Drama Mamas (Sermon on Genesis 29:31-30:24)

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Genesis 29, and we're going to begin in verse 31, right where we left off last week in the title of the sermon I mentioned last week. I didn't lie.

Drama Mamas and the Setting for Jacob’s Family Conflict

The title of the sermon today is Drama Mamas. But just to be fair, mamas are not the only ones who experience drama. Drama is universal to men and women, but it just so happens this text is going to talk about four women, two in particular, who have a dramatic relationship.

What we're going to do is we're going to begin reading in verse 31 of chapter 29, and then we're going to read through verse 24 of chapter 30. I think the chapter break where it does is not the best, and I think we'll do better to break the chapter this way.

So let's let's do this. Let's stand, give honor and reverence to the word of God. And I will read through this through the end of chapter 29 and end of chapter 30. And we'll. We will begin in verse 31, when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb.

But Rachel was barren and Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me. She conceived again and bore a son, and because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me a 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 will be called Levi.

And she conceived again and bore a son and said, this time I will praise the Lord, therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob, no children, she envied her sister, she said to Jacob, give me children or I shall die.

Jacob was angry against Jacob, and he said, am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Then she said, here is my servant Bilhah, go into her so she may give birth on my behalf.

That even I may have children through her. So he gave her so she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife and Jacob went into her and Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has heard my voice and given me a son.

Therefore, she called his name Dan. Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son, then Rachel said with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled with my sister and prevailed, so she called his name Naphtali.

Then 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. So she called his name Gad.

Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son and Leah said, happy am I, for women have called me happy. So she called his name Asher. In the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah.

Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But she said to her, is it a small matter that you've taken my husband? Would you now take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes.

When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, you must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night and Gad listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

Leah said, God has given me my wages because my servant, because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar, verse 19, and Leah conceived again and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment.

Now my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards, she bore a daughter, called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb.

She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph, saying, may the Lord add to me another son. Father in heaven, may you bless the preaching of your word.

May you keep me from error. May you fill me with your spirit and may your people be moved toward a closer confirmation to the Lord Jesus Christ and those who do not believe, Lord, that they might be dropped to their knees before you today, that they may call out in repentance and faith in Jesus name.

Amen. It's a wild story, isn't it? Have you ever met somebody that just seems to attract drama all the time? Well, Jacob seems to be that person. His life at every point so far has been a life of absolute conflict.

He came out of the womb, grasping his brother's heel. He has been a flashpoint of controversy in his home, first causing his brother to sell him his birthright for a pot of stew, later tricking his father into believing that he was his brother by by dressing up like his brother and pretending that he was him.

Leading to his brother's murderous rage, which caused him to have to flee to his uncle's house only to arrive at his uncle's house to find that there was a man who was twice the trickster that he was willing to make him work.

What we will find is 20 years, seven for the first wife, seven for the second wife and six more years before he will finally be able to escape his heavy hand. Jacob is a man whose life is filled with drama, and now we find him in a house of four women.

The Bible tells us that it is better to live. Oh, you know where I'm going, better to live in the corner of an attic than to live in a house with a contentious woman. And all God's people said, Amen, OK.

Imagine for now, I'm bringing Zilpah and Bilhah into this, and they are really not mentioned as being contentious, but I'm only, again, extrapolating a little bit of sanctified imagination because one was attached to Rachel, the other was attached to Leah.

And the whole thing turns out to be like a big match as to who can do more, who can produce the most. And here's the thing to remember, I want you to keep this in mind, Jacob, from everything that I can tell from the text, never intended to be a polygamist.

Abraham had Sarah, then there was Hagar. But other than Sarah, we only know of Keturah, and there's a good chance Keturah came after Sarah died. So Abraham wasn't really in the sense a polygamist in the traditional sense of having many wives like David and Solomon, right?

This idea of many wives is really a later thing. So Abraham, not so much. And then Isaac, all we know about is Rebekah, right? So so here Jacob comes and he's in a tradition where men had many wives. But I think his intention was only to have Rachel because the Bible tells us in last week's passage that he truly did love her.

