Speckled Blessings

Well this morning we look to complete chapter 30, begin chapter 31.

So we're covering covering quite a bit of ground this morning and perhaps not as much next week.

As we press forward in the narrative, we're continuing to see God's sanctifying grace in the life of Jacob.

As we said even a few weeks ago, he's untwisting the twister. And perhaps now what we have seen in seed form has actually blossomed.

Now we're actually seeing the patience and the resilience, the integrity that sanctification has brought about in Jacob's life.

And so as we press on in chapter 30 beginning in verse 25 and following, we want to keep in mind this larger theme of sanctification.

We want to connect what God is doing and how he's doing it in Jacob's life to our own lives as his people.

How God perhaps doesn't give us multicolored goats and lambs, but nevertheless he brings speckled blessings into the lives of his people.

Blessings that perhaps are surprising, even in a way contradictory, giving something weak, lame, and making it something abundant and strong.

And this is how God works in the lives of his people. A few weeks ago we considered Jacob. He's now at this point in the narrative worked two seven -year stints for his wives.

Last week we saw his his tent, as it were, erupt. He has at this point 11 sons and his daughter

Dinah. He's come off the heels of two weddings that were completely disrupted from what marriage was intended to be.

And as we said last week, Laban introduced division and heartbreak, not only into Jacob's life, but into everyone's life.

Into Bilhah and Zilpah's life, into Rachel and Leah's life. So Laban, as we see, has not had this sanctifying grace at work in his life.

In fact, he seems to be more twisted as the narrative goes on. He's getting more twisted even as God is using him to untwist

Jacob, beginning in verse 25. It came to pass when Rachel had borne

Joseph that Jacob said to Laban, send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my country.

Give me my wives and my children for whom I've served you and let me go, for you know my service which

I have done for you. Now just on the face of it, let's give a little pat on the back to Jacob that he's actually seeking out

Laban to make this request. This is not the Jacob pre -Bethel as far as I'm concerned.

The Jacob pre -Bethel just would have taken them in the night. Laban would have woken up. There would have been a goat hair pillow, some other, you know, use of fur.

It seems to be that was a favorite of Jacob. And then, of course, the hunt would be on. Now we're actually going to have a pursuit, as we'll see next week.

Laban will have to pursue Jacob and his family. But let's keep the context clear. Jacob has done his time.

He's fulfilled his contract. He's done right by Laban. And now he says, let me go.

Let me go. I've weathered the storm. I've done what I've said I would do. Now, let me go.

He does not need to do this to Laban. He's showing, I think, fifth commandment honor to his father -in -law.

His wives are his, and yet he says, give me my wives. His children are his, and yet he says, give me my children.

He did not have to serve Laban for his children, but he says, as it were, give me the household for which

I've served you these 14 years. You know the service that I've done for you. So that's the first thing that we want to pat

Jacob on the back for. The second thing is that he still, after 14 years, a decade and a half, has not forgotten where his inheritance belongs.

Look at how he says, let me go back to my own place. My own country.

How long does it take for a place to become home? You would think that for Jacob, 14 years living under the tent of Laban, this is just home now.

14 years, this is just home. How much can he even really still think of and long for the home he's left behind?

Especially having no idea where Esau is or what Esau's up to. What kind of army has

Esau amassed? And yet he says, send me back to my own place.

Send me back to my inheritance. Send me back to my country. Now we're going to see how God's revelation has played a part at this point, even in verse 25.

But recognize that Jacob is now tuned to the covenantal promise of God.

The covenantal promise that is his through Isaac and through his grandfather, Abraham.

The promised land. The household. My country. All of this is part of Jacob's understanding of God's predestination unfolding in his life.

But Laban becomes an obstacle. Look at verse 27. Laban said to him, please stay.

If I found favor in your eyes, I've learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.

And then he said, name your wages and I will give it. Laban realizes he's about to lose his number one employee.

If the tent had a wall with employee of the month, it would just be an endless series of Jacob. The wellstone lifter.

This was the man who had blessed Laban. And Laban seems to say as much.

It's hard to know whether he's really being genuine here. I've learned by experience that the

Lord has blessed me for your sake. The Hebrew behind experience would be the the typical word for divination.

And so rabbinical commentators go off and they say he was some sort of oracle. He was a diviner and somehow had had recognized that Yahweh was blessing him through Jacob.

The fact that that is the word that is typical for divination, which is really later in Israel's history,

I don't know that it's appropriate to understand that here. That we should take

Laban as a as having divination and therefore he's saying, yes, it's been revealed to me somehow that God has blessed me through you.

