something there would be finally something about me that would be worth it finally I'd be worth something my life would be worth something it would fix it it would begin to make amends this will finally fix my life this will fill that hole that's what he's doing now do you say well the poor guy you know I can see that I I've known people like that he's sort of an emotional and uh you know he gets that way about romance and love but I don't want to let us off the hook very quickly at

all uh Ernest Becker in uh his piter prizewinning book the denial of death Ernest Becker a secular man an atheist wrote a book trying to talk about how he believes that being secular that now the religion at least amongst the educated and the elite classes of the western societies uh uh the idea of God is sort of maybe he's there in a general way you might have a general belief in but basically we live in a secular society and he says that has had as an impact he points out that in ancient times romantic love

was seldom the basis for marriage and even though it was there modern people load an enormous amount of spiritual Freight into finding that right person in into romance and into love we don't want to admit it we do not want to admit it we're sophisticated we do not want to admit but Becker I think and I'm going to read you a quote here says you don't want to admit to what degree that modern people now are making up for the for for the lack of inner spiritual fullness by looking out there saying I'm going to

find that one see Becker puts it this way it's great referring to Modern secular Humanity he says we need to feel we still need to feel that that our life matters in the scheme of things we still want to merge ourselves with some higher self-absorbing meaning in trust and in gratitude but if we no longer have God how are we to do this and one of the first ways that occurred to the modern person as aoto ranks saw was the Romantic solution the self- glorification that we need in our innermost being hear that we now

look for in the love partner what is it that we want when we Elevate the love partner to this POS position we want to be rid of our faults we want our feeling we want to be rid of our feeling of nothingness we want to be justified we want to know our existence hasn't been in vain we want Redemption nothing less now do you think Becker is overdoing it this is not a this is not a religious person talking you think he's overdoing it he's not think I mean know this week for example I get

back to this new York Magazine was talking about how are different people dealing with the pressure how are people dealing in New York with with the uncertainty and the fear and the the sort of the sense of meaninglessness that you know hovers over so many people waiting for the next you know for the other shoe to drop and so on and one of the things that they mention and this is not my terms this is in the New York Magazine one of the things they mentioned that people are doing is what they call apocalyptic hookups

sex with somebody really hot to give me a sense that life still has meaning that I'm still loved that things are still okay apocalyptic hookups but that's what that's what Becker is talking about he says it's not just Jacob frankly back in ancient times it wasn't as it wasn't as prevalent but Jacob is doing what we do what are we going to do how are we going to get us how are we going to get rid of a sense that there's our life doesn't matter how are we going to get rid of a sense that

in the grand scheme of things we're not very significant how are we going to get get rid of that sense of nothingness love if I can find that one true love that one person then my life will be okay that's behind so often this desire for one true love is that inner emptiness what Becker calls nothing less than a desire for Redemption so the first thing we see here is what's behind it but the second thing we see here is the disillusionment that generally accompanies The Hope and this the this uh the this the seeking

of one true love and if you want to see the disillusionment we see it first by looking at laban's plot and secondly at Leah's lot what happens to Jacob through Laban and what happens to Leah through laan first of all Jacob's laban's plot now let's take a look and see what Laban does to Jacob for a second and we'll see Jacob is remember a con artist Jacob is a Deceiver but in Laban he's met his match because the minute he says I'll work seven years for Rachel laan's little mind goes to work because right away

he says now here's a guy that will do anything here's a guy who's vulnerable here's a guy who's not even he's not negotiating for a good price here's a man who clearly is at my Mercy now the first thing that laan does look closely Jacob says I work for Rachel for seven years what is what does le what does laan say what's laan say I'll tell you what Laban doesn't say he doesn't say yes do you see that he doesn't say agreed he makes a oblique positive statement he says well it' be better for you

to marry than somebody else that's not yes that's not okay seven years and you get ready that's not yes Jacob wanted it to be yes Jacob desperately wanted to hear the word yes so he heard yes do you know anything about that so he worked seven years and the seven years are up and he says now it's my time and and then the wedding and of course it doesn't take a great deal of historical archaeological knowledge for you to imagine the bride is kept heavily veiled all day first there's the procession from her home to

the place of the ceremony then there's the ceremony then there's a huge feast that lasts you know for hours and hours and hours she's still veiled that's the custom and then finally at night the groom takes the bride into his tent and of course couple things that are kind of common sense no electric lights uh and after hours and hours of drinking they lie together and Jacob says Ah Rachel but in the morning he discovers it's Leah that Laban has put in the older sister and when he runs to laan and he says what have