It was love at first sight. And yet his father-in-law tricked him as he had tricked his own father the night of his wedding. Somehow veiling Leah to where she wouldn't be seen, sent her into the dark intent with Jacob, and he knew not that it was her until morning when he awoke and it was Leah and not Rachel.

And he cried out, what have you done to his father-in-law? But here's the thing, Jacob, as we will see in the weeks ahead. Jacob is the one who will become Israel. You've heard the name Israel, obviously.

Well, this is him. He's going to wrestle a man. And at the end of that wrestling match, he's going to be given a new name, Israel, which literally means wrestles with God. And you've all heard of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Well, that is referring to Jacob's children. So what we read in Genesis 29, 31 through Genesis 30 and verse 24 is the fountain of that 12 tribes. It's the birth of those 12 tribes. In fact, let me let me just give you a quick breakdown, because the 12 tribes actually references Jacob's children and two of his grandchildren, because the 12 tribes of Jacob's line, he in this story, there are 11 sons mentioned in one daughter.

And the only reason the daughter is mentioned is because she's going to play a very important role in a few chapters. She's going to come up. There's going to be a scene which is very dramatic and actually very sad.

The story of Dinah is going to come up later. But we have 11 brothers who are born here. And then later, Rachel's going to have Benjamin, another, and that will make up the 12 tribes. However, later, Joseph, one of the 12 brothers, will give birth to two children, Ephraim and Manasseh, and those two will receive a portion of Jacob's property and how it ends up being 12.

You say, well, now we're at 14. Well, Joseph, his two sons become the two half tribes, as it were, and when the tribe of Levi becomes the priesthood, they don't get a portion of the land. And therefore, the land is still divided by 12.

And you still end up with 12 tribes with the two half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. So that's how you end up with 12 out of this. But there are specifically 12 sons, if you count them out. What's interesting, very interesting, is when you go to Revelation, the 12 tribes are mentioned, but one's left out.

And Ephraim's included, Dan is left out, which is really odd. But there's this whole thing about, well, who really recognizes and who is the 12 tribes? Well, this is the birth of the 12. Well, the 11 and then Benjamin comes in chapter 35, I think.

Yeah, chapter 35. So this is where we get that phrase, the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 sons. And this text can be broken down into four sections. Well, Matt outlined it for me on the screen today. And when we begin to go through, I'm going to give them to you.

But the first is the first four sons come through Leah, the second four sons through the servants Bilhah and Zilpah. The third thing we're going to look at today is the Mandrake transaction, which is really kind of an interesting side note.

And then we're going to look at the fourth set of births, which is through Leah and Rachel. So let's look at the first set. Let's look at the first set of children. And this is verses 31 to 35 in chapter 29.

The First Four Sons Through Leah

Says when Lord when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. I want you to know what the text says. Keep in mind, nothing in the Bible is irrelevant. That's why we read verse by verse.

That's why we study verse by verse. And everything the Bible says is important. And notice what it says here. It says the Lord and this is the capital L, capital O, capital or capital D, which is the sacred name Yahweh.

Speaking of the covenant relationship that he has with Jacob, it says when when Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb for a moment. Think about what that is saying. It's saying that God is given a special grace to the one who was hated.

Now, I want to talk for a minute about that word hated, because if you go up just a few verses, it says that Rachel was loved more than Leah. And so if you think about that, you might think, well, he loved Rachel.

That's verse 30, by the way. It says so Jacob went into Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. Some people believe Jacob truly did hate Leah. In the sense of absolute hatred. But others take this in the Hebrew idiomatic sense of loving less, and there is a sense in which the term hate can mean to love less, and we know this because Jesus used that phrase.

He says he whoever comes after me and hates not his father, mother, sister, brother, or even his own life cannot be my disciple. Right. Jesus is not telling us to have a vengeful hatred toward our mother, father, sister, brother.