And then go on to do everything he can to undermine Jacob. It doesn't seem to fit the narrative or maybe even the lexicon.

So I think we have a great translation here. By experience, Jacob will say as much.

When I came to you, you didn't have that much. Fourteen years later, look at you now. And so Laban recognizes what is patently obvious.

And I think this is almost flattery. Oh, please stay. Oh, have I found favor in your sight?

You found favor in my sight? Are you kidding me? Oh, I even know that you're God. Yeah, that the

God that you worship and love, the God that you call upon so frequently. I recognize that he's blessing me through you.

So don't you want to stay? Doesn't that seem to be a good arrangement? This seems to me to be a way of flattering

Jacob, prompting him to stay, trying to somehow manipulate him by appealing to the

Lord. I don't know that Laban has a genuine understanding of God's blessing or even a sincere acknowledgment of the fact that God has blessed him through Jacob.

I think this is just sort of manipulative flattery. And we see that in the very next verse.

He plans to fleece the flocks that he's given over to Jacob. And so that's really the first major point here.

Fleecing the flocks. It's a two -way street. Fleecing meaning stealing or thieving.

Genesis 30, beginning in verse 29. Jacob said to him, you know how I've served you, how your livestock has been with me.

What you had before I came was little. It has increased to a great amount.

The Lord has blessed you since my coming. It's almost like he sees right through it and he's like, no, let me tell you.

Really, the Lord has blessed you. That's not a throwaway statement, Laban. You might not realize the gravity behind that.

But the Lord has actually blessed you since I came and that's because those who bless me,

God blesses. Those who curse me, God curses. The Abrahamic promise is resting upon me.

Now, when shall I also provide for my own house? That's the issue.

Jacob says these 14 years, God has blessed me, but he's greatly blessed you and my labors have been as much for your household as mine.

When shall my labors be for my household? When shall I be able to leave and cleave?

We recognize again that Jacob has a sincere understanding of God's presence in his life, his control of the situation.

He acknowledges that God has blessed him. God has had a purpose these 14 years long.

And so Jacob, and we're going to see this throughout chapters 30 and 31, when he speaks, God is front and center.

When he speaks, he has a testimony of God's grace and his purpose in Jacob's life.

The negotiation begins. Laban says, what shall I give you? And Jacob said, you shall not give me anything.

If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep your flocks. And I just pause there.

Remember that this is not some wayfarer that stumbled upon the tents of Laban. This is his nephew, and now his son -in -law.

For him to rightly say, it's time for me and my household to go. I've served you for 14 years.

I've prospered you greatly. You are well set up. And now it's time for me to go do the same thing for my own household.

The father -in -law should say, of course. My son! Husband to my daughters!

Look at what I give to you to bless you as you go. A send -off. A home -warming gift.

I'm gonna pack up a train of camels. You are gonna be well supplied. Now have my blessing and go.

We don't have anything like that. There's wages now. Yeah, you're my son -in -law.

Yeah, you've served me for 14 years, but let's barter now. He's still squeezing

Jacob. If you will do this thing for me, Jacob says,

I will again feed and keep your flocks. He recommits. It's like the

Marines that get out of their first tour of duty, and they say, I want to go back. That's Jacob.

He's like, I'm ready to do it again. Another tour of duty under Laban. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted sheep, all the brown ones among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats.

They shall be my wages. And so he says, in other words, let me go through your flocks.

These flocks, the spotted and speckled variety, that'd probably be relatively rare. The goats, and I know we have goat experts in -house, so I want to speak briefly here, lest I be corrected.

But the goats, my understanding, would largely be brown. The sheep would largely be white.

And rarely would you have off -color sheep or speckled goats, at least this variety of goats.

And so he's saying those one -offs, those rarities, let me just take those. Those will be my wages.

See, I'm really not putting that much of a dent in your prosperity. These will be my wages.

And then he says, verse 33, and so my righteousness will answer for me in time to come.

In other words, my integrity, my just dealing with you, my righteousness will vindicate me in the future, in the time to come.

Now this is like a new Jacob in verse 32. He has not only awareness of the fact that God has blessed him, that God has a purpose even for these 14 years under Laban, he's willing to serve

Jacob, to serve Laban again in a matter of unjust and unfair treatment, and he's concerned about his personal integrity.

He's concerned about living righteously under the twisting manipulative deception of Laban.

I'm willing to serve you. I know you're gonna try to twist me and get me from every angle, but my righteousness, my honesty, my integrity will vindicate me.