you done here's the Dana Mo for years I always wondered how did laan really think he was going to get away with it because see when Jacob comes back you see what he says he says you've deceived me you knew what I was working for now what does Laban say he says well the custom here is to have the older Girl Marry The Young before the younger but you see that's a fairly lame legal statement and there are all kinds of devastating comebacks devastating comebacks fine but this is still fraud God you didn't tell me

about this you knew what I was working for this is fraudulent this is cheating this is illegal I'm sure there was laws I'm certain you know why didn't he come back why when laan says what he says says Jacob just meekly give in there's clearly anger when Jacob gets to labben why have you done this by the way when he says what have you done it's exactly the same thing God says to Adam and Eve after their sin you why have you deceived me there's there's fil he's filled with Fury but one what happens is

when J L laan says what he says next thing you know Jacob gives in why the why is literally in the Hebrew laan says well around here it's not the custom to put the younger before the older and you see let me tell you what happened at that point suddenly a spear went through a flaming spear went into Jacob's conscience and exploded maybe he understood the minute he even used the word deceived he says why have you deceived me it's exactly the same word for deceit in Hebrew that Isaac uses to describe what Jacob did

to him and even if maybe the minute the word was out of his mouth he began to realize it then when laben says around here literally all he said was it's around here it's not the custom for the younger to be preferred before the older suddenly Jacob would have said and would have known wait a minute he's doing to me exactly what I did to my father in fact think about it I reached out in the dark thinking it was somebody it wasn't just like my father reached out in the dark touching somebody thinking it

was somebody it wasn't in fact Robert alter says it's so clear that one he he quotes a medieval Rabbi who commented on this passage passage and imagines Jacob having an angry uh exchange with Leah the next morning and Jacob said to her I called out Rachel in the dark but you answered why did you do that to me and Leah said to him your father called out Esau in the dark and you answered why did you do that to him and the fury dies on his lips he's cut to the quick he's hoisted on his

own petard as we say and he now knows what it's like to be exploited he now know what it's like to be use he now knows what it's like to be lied to you see he's shattered but that's not all it's not just his life that's shattered now we have Leah and Leah is now married to Jacob and what are we told here about Leah now just as artistically I mean I mean when I I say artistically the narrator is an unbelievable artist I hope you begin to see that as the weeks gone by and

in the with the greatest economy of style and with just a few Strokes we learn all about Leah's life what do we know about Leah up to now verse 17 it says Leah had weak eyes but Rachel was lovely in form and very beautiful now one of the problems for translators is this word that is used in Hebrew to describe her eyes and it's a word that means breakable or fragile and it's a tough word to quite figure out it's hard to figure out what the narrator is really getting at but unfortunately most translators don't

do I think probably what they should do because the way this translator here uh translates it it says that uh Leah had weak eyes well here's my point or here's my question is that really what the sentence is getting at is that the point of the sentence does it say Leah had weak eyes but Rachel could see a long long way no it's not talking about their sight it's talking about their appearance either she had crossed eyes or she had protruding eyes or something but here was the point here's the point Leah was unattractive Leah

was homely and she grew up in the shadow of a younger sister who was utterly stunning and that's the reason why laan has to unload her like this the only way I'm ever going to get Leah married to anybody is I'm going to have to trick somebody into it otherwise I'm going to be stuck with her forever Leah is The Unwanted one Leah is the ugly duckling Rachel's the swan Leah is the one that's been rejected Leah is the one that people have looked right through Leah is the one that's been ignored for years and

years and years and that is the way you can understand why Leah not Jacob really is her is his soulmate because look and see starting at verse 31 and following what Leah has done to deal with a big hole in her heart what has she done to handle uh the the the Brokenness in her life from all those years of rejection every time she starts to have a son it's one of the most plaintiff series of of sentences in the Bible every time she starts she has a son she chooses a Hebrew word for the

name that expresses her longing for Jacob so Reuben is taken from a word that means to see because what she's saying is maybe now finally I'll be visible to my husband maybe he won't just look through me secondly Simeon comes from the word to hear because he's she says now finally maybe she he's my husband will listen to me instead of just saying oh yeah yeah Leah whatever whatever and when Levi comes along it's the word for attach what she's saying at every point she's trying to say now finally will my husband love me I'm