But what he is saying is that you're to love me more than them, that I must have priority. Right. So there is a sense where the term hate can be Hebraic idiomatic to mean love less. So when it says that Jacob hated Leah, it may not be a vengeful hatred.

It might have been because she did trick him. But it could also be that he simply did not have the affection for her that he had for Rachel. So God gives Leah a gift, he gives her the gift of fertility, and by the way, holds back that gift from Rachel.

I want to show you something very quickly, just for a moment. I want to show you a text that I think connects to this text in a very serious and important way. Turning your Bibles to Deuteronomy. Oh, yeah, we're going to Deuteronomy.

It's serious, serious business. When you go to Deuteronomy, you're in serious land. Deuteronomy 21. And verse 15, I'll give you a second. Some of your pages are sticking together because you don't read that much.

I'm sorry, that was mean. All right, so Deuteronomy 21, verse 15. And I want you to think as Moses was writing this, perhaps as God is inspiring this text, maybe he has this story in mind, because listen to what it says.

Deuteronomy 21, verse 15, if a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and that the same we're looking at man has two wives, one love, one's not. And both the love and the unloved have born him children.

And if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, then on the day that he assigns his possession as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn.

But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his. Basically, this is a way of saying just because you have a favored wife doesn't mean you have a favored son.

The firstborn of the son, the firstborn of the wife, even if she is not your loved wife, will still receive the same as a portion. Now, I connect that to this passage because here's the thing we're going to learn about Leah today, even though she was Jacob's unloved wife.

She was the chosen vessel to bring about. The priesthood, because she gives birth to Levi, which is where Moses and Aaron and all the priests come from, and she's the chosen vessel to bring the Messiah because she gives birth to Judah and the Bible says Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah.

So God and his and his law assures that even the unloved wife's children will not be treated as second class. All right, back to the Genesis 29. So she gives birth to four sons, gives birth to four sons.

Reuben literally means see a son because she's like, now he's going to love me. I've given him a son. Rachel can't do that, but I can see a son is born. Verse 32, she conceived and bore a second son and she called his name Reuben.

I'm sorry, we just did that one. Verse 33, there's a lot of these. She conceived and bore a second son, she says, because the Lord has heard that I am hated. He has given me this also. And she called his name Simeon.

Simeon means to hear or it comes from the word which means to hear. 34, again, she conceived and she says, now my husband will be attached to me. And she named him Levi. The word Levi comes from the word which means to be joined together or attached.

Then verse 35. She bore a fourth son, his name will be called Judah. Judah means praise the Lord for sons. I am killing it. You get what I'm saying, right? She's like, I score is for Leah. Rachel Gusei, she I am killing it.

Now he has to love me, that's the thing, by the way, the theme of today's sermon is being satisfied in Christ. She is so desperate. To have her husband's affection that she cannot see the blessing that God has given to her, she's got one, two, three, four sons, two of which will have a major impact in redemptive history.

Of course, she doesn't know that. But she has four blessed sons. But all she wants is the love of her husband, so she's not happy. She's not satisfied. She's desperate. Rachel has what she wants. Rachel has the love of Jacob, but she has Jacob's children.

She's not happy. She's not satisfied. But neither is Rachel. Rachel's not happy either. Look at now, beginning in verse one of chapter 30, we see the second four sons and the second four sons come about because Rachel is dissatisfied.

The Second Four Sons Through Bilhah and Zilpah

Rachel has the unquestioned love of her husband. And we're going to find out later he spent most of his nights in her tent. Because later Leah is actually going to demand that she gets some of that time.

But who does she go to? She goes to Rachel because Rachel is the one who apparently decides the bedding schedule. So Rachel has her husband's affection. She has her husband's love, but she's not satisfied.

So when Rachel saw that she bore no children, she envied her sister and she said to Jacob, oh, this is give me children or I'll die. I'm sorry to be so dramatic, but I can't imagine she said it in a very non-dramatic way.