This is not the Jacob who ran away from his mother's and father's house. When the subject of my wages comes before you, everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and brown among the lambs will be considered stolen if it is with me.

And Laban said, oh, that it would be according to your word. This is like the deal of the century.

His excitement leaps off the page. Are you serious? I couldn't even angle to get a deal like this.

This is great. You know, a rube is born every Tuesday. You know, this is perfect. Now, of course, it's practical.

Jacob knows that Laban is going to manipulate and he wants a way to distinguish what truly belongs to Jacob and that which truly belongs to Laban.

So having off -color or speckled cattle versus non -off -color and non -speckled cattle is an easy way to automatically distinguish what belongs to Jacob and what belongs to Laban.

And of course, as we said, these one -offs would be a relative rarity among the cattle.

And so to speak, the odds would be in Laban's favor. At least that's how he would have considered it.

Jacob was only getting the scraps from his table. Jacob was getting the little crumbs from Laban's flocks.

And Laban now, not content with that, actually wants to get even more out of Jacob.

If you look at the arrangement, Jacob is supposed to go through the flocks and take out anything that's speckled or off -colored.

But look at verse 35. Laban removed, wait, wrong person, supposed to be

Jacob. Laban removed that day the male goats that were speckled and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white on it, and all the brown ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hands of his sons.

Here, boys, why don't you take these? And then he separates them by three days. He, that's

Laban, put three days journey between himself and Jacob. And Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

In verse 32, it was supposed to be Jacob that goes through Laban's flocks and removes the speckled and spotted cattle, not

Laban. Laban was not content to give him the margins of his prosperity. He actually goes through and makes sure there's almost nothing left for him.

And Jacob, who is the one out there tending day and night, he must have recognized this.

Oh, there's a lot of white sheep compared to yesterday. Where did all those speckled goats go?

They were here yesterday. And yet he's, he's patient. He's willing to trust, and we're gonna see why in a moment.

We find this further act of deception and manipulation. It's like Laban can't stop. He gets the best deal, and then he has to twist even further.

It's this insatiable need to have more. If ever there's a description of a selfish, greedy man, we find it in Laban.

And we see the effects of the sin of selfishness and greed. We see the consequences.

We'll see it next week. The consequences of selfishness and greed. His own daughters say he treats us like his cattle.

We have no part with him. We're ready to go with you. According to Jewish writers, this is

John Gill. According to Jewish writers, and he would know, those that were committed to Jacob's care were old, barren, sick, and infirm, so that he would have no profit from them.

So here's Jacob, the blessed one of God, the Abrahamic promise resting upon him, and he's gathering up sick, lame, old cattle.

And this is his foundation. This is his business venture deposit. This is his seed money, so to speak.

But he presses on. He, he builds from scratch. He recognizes as much as Laban has control to deceive, manipulate, abuse, and treat him unfairly,

God has control even over that. And so Jacob can trust God. Jacob can walk by faith and not by sight.

And we're going to see why. While Laban can only acknowledge God with his lips as an act of flattery that he might gain more.

In other words, he, he mentions God as a throwaway statement. Jacob's statement in reply is really genuine.

The Lord really has blessed you. And if he's capable of blessing a man like you, he's certainly capable of blessing a man like me.

In fact, he has promised to bless me. And so he really understands.

He knows. In the deepest recess of his being, he knows that God is his provider.

If you've ever been in a similar situation to Jacob, mutatis mutandis, a

Latin phrase meaning, you know, adjusting for things different. If you've ever been in that kind of situation, you need to have that recognition that God is your provider.

That the twisters, the deceivers, the manipulators, the unjust, they're not ultimately able to provide or take away.

It is the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away. Now, of course, we do see

Jacob taking some interesting action, beginning in verse 37. Now, Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them.

In other words, peeled off the bark so that it had the appearance of stripes, and exposed the white which was in the rods.

And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink.

And so the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted.

Now, there's a lot of different views exactly about this. What is going on here?

Different views, not only in terms of the animal husbandry and perhaps some ancient Near Eastern concept of imprinting on the fetus that which is seen at the moment of conception.

That's possible. It seems to go through not only the ancient Near East, but down to the early modern period.

And then other commentators have an issue with Jacob. In fact, there's almost too many expositions that say, here's

Jacob going back to the flesh. Oh, scheming Jacob. Here he is trying to take matters into his own hands, stripping those rods, trying to do things.

And amazingly, God is still blessing him. Isn't that wonderful? Here's a carnal Christian that God is blessing.

That's about the worst possible treatment imaginable of this episode. Why does

Jacob do this act, this almost ritual act? If we didn't know better, we would say it's superstitious, or at least it was just what was popularly understood in the day.