having all these babies I'm having all these Sons I'm being the perfect wife at least according to the cultural standards of the time I'm having all these children I'm being the perfect wife what is she doing how is she handling the whole in her heart the inter emptiness in her life the same way that Jacob handled the fact that he was preferred that Esau was preferred to him the same way that Leah is handling the fact that Rachel was preferred to her for years and years she is looking for one true love she says if

this man would love me if I could be a wife of this husband happy mother and wife mother of children if my if then I'd be somebody then I'd be visible see it's a little more of a significance thing here then I'd be worth something then I'd be listened to then I'd be important but she's in hell this is worse than if she never was married because the one person on whom she has put her heart the one person to whom she is functionally looking as Ernest Becker would say for Redemption is in the very

arms of the woman in whose Shadow she's grown up her entire life unbelievable she's in Hell laan Jacob she's in hell but now before we go on and see what God does about that hell we've got a couple questions and just a couple questions to answer but we've also got a couple lessons to draw first of all there's a couple questions always come up at this point I'll be brief but they're important some of you out there this New York City some of you are out there are saying this entire narrative is so offensive to

me this is what I hate about the Bible it's primitive and unlighted times talking about women being bought and sold by men the whole thing is offensive the whole thing you know I can hardly handle well just for a second listen Robert alter himself says if you think that the Book of Genesis which does mention you know slavery polygamy bride purchase primogeniture you know the older son always preferred over the younger son he says if you think the Genesis writer the narrator is supporting these institutions you haven't figured out how to read Because at every

single place and it's almost every chapter at every single place where you have polygamy and slavery and bride purchase and not that sort of thing in every place where these institutions are deployed they bring Devastation and if you think that therefore the Genesis narrator is somehow uh you know a holding or condoning these practices you haven't learned how to read and and the other thing I'd say for those of you who are saying well the Bible's so primitive here and I you know this is we've gotten Beyond this uh let me descend into sarcasm for

just a second of course I would never do this without your permission uh so let me just descend for a moment isn't it great that we live today in modern liberated New York and we don't live back in those times where a woman's looks could just set the course of her entire life uh that how her life even turned out would be almost completely determined by how wonderful she looked physically I mean isn't it great that we've gotten beyond that okay now I'm I'm done and what I'm trying to say is how in the world

could you imagine you could get beyond the Bible fundamental human nature fundamental human problems fundamental human questions are the same another question that comes up you say I'm looking for the heroes and I can't find any you know I'm reading it okay we're the heroes isn't this ancient literature aren't these these wonderful ancient documents doesn't every culture you know the Greeks the Romans the the Egyptians I mean everybody had you know you know the Jews too here all these ancient cultures had these ancient stories and which you have Heroes that show us and uh the

virtues that we can emulate right I read the Book of Virtues and I saw there biblical stories in there along with Greek and Roman stories I'm looking through here and I don't see any Heroes I I there's no good people well that's not completely true but I don't see anybody here to emulate well you're right and you're wrong and you're concerned you're right you're right in that all ancient cultures in general that was how they taught virtue Alistair McIntyre's famous book after virtue points out that in all ancient cultures you didn't teach values by the

way in your in school in abstract ways you gave people stories and these Legends and these myths of these great Heroes and these great people who emulate the various virtues and through those stories we're able to enter in and we're able to uh imitate them and so you're right in saying that all the other you know cultures and religions and they always had these stories and uh and that then that was the rule in the ancient world but you're wrong in thinking that the Bible is like that because the Bible's completely different and biblical faith

is utterly different because see all other religions have God at the top of a ladder as it were we talked about this last week God at the top of a ladder and the ladder are steps are the virtues and that if you give your sacrifices and if you're kind and you're generous to the poor and you are moral and you're hardworking and you're honest and you you live the virtues you can move on up the ladder and you can be blessed by God or the gods and every other religion was like that but the biblical

religion the biblical Faith gives us a god who's not like that over and over and over again in these stories we see weak people messed up people people who don't seek God's grace who don't deserve God's grace who continually resist God's grace and and don't even appreciate God's grace after they've been saved by it people into whose life God has to come by sheer Grace intervening you see it's utterly different utterly different and that's the reason why you're right in noticing there's no heroes in here but that is the moral of the story the moral

of the story is that morals won't get you into God's story but God has to come into your story God is a god of Grace the real God now what are the lessons we learn at this point and the lessons are twofold and they're pretty profound the first lesson we're supposed to learn from here this especially in the most Vivid way when Jacob wakes up in the morning it was Leah we're being taught something that in all of life through every event through every aspect of your life there always will be a ground note running