I can't imagine they were just sitting around a bottle of wine and she said, you know, you need to give me children or I'm going to die. No, she probably grabbed him by his outer coat, pulled him in tight and says, why won't you give me a baby?

And he says to her, I'm doing the best I can. What do you expect? Am I God? Brothers, you ever have a situation and I'll say sisters as well, ladies, you ever have a situation where your partner expects something out of you that is not yours to.

Give? That's real, isn't it? There's something something's hitting.

It's not. Oh, my goodness, it is. I'm a little excited. Is that really my heartbeat? No, it's not. Something clicking. You hear it? I can't. I'm just going to keep going. Y 'all, this would be like a metronome.

I got a lot to say and time is fleeting. So we have and now it's going to kill me. What is that noise? Yeah, do me a favor. Mute all the mics except for the pulpit in my back, maybe outside. Well, that did it.

Whatever he just did muted everything. So it's good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, it would have killed me. I'd have been I'd have just been distracted the whole time. So he says, or am I in the place of God?

But notice what else he says in verse two. Am I in the place of God who has withheld? From you, the fruit of the womb, notice that he's saying it is God who's doing this and he's not wrong. Understand this, God is the one who opens the womb and God is the one who closes the womb.

Now, obviously, I've told the story many times. I won't spend a lot of time on it, but Jennifer and I were married for 12 years before we ever had a baby. And we just felt like God had closed her womb.

And that was OK. We were going to have two adopted children and it was going to be the Foskey four. And it was for many years. But then God chose to open her womb and then it was gangbusters. And every two years it was kids.

But but it was his choice. Nothing we could have done could have made her pregnant. Now, I want to get into the physics of that, but what I mean is there's there's we can't force pregnancy and we can't forbid it.

God is the one who opens the womb and God is the one who closes the womb. And that's all he's saying to her here. I don't think he's necessarily in anger. I don't think he's lashing out at her. I think he said he's saying something true.

It's God who has withheld this from you. It's his decision. I am not God. So what does she do? Verse three, she takes the she takes the Hagar approach. You remember Hagar? Sarah couldn't have a baby. So here, take my maidservant Hagar, have children with her.

Well, apparently this family just this was what they did, because now Rachel is going to do the same. Take Bilhah and have a child with Bilhah. Jacob doesn't argue, just like his granddad Abraham. OK, so he goes in to Bilhah and they have a baby.

I want you to get this. The baby's name from Bilhah was Dan. You know what the name Dan means? Comes from the Hebrew word, which means judgment or vindication. So that's why she says she says, God has heard my voice.

He has vindicated me. So I'm going to call my son Vindic. Imagine that was your name. Hey, baby, what's your name? Little boy. My name is Vindication. My mother was vindicated. And the next one is even worse.

And all I'm pointing out is Rachel really did have a grudge against her sister. There's a next name. It says Rachel says verse seven says Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again, bore a second son. And Rachel said with mighty wrestlings, I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed.

Therefore, I shall call his name Naphtali, which means wrestling. I've wrestled with my sister and I have won. You got to just imagine a little vindication and wrestling, running around wondering what what did I do?

Nothing. This was your mama's little, little, little angry with her sister. Well, then Leah saw that she had cease bearing. This is verse nine. And she took her servant Zilpah to Jacob. It says here have Zilpah and have children through her.

She gives him a son, she names his name Gad. And Gad comes from the Hebrew word, which means good fortune. And literally, I think I think I think it was Brian Borgman who said he said, it's kind of like naming him Lucky.

But Gad would be like saying, this is my lucky child, this is I couldn't have any more babies, so God gave me another child, therefore we'll call him Lucky. And then finally, she gives him another child, they call him Asher.

Asher means happy, happy am I. So now. We have eight sons. Leah gave him four, Bilhah gave him two, Zilpah gave him two. Joel Beakey said this Leah's naming of her children revolved around longing for her husband's love, but Rachel's naming of Bilhah's children smacks of self-righteousness and pride.