Is it that he's going back to his old ways, and he's trying to manipulate circumstances? No, I don't think so at all.

In fact, it would be a very strange maneuver to get from what we've just read about his testimony of God, his integrity and righteousness before Laban, to now have what's cast in a negative light, and then go back into something very positive in chapter 31.

And I think, in fact, I think chapter 31 really gives us the answer. Clearly, we don't have detail in chapter 30 that is then later revealed in chapter 31, including the revelation of the angel of the

Lord that is given to Jacob. When these animals would conceive, he was told that the speckled and the streaked would be mighty and abundant, that God would bless him through these weak, marginal means.

And so it seems likely to me, more than likely to me, that God had given this instruction to Jacob as an outward symbol of what he was doing, and how he would do it.

Not so much that there was any power in the poplar or chestnut rods, but rather it was sort of an act of faith, an outward symbolic demonstration of Jacob's faith.

John Gill. The rods were set to move upon the cattle's imagination at the time of their conception in order to produce different colors, to which no doubt

Jacob was directed by God. And it had, through his blessing, the wished for success.

And I think that's exactly right. That keeps us in the context of how Jacob is being described.

He's righteous, upright, trusting in the Lord, and it seems that the Lord had given him this instruction.

Do this thing. It may seem ritualistic. It may seem strange to our ears and eyes, and yet it's an outward, visible demonstration of the fact that you are trusting me.

You are having faith in what I have promised, what I have shown you. We'll see this again, and again, and again.

We see this, for instance, in Numbers 21. Remember how God cast the the fiery serpents toward rebellious

Israel, and how they were dying. They were being played by these venomous serpents.

And Moses was interceding on behalf of the rebellious people, and God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent, and to raise it up on a pole, and that all the eyes that looked upon that serpent would be healed.

Was there any power in that serpent? Was there any inherent ability to heal in that cast bronze symbol?

No. Israel gets in trouble later in their history, because they actually start to think there is.

They devote a whole cult to that serpent, the cult of Nehushtan. But no, there's no power in the bronze serpent.

It's an outward symbol, and that outward symbol is meant to demonstrate the faith of those who look upon it, and so it is here.

There's no power in these striped rods. It's an outward demonstration of Jacob's faith in the power of God.

In verses 40 and following, we see Laban trying to fleece Jacob, and Jacob fleecing

Laban. Laban started out trying to manipulate and squeeze and ruin.

You want to leave? You want to leave and provide for yourself? Well, I'll make sure you can't provide at all.

I'm gonna fleece Jacob's flocks, but now Jacob is the one fleecing Laban's flocks.

We read, Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the street, and all the brown in the flock of Laban.

But he put his own flocks by themselves, and did not put them with Laban's flock. And it came to pass, whenever the stronger livestock conceived, that Jacob placed the rods before the eyes of the livestock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

But when the flocks were feeble, he did not put them in. So the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger

Jacob's. What a beautiful, what we call poetic justice, isn't it?

Laban tries to pass off the weak and infirm animals, and what does he get in return? An abundance of weak and infirm animals.

Thus we read, the man that is Jacob. I love that descriptor, the man.

He's no longer this twisting gnat of a boy. He's not even a young man.

He's finally a man. It's like he's come through the trial. He has integrity. He's earned this title.

The man became exceedingly prosperous. Had large flocks, female and male servants, camels and donkeys.

So prosperous, he's trading cattle. He's hiring servants. He's buying donkeys and camels.

We haven't seen donkeys and camels in a while. That great symbol of prosperity in the ancient world, when these were relatively new.

Jacob is, as it were, trading in the Prius for the Corvette, when he's going from just the sheep that he's putting before the rods, and then trading them for camels.

This is a major upgrade. He really is prosperous. But this prosperity, this arrangement, it cannot last forever.

This tremendous increase of Jacob, while Laban dwindles, it's a recipe for disaster.

And so we see that beginning in chapter 31. The tensions boil. Jacob heard the words of Laban's son saying,

Jacob has taken away all that was our father's. And from what was our father's, he has acquired all of his wealth.

So in this theme of sibling rivalry, household rivalry, we see that even

Laban's sons have some grief against Jacob. Our inheritance is dwindling.

It's not just Laban's flocks. This is our future. And it's dwindling, and Jacob has, as it were, stolen from us.

We almost get this sense of taunt. I think of Saul has slayed his thousands. David has ten thousands.

And Jacob, verse 2, saw the countenance of Laban. Indeed, it was not favorable toward him as before.