a ground note of cosmic disappointment and you're not going to lead a wise life until you know that see Jacob goes to bed with the one I finally got the one the one thing the one person who's going to make my life okay but what we're told literally in the Hebrew it says but in the morning behold it was Leah now I love Leah and I'm protective of her and I love what we're about to learn about Leah but for a moment I got to tell you this Leah represents something every time you get started

into a relationship every time you get start every time you move into a marriage every time you get into a job every time you get into into a new project any anytime you get into some new uh Pursuit and you think this finally is going to make my life right I want you to know in the morning it's always Leah you go to bed with Rachel in the morning it will always always be Leah and nobody put it better than CS Lewis who said most people if they really learned how to look into their own

Hearts would know that they do want and want acutely something this world can never give them there are all sorts of things in the world that offer to give it to you but they never keep their promise the longings which arise in us when we first fall in love or think first think of some foreign country or first take up some subject that excites us these are longings which no marriage no travel no learning will ever satisfy I'm not speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages or trips and so on I'm speaking of

the very best possible ones there is always something we have grasped at in that first moment of longing that just Fades away in the reality the spouse may be a good spouse the scenery has been excellent it has turned out to be a good job but it it the thing that we thought was going to be in the center of it always evades us in the morning it's always Leah and if you get married or if you get into jobs if you if you don't realize that I will always be Leah in the morning that

there is something that you want in your heart that nothing in this world can satisfy that if you go on trying to discard the things you have to get better ones because that one will have it or if you start to get mad at the world and say the world's to cheat and I guess all of my hopes have been are been stupid and you try to harden your heart so you're not in agony anymore or if you pound yourself saying I'm a failure all those things the way of the fool the way of the

cynic the way of the self- the those are all because you won't admit that in the morning it's always Leah means that the one true love you really want isn't her or him or any human being and you know what's interesting here is this is a mistake that can be made across the board it doesn't matter whether you're a conservative or a liberal or something in the middle because if you're the liberal type and you're into apocalyptic hookups but you could be a conservative type look at Leah the epitome of traditional family values she wants

to have babies she wants to be a good wife she wants you know she's going to be somebody because finally I'm married and I've got children and I got a husband now I'm somebody's that's the conservative approach you know what if you put family in place of God if you put sex in place of God it doesn't matter across the board you will be dashed you will be decimated you will in the end have absolutely nothing and that's what we're being told isn't that amazing now what's the Hope H what what's the solution if that's

what's behind the dis behind the desire for one true love and that's the disillusion that accompanies in general the pursuit of one true love what's the answer where where can this desire be fulfilled and the answer is look at what happens to Leah look what happens in her and to her or another way to put it is look what God does inside her what what God does in her and then what God does for her what God does in her and for her number one in her do you see an interesting progression even though she

is calling out uh and saying if my husband my husband see my the husband's the Savior the husband's the Savior oh of course she wouldn't say that and you don't say that oh you you would never let yourself say such a thing but Becker's right you're looking to the one to make yourself feel okay to make yourself feel meaningful to give some sense to your life to make yourself feel valuable so she's look and yet she's calling on the Lord too she's saying the Lord has helped me she's fighting she wants a relationship with the

Lord and she's using the Covenant name Yahweh not the generic name Elohim how did she know about that see all other people besides Abraham Isaac and Jacob would know of God in the general sense of being Elohim God at the top of the ladder only Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses people like that who God enters into a covenant relationship with God gives his personal name his Covenant name Yahweh which means is the name that goes along with the story of salvation that he's a god of Grace that he's going to come down that he's going to

intervene in our lives he's not going to wait for us to somehow achieve she's heard about this she's using the name L the Lord commentators all find it fascinating that she's not just asking somehow for God to help her have babies she's on the one hand in an idolatrous grip she's made an idol a pseudo savior out of family and yet she's calling for the Lord she's trying to get a relationship with this God of Grace at the same time time but finally the fourth kid breakthrough do you see what happens fourth child comes along

and the word Judah means praise and there's no mention of her husband and there's no mention of any even the child in a sense there's even a kind of defiance and she says this time what does she what does she mean by this time this time is different this time I'm going to praise the Lord look look look look and she stopped having children almost the implication is I don't need to have children anymore I'm not going to work at it like I was why she took the deepest deepest passionate desires of her heart took