All of these names mean something. Names are very important in the Bible. And all these names point to the attitude that accompanied the birth of the child. Then we get to verse 14 and we have this really weird section, says in verse 14, says the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben, that is, remember, the oldest, the first child, this is the child of Leah.

He's probably at this point, you know, old enough to be out on his own, not not out of the house, but old enough to be out playing and going about doing what he, you know, kind of being a being a boy.

In the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben went out and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But she said to her, is it a small matter that you've taken away my husband?

Would you also take away my son's mandrakes as well? Rachel said that he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. All right. Just for a moment. What is this even about? OK. Mandrakes, I'm just going to read this to you.

This is the definition. From one of my Bible dictionary said this, the mandrake is an herb of the nightshade family and had a rosette of large leaves and moth flowers during the winter and a fragrant and round yellow fruit during the spring.

The mandrake grew in fields of rough ground and it was considered to give sexual powers and probably can be identified as the atropa mandragora, often used for medicine in the ancient times. It possesses stimulating and narcotic properties.

And the fruit of this plant resembles the potato apple in size. It's pale and orange in color. And it's been called the love apple. The Arabs call it Satan's apple. It's mentioned in the Song of Solomon, which we know is about Amorous, your love.

And by the way, and if you ever seen a Harry Potter film, I don't I've never seen them, but I know this. It was featured in that in one of those films because it was believed in the ancient world to have magic properties.

The mandrake was considered to be a magical fruit that gave sexual power. So knowing that, which I know is weird, sorry, parents, knowing that. Ruben goes out, he finds these mandrakes, he plucks them up, brings them back to the house and Rachel is desperate.

What is she desperate for? Fertility. She wants to have a baby. And here she sees Ruben with an armload of love apples. So she goes to Leah and says, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. And Leah responds with one of the most ironic statements in the Bible.

She says, is it a small matter that you've taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes as well? First of all, you can you can just hear it, can't you? How she said it. Very, very upset, but I say it's ironic because isn't she the one who first stole Rachel or first stole Jacob from Rachel, but she's accusing her of stealing her husband?

There is an absolute feud between these women over Jacob. And so Rachel says this, knowing, knowing that Leah was desperate for Jacob's affection, she said, you may lie with him tonight in exchange for the mandrakes.

You may lie with him tonight, which basically, like I said, means that Rachel was in charge of the bed schedule. He can be yours tonight. But. If you give me those love apples, so the the transaction took place, she purchased the love apples with the flesh of her husband, and then we get to verse 16, and I just got to imagine Jacob's face.

Because verse 16, it says, when Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him because she knew he was headed to Rachel's tent because that's where he went normally. It says when he came in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, you must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.

Now, just for a moment, remember that Jacob has not been privy to the previous conversation. All he knows is he's coming in from the field and out comes the wife. And she says, you got to come to my bed tonight because I bought your time.

This tells us something about Jacob's relationship with her. That it had to be purchased, but it also tells us something about how at this point, Rachel and Leah saw Jacob. Bruce Walkie, in his commentary, said this.

He said he's been reduced to a stud, they didn't even really it wasn't about him anymore, it was about who was going to have the bed that evening, who's going to give the babies. So out of this, more children are born.

Verse 17. And God listened to Leah, apparently she had been praying for another child. God listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son, she called his name Issachar. Issachar means to hire.

Now, imagine having to explain that, I mean, I hired your dad for the night with a pot of love apples. By the way, if anybody ever tells you the Bible is boring, they ain't never read it. This is more dramatic and more intriguing.

Than anything, this is just powerfully thoughtful, if you think through the story, what's happening here? And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment, now my husband will honor me. She conceives again and bears Zebulun, then she conceives and bears a daughter named Dinah.

Now, there may have been other daughters. I want to make a point. There's very important in the ancient world and still in many, many, many cultures today, that only the sons are counted, only the sons are really considered to be important because they take over the land and the property, take care of the parents when they die and things like that.

There may have been other daughters, but Dinah is mentioned specifically because Dinah is going to become a very important part of the story in just a few chapters. Later, though, it talks about brothers and sisters, which makes me think there may have been other daughters, but Dinah is mentioned here for a reason.