And we go, was it ever favorable toward him? But he had that sleazy way of flattering

Jacob, and seeing very nice, and personally interested and committed to him. But behind the scenes, he was doing everything to bring

Jacob to ruin. And yet now he couldn't even hide it. His hatred, his envy, his anger, he couldn't hide it.

So Jacob saw that the countenance of Laban had fallen. And here's the great contrast.

The countenance of the Heavenly Father smiling upon Jacob, even as the countenance of his earthly father -in -law falls.

Laban is envious. Filled with envy. He had said, oh, oh, that it might be, when the arrangement was first hashed out, and now he's full of envy.

And we have so many warnings in Scripture about envy. Paul says to the church at Corinth, where there is envy, strife, where there are divisions among you, are you not carnal, behaving like men?

Where envy and self -seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing lies,

James 3. We're told that love does not envy. Laban is fueled by it.

The true character of Laban's finally punching through. It can't be hidden behind smiles and negotiations anymore.

It's generally true in life. That true character inevitably spills through.

No one can put on a fake smile forever. No one can act genuinely interested or committed forever.

Things that are hollow eventually break. They had seen in Laban a man who clearly was self -interested, self -motivated, a twister, a manipulator, but now we're really seeing just how deep that goes.

Jacob sees it. I wonder if this was the first time he really realized what Laban's true character was like.

This is the first time he says, you know, he doesn't look at me the same way anymore. He doesn't come up smiling.

He doesn't put his hand around my shoulder and then bring up some complaint and say, I'm sorry, it's time for another wage change.

This is not only a testimony of Jacob's integrity. His faithfulness.

His trust and patience and willingness to see what God was unfolding in his life.

It's also a testimony of what selfishness and envy and greed bring about.

Look at Laban. He's been reduced like his flocks have been reduced. He's a shell of a man.

He's a pitiful man, and he's about to lose even more. And as all this tension is building, we see

Jacob and all this pressure being put on his household, and you wonder if Jacob's going to buckle.

Where is this going to go? And it's just at this moment that God finally speaks.

Genesis 31 verse 3, then the Lord said to Jacob, now it's time, right?

God had built up out of the ashes of Laban's treachery a mighty abundance for Jacob.

And the Lord says to Jacob, now it's time. Now things are coming to the boiling point.

Now it's time. Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.

So what we've assumed from the beginning is now made explicit. Jacob has been operating out of an understanding of God's purpose,

God's calling. He knows that while he's here, he's not wasting time. He's in God's time.

He sees around him every breeding season, how God is causing him to prosper. And he knows that that prosperity is not for him to stay like some heavy anchor, but it's rather to prepare him that he might go.

The Lord is on my side, he could say with the psalmist. I will not fear. What can man do to me? What can

Laban do to me? What can Esau do to me? Easy to say when it's so far out, but we'll see just how terrorizing that prospect will be as we move forward to chapter 32 and 33.

Beginning in verse 4, we see a beautiful testimony, I think, now in elaboration of everything we've just read from chapter 30.

Jacob sent and he called Rachel and Leah to the field, his flock, already there. The fact that he calls

Rachel and Leah, I mean, is that some little growth of grace? We talked about his passivity and how

Leah knew she was unloved. God saw it, perhaps everyone else saw it, but Jacob loved

Rachel. We saw the division within his household, but here he calls both of them to the field.

He speaks with them both earnestly, both as equals. And I think that also is a testimony of how

God has been sanctifying Jacob. He calls Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock, and says to them,

I see your father's countenance. It is not favorable toward me as before, but the

God of my father has been with me. And you know that with all of my might I served your father, yet your father's deceived me.

He's changed my wages ten times. We didn't know that in chapter 30. Tells you what those six years were like.

But God did not allow him to hurt me. And if he said thus, the speckled shall be your wages, then all the flocks bore speckled.

And if he said thus, the streaked shall be your wages, then all the flocks bore streaked. So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.

That's a beautiful description of the divine recognition in Jacob's life throughout those six years.

Whatever you say, Laban, God's gonna turn it into my blessing. In serving his father -in -law,

Jacob was actually serving his heavenly father. In persevering through the trials and injustice of his father -in -law, he found the justice and blessing of his heavenly father.

He was serving, as it were, an earthly father who was trying to bring about his ruin, but his heavenly father was bringing about blessing through the very same means at the very same time.

It's a powerful illustration of the providence of God. It's a powerful illustration of how

God uses speckled blessings in the lives of his people. Jacob would have forfeited that if at the first negotiation, he said, okay,

I'm gonna take a step of faith here, I'm gonna try to make a good deal with Laban, something that will please him, and maybe he'll show me favor, and he'll give me a good arrangement, and things will be just going really well from here on out.