them away from her husband and put them on the Lord Jacob and laan those men had stolen her life they've been stealing her life for years but the moment she did that that she took her life back there's Liberation and she realized she'd be a lousy wife and you will be a lousy wife or a lousy husband whether you're married or you're not married if you don't do the same thing or maybe I should ask you this what is the thing regardless of what you tell me you actually believe what your Doctrine is regardless of

what you believe I want to know from you what is the thing that you need to take the deepest deepest Adoration of your heart off of and put on God so you can get your life back and you can get free freedom and you can handle anything but why did she do that she did that not because it was just a psychological subjective experience she what was what happened in her was because of what had happened to her what happens to her when Judah is born she can't probably know though she might Intuit it what

is God doing for her when Judah is born who's Judah the the narrator knows the writer of Genesis knows because in chapter 48 near the very end of the book there's a prophecy that comes and says Judah is the one through whom the king will come Judah is the one through whom the scepter will come and what does that mean let me put it in a nutshell God looks down at a beautiful woman and an ugly woman God looks down at a woman who's had a designer life and everybody in the world has always wanted

and looks at one who the he looks at the girl nobody wanted nobody he looked at the girl who's unloved who's unlovely and he says you're going to be the mother of Jesus verse 31 says when the Lord saw Leah was not loved let me paraphrase it he loved her he's the true bridegroom the word of God says he's the true love he's the only spouse that will fulfill you because he's the only one who won't lay you down you know Becker puts it just perfectly he says no he human relationship can bear the burden

of godhood however much we may idealize and idolize him he inevitably reflects Earthly Decay and Imperfections if your partner is your all any shortcoming in that your partner becomes a major threat to you what do you want when you elevate your partner to this position you want to be rid of your faults the feeling of nothingness you want to be justified To Know Your Existence has not been in vain you want Redemption nothing less needless to say human beings can't give you that and she's free from her idolatry of traditional family values because the God

is the true bridegroom but here's the other thing we got to notice the reason why she becomes the mother of Jesus is because not because just God likes underdogs is that it he's just she's the sentimental favorite no because she is a picture of how God is going to save the world and here's how he's going to save the world he's not a strong God who says strong people if you live virtuous lives you can come up to heaven he comes down [Music] he dies on the cross he fulfills the requirements for you Jesus Christ

says you will see Heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man I am the latter I'm going to live the life you should have lived and died to death you should have died if you know you're so weak that you need a savior who died for you you're so bad that nothing less than the death of the Son of God could save you if you're a sophisticated new New Yorker and you can't say I'm a sinner and I need to be saved by grace you're too proud for this

incredible salvation that comes into the world through Leah and her boy God gives Leah the rejected one the weak one the to be the mother of Jesus because that is how the gospel works the gospel saves people not who are strong gospel saves people who will admit their Sinners and that they're weak and what ends up happening who goes back Jacob the son who's not loved and who was deceiver but now he's humbled into some decent character and Leah the girl who's not loved and they're the ones who bring Salvation to the world because that's

how the gospel Works can you handle it can you handle it what a God he looks at the one without the designer life and said that's how my salvation is going to work that's how my son is going to look you're the mom number one do you see it if if you've been rejected by some human being who you thought was going to love you and make it every all right one of the reasons I think God brings the Messianic seed to Lee is because Jesus is going to grow up rejected lonely constantly misunderstood ultimately

rejected in the end God himself comes into the world and knows what it's like to be rejected by all human beings and says I'll give you a relationship with me if you see what I've done for you you can experience my love in such a way that you can handle that don't let marriage throw you if you really want to be married and you're not it's okay U you're after a good thing but you won't be ready for it unless you say this if you're unhappily married and really mad about it it's good to want

your marriage to be better but you're going to put too much weight on it unless you see this you see if you feel ugly not just physically but in any way don't you say a god at the top of the steps you better be good and good-looking and smart and attractive to make it to the top but a God who is the steps Jesus Christ who becomes a man acquainted with gree grief a man who's dejected a man who's ugly it says in Isaiah 53 and 52 we could hardly look upon Him Jesus Christ became

weak and ugly so that when we believe in him his righteousness is imputed to us do you realize that the Bible insists that though you might look like Leah to God in Jesus Christ you always look like a Rachel let these things pass into your life and you can take your life back let us pray we pray father that you would help us understand the gospel and apply it to our lives in the various ways that this text uh can be applied it's very difficult for me as the as the preacher because it has so

many applications to uh bring it home to the the varied situation that are represented by the people in this room but would your Holy Spirit do that for we ask it in Jesus name amen for more of this series and other resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church please visit www.gsp.ro