But then we get to verse 22 and something miraculous happens. Something changes. The story changes. And in verse 22, it says this. Then God remembered Rachel. And God listened to her and he opened her womb.

She conceived and bore a son. And she called his name Joseph. Saying, may the Lord add to me another son. Now, I want to say something. I don't think that we should for a moment give any credence to the love apple theory.

Rachel did not become pregnant because of some magic screaming fruit. By the way, if you don't know what that means, there was an ancient belief that when you pulled the mandrake out of the ground, that it screamed and that was the death of the fruit as you pulled it out of the ground.

And I have no idea why they made noise, but it's a weird sort of tradition that went along with that particular fruit. It was the magic screaming love apple. But God is the one who opens the womb, not some magic piece of fruit.

And God chose after 11 children. Making Rachel wait, which had to have been many years. To finally give her her heart's desire, open her womb and give her a son. And as we will see, this son will become an important part of the last several chapters of Genesis, because Joseph is the one who will be sold into slavery and eventually save his people.

He will, even though he is not in the line of Christ, he will in many ways be a type of Christ, one who goes and saves his brothers. So how do we how do we apply this very intriguing story? Well, let me just say this.

There's not a lot of behavior here to admire. Sometimes the Bible simply gives us things that we ought to avoid. But the Bible does tell us this. It says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction and for training in righteousness.

That we may equip that the man of God may be equipped for every good work. We know that. So this text has something to equip us. And this is what I don't want us to miss from this text. I think it's very important.

Discontent, Envy, and the Roots of Drama

Both of these sisters hate one another because both of these sisters have what the other one wants. Leah has children. But she's desperate for love. Rachel has love, but she's desperate for children. Therefore, they live in a perpetual state of envy, strife and division.

And as I thought about that this week and as I was preparing for the sermon, it just dawned on me that often our. Unhappiness. Stems from our discontent, instead of being thankful for the blessings that God has given, all we can see is what others have that we do not.

And therefore, we cannot be satisfied. Because we are desperate to have. What others have. Maybe if Leah knew. That one day her son, Levi. Would be the ancestor of Moses and would give birth to the priests, maybe she would have been more satisfied, maybe if she knew that Judah would one day give birth to King David and through that line bring the Messiah, maybe she could have been satisfied.

Understand this people who live in a constant state of drama are likely living a life of discontent, wanting to find something to bring them happiness because they refuse to be satisfied where God has them in their.

Life now, now that's easy to say. But it's hard to live. It is hard to be satisfied. But I want to quote I want to quote John Piper, and I want you to hear me well when I say this, I think John Piper was on to something many, many years ago when he said this.

God is most glorified in us. When we are most satisfied in him, this world will never satisfy you, this world will never fill your needs. You can have all the money in the world and you know what people with all the money in the world want more money.

You can have all of the attention. You know what people with all the attention want more attention. You can have all of the celebrity, you know what celebrities often do. They fall into drugs and alcohol because they can't satisfy their real need with this world.

God does love us. And God does meet our needs, and God does hear us when we cry out to him, the Bible tells us he cared about Leah in her distress, he cared about Rachel and he heard her. I'm not telling you to go from this place today and never, ever again want anything or desire anything.

But I am telling you this, if your wants and desires are more than your want and desire for Christ. Then you will be everlastingly disappointed. But if Christ is your portion, if Christ is your desire, if Christ is your satisfaction, then you will never lack.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Are you satisfied in Christ today? Can we be satisfied in Christ? May he give us that satisfaction. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for this opportunity to preach.

And to be reminded of the danger of discontent. The danger of envy and strife, the danger of. Hatred. Which comes from being desperate to have what others have. Lord, help us to be satisfied in Christ, and I know that sometimes that is hard because this world does hit us from every side and it hurts.

The Lord help us to find our joy in you. Help us to find our satisfaction in you. Help us to know the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. In his name we pray. Amen.