And then all of a sudden, here comes the load of elderly and infirm and sick cattle. And it's just a handful, it's like seven and a half, and he's like, what?

If he had just bailed then, if he just said, you know what, I'm taking matters into my own hands, if he had just walked away from then, if he had now gone after the way of the flesh, walked outside of God's ways, and dealt treacherously in return with Laban, he would have forfeited all of that blessing, all of that abundance, all of that gracious presence and sanctifying work of God in his life.

And so it is with you, brothers and sisters. No one wants speckled blessings, we want the camels, we want the treasure chests, we want the good stuff, but that only comes after a long walk of sanctification.

That blessing, and we're talking in terms beyond physical abundance, of course, that blessing, it often begins as speckled, weak, and sickly.

It begins as something that tries our faith. How can this be good for me? How can God, if God wanted me to be here and to do these things,

I know it says it, but if he wanted me to do this, surely it wouldn't look like this. Surely there'd be more things going for me than against me.

Surely he'd give me some boost in my step, at least start me out. How could this be the blessing of God?

And yet it was the blessing of God. And many times in the Christian life you have to recognize that situation.

You're saying, surely this is not the way that God has blessed me. This seems more like a punishment than a blessing.

And recognize it's a speckled blessing. It's a speckled blessing. And be faithful.

Have integrity with it. Be patient. Your righteousness as you deal with this trial, as you deal with this circumstance, your righteousness will speak for you.

And you, like Jacob, will be able to look around you as the time goes by, year after year, and see this really was a blessing.

This really was God's blessing. This is something I could not have imagined six years ago.

In serving his father -in -law, Jacob was actually serving his heavenly father. It's a recognition everyone needs to have.

There's no cruel taskmaster on earth that we can serve apart from serving our heavenly father.

Everything we do, whether we eat or we drink, we do so in service to our heavenly father.

God calls us to work. And though we work in a fallen world with fallen means and fallen systems, and there's abuse and misuse and manipulation and deception, wage changes, all sorts of things like that, we recognize that ultimately we're working for our father in heaven.

He is the one who's provided for us. He is our employer, as it were. Anything else in this life we work for as temps.

It's a temp job. Forty -year career, temp job. I have a heavenly employer.

God calls us, therefore, like Jacob, to credit our prosperity, our provisions to him. I didn't provide this for myself.

It wasn't my skill, my ingenuity. It wasn't something I learned how to do, being at the right place at the right time.

This was God, his provision for me, his faithfulness, him watching over the sparrow day by day.

Calvin says, I love what Calvin says in regards to this passage. First, he says two things.

First, whatever I attempt to do, whenever I apply work to my hands, it is my duty to desire

God to bless that labor so that it will not be vain or fruitless. That's the first thing we have to do, right?

Whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it with a Godward perspective. Lord, bless this effort.

Do you have an Ikea kit open before you? Like, Lord, here's my Allen wrench. Bless this effort.

Guide my hand in skill and let every screw and bolt be there in that package.

And the second thing he says, when we obtain anything from our work, from our labor, the second duty is to ascribe praise to God, without whose blessing men in vain rise up early.

Does that sound familiar? They fatigue themselves. They work themselves to the bone all day long.

They cannot rest. They cannot rise early. That's all in vain. Eating the bread of vanity, eating the bread of carefulness, that's all in vain.

It's all in vain. And so we ascribe praise to God. It wasn't that I woke up super early.

It wasn't my work ethic. It wasn't my skill. Lord, it was you. You gloriously provided for me.

You gloriously gave me this work to do, that I might feed myself and my family, have shelter and comforts in this life.

And so you seek the blessing of God on your work, and then when you actually have the blessing of God on your work, you thank him for it.

You praise him for it. And the difference between a Jacob and a Laban perhaps lies in that.

The difference between you becoming more like a Jacob or more like Laban rests in that.

Do you ask for God to bless the labor of your hands? And when he blesses it, do you give him credit for it?

Do you see how he's done it and why he's doing it? Spurgeon says somewhere, we're prone to engrave our complaints on marble and write our blessings in sand.

And that's the difference between a Jacob and a Laban. Taking all of the injustice and the grief, and here it is again.

I just thought this week was going well, and here comes Laban again. Another wage shame. I've got to start all over again.

A whole breeding season gone. He's tempted to write that, carve that into marble.

This is my complaint. Be filled with envy. Let that envy spill into his life, into his walk of faith.

Begin to poison his relationships. He's tempted to do that. And while he's watching these wage changes turn into blessing, he might just write those in the sand.

Oh yeah, yeah, well I'm glad that worked out anyway. So here he comes again. And see, he'd just be becoming like Laban.

In another 40 years, he'd be Laban. The difference here is profound.

It's very simple, isn't it? Do we ask God to bless our work because we recognize his blessing is what provides?

His blessing makes a difference. And when he gives blessing, are we quick to thank him, quick to praise him?

Is that consistent in our lives? Or do we write it on the sand? It's the difference between a

Jacob and a Laban. Now Jacob, of course, is explaining everything that's happened to his wives.

He's out in the field and he's saying, let me give you the kind of big view of what's been going on now for these six years.

And in fact, God says now it's time to go. And so he's throwing out the sales pitch here.

He's saying, are you ready to roll up the tent? Are you ready to go? Are you ready to move away from the house of your father, from everything that you've known all these years of your life?

Are you ready to follow me as I follow God? Jacob's explanation to his wives, it shows us several things about sanctification in a

Christian's life, doesn't it? The first thing is he acknowledges that he's been dealt unfairly.

He acknowledges that there's this tension between him and Laban. Here's the situation. He's treated me unfairly.

It's been unjust, and I can see even now his countenance is falling. I mean, he used to treat me bad even when he was smiling.

He's not even smiling anymore. I can't stay here for another six years. But he doesn't pick up and leave.

It doesn't cause him to grab his family and run away until God says it's time to go. That's so significant.

He's willing to bear that injustice. He's willing to bear the scorn and the derision of Laban until God says it's time to go.

We don't have any sense that he's ever called Leah and Rachel out to the field and just said, you know, talk me out of it, you know.

I really think we should go. This is the year we should go. He does not call them out to the field and make arrangements to leave until God says, return to your land.

He never takes matters into his own hands. He never once stole what didn't belong to him.

And this is the blessing stealer. This is what defined him as we move through Chapters 28 and 29.

And yet now he refuses to steal. He has not made for himself any abundance at all.

He's walked with integrity. And even that has shown in the way he works. Notice what he says.

I worked with all my might to serve your father. So it wasn't that he just says, hey,

I never stole anything. Yeah, but you never did anything. I mean, you let all my father's cattle waste away.

No, he says, I worked with all of my might to serve your father. Not only did

I not steal from him, I worked hard for him. While he was changing my wages and trying to manipulate and undermine me,

I actually put in for him. I gave 60 -hour weeks, week after week, and I didn't take breaks that I wasn't supposed to take.

I didn't do things I wasn't supposed to do. I worked with him. I worked with him. My integrity will be my witness. Oh, that is sanctifying grace.

It's one thing to not steal from someone who misuses you, an unjust master, but to work diligently for that unjust master, that's going to take some grace.

And Jacob had that grace. He didn't do the bare minimum. He did the maximum with all of his might.

He worked for a man that was trying, with all his might, to deceive and ruin him. All of this integrity, all of this perseverance, all of this patience, is a result of God's presence in Jacob's life.

And perhaps the greatest thing of all is, Jacob knows that. He knows that.

He knows that he has to be patient. He knows that he has to persevere. He knows that there are eyes from heaven upon him, and he has to walk uprightly with integrity.

He knows that he is in the hands of God. Look at verse 5.

The God of my father has been with me. He's echoing the promise of Bethel.

Right? I will be with you. The God of my father has been with me.

I love it because when God tells him it's time to go, verse 3, he says, I will be with you.

So here he is for six years he's working, and then at the end of the six years, when the tensions are coming to a boil,

God says in verse 3, I will be with you. That's future oriented. I will be with you. And then he calls his wives.

He doesn't say, God said he will be with us. He says, God has been with me.

All these years God has been with me. The God of my father has been with me. And so Jacob's not just thinking, if I get out of here, then things will...

He says, no, even here God has been with me. Verse 7, another recognition. God did not allow him to hurt me.

I didn't just break even. I was abundantly blessed. I grew.

And so we see as we come to verse 10 that this shepherd, Jacob, is being shepherded by God.

The shepherd is being shepherded. And now we have the vision that I think explains that interesting act of carving strips into the rods.

And I think this is all stemming out of this vision. And it happened at the time when the flocks conceived that I lifted my eyes and I saw in a dream, and behold, the rams which leaped upon the flocks were streaked, speckled, gray -spotted.

And then the angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, Jacob. And I said, here

I am. And he said, lift your eyes now and see. All the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray -spotted.

You notice that? The healthy, mighty, vigorous animals. They're all these rejected animals that you began with.

Notice what God says in this vision. For, that's an explanatory conjunction. For, I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.

Here's this vision. Do you notice that all of these animals that are streaked and spotted and speckled, those animals that look so sickly, notice how they're mighty now and they're leaping upon the flocks?

I've seen what Laban is doing to you. I am the

God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now arise, get out of this land and return to the land of your family.

And so we have what was a statement in verse 3 enlarged to the whole vision that Jacob received.

We have the explanation of this interesting husbandry ritual, which I think is an outward symbol of Jacob's faith, an outward declaration of the fact that God was blessing him.

And God had revealed that he would bless Jacob with streaked, speckled, and gray -spotted flocks.

God literally showing him, I'm bringing you speckled blessings. We've seen

Jacob treated unjustly. It was unjust that he had to work an additional seven years for the wife that he had originally agreed to work seven years for.

It was unjust that he was in Laban's household for fourteen years. It was unjust that Laban was profiting while he was trying to undermine and manipulate

Jacob. It was unjust that he changed his wages ten times and whenever something was going for Jacob, he tried to change it away from Jacob.

Everything we see about Jacob is his unjust treatment at the hands of Laban. But more importantly,

God sees the unjust treatment. And that's what is revealed.

I have seen all that Laban has.

There's no lightning bolts from heaven. Laban isn't struck dead.

He's not swallowed up by the earth. Fiery serpents aren't sent into Laban's tent. Even while he's undermining, manipulating, deceiving, trying to bring the heir of Abraham's covenant to ruin.

And God sees it. He's not aloof to it. He sees it. And I've been reflecting on this lately.

Verse 12. I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. It's so interesting to me that God does not then give an explanation.

He does in a way. He says, you know, all these weak animals I'm turning in abundance to you.

All these rare animals that were just going to be marginal I've made into many. And he says, because, or for,

I've seen all that Laban is doing to you. But then he doesn't say, and this is why I've allowed... He doesn't go into that.

Which is what you or I would want to do. Well, the reason that this is happening, the reason that these six years have been this way it gives some explanation.

And this is what God is up to, and this is why it's happening. In other words, this is following a very,

I think, helpful theologian, John Swinton. We're quick to speak about injustice or evil, sin, and evil things that happen in this world to people in a way that almost integrates it with this world.

Rationalizes it as though this is just kind of the way that things have to work. And we have to be careful not to integrate evil into the way that God has designed his world to operate.

Remember that we're living in a fallen world, and it's just interesting to me that he says, I've seen all that Laban is doing to you.

He doesn't pronounce what's going to happen to Laban. He doesn't say too much about the purpose for this.

He acknowledges the fact that Laban has treated him this way, and he says, this is how I am treating you.

We live in a world that's yearning for moral rectitude, for justice, right?

We see that. We see that as we read the reports coming out of the battles that are being waged in parts of eastern

Ukraine. And we've seen that in many other ways over the past several years. We see evil men prospering, evil designs abounding.

We see innocent people suffering. Innocent, of course, meaning relatively speaking.

And there's this great German word, sehrsucht. It's kind of this intranslatable yearning for there to be wholeness or things being put back together.

It's almost like a nostalgia for something that's now broken. And we all have that.

We all have that, don't we? We know that things aren't the way they should be, and then evil things happen.

And if we're quick to pass out that little answer, like a little tear -open ketchup packet, well,

God's working it out for your good and His glory. If we pull the Romans 8 trigger a little too quick, we can actually do a lot of disservice to who

God is and what He's doing. And I think there's wisdom in saying just what

God says here, I've seen the evil that Laban's doing to you. Full stop.

I've seen the evil. You read reports, and you go to some people, and you can't say,

God is working this out to sanctify you, but they were killed.

This isn't working out for their sanctification. There's this evil that's been done, and God sees it.

We should be very slow to pronounce upon God's ways. There's a lot of wisdom in the

Psalms in this regard. Usually we have descriptions of the fact that evil things are done, or men rise up in evil, and the fact that God will vindicate.

We rarely have descriptions about how God is using it in the intermediary. We have a pronouncement upon the end, whether their judgment or the fact that His people will be delivered.

We have a description of the evil. We rarely have intermediary explanations. I think this is very important.

God sees. And as Christians, we do well to let God be

God. Just to say, I don't know why there's that kind of suffering, but I know that God sees.

And I know that God is good. And I know that we can trust Him. I don't know how

He'll use this, but I know He's in control. And the more limited we can be, rather than trying to fill with the description, rather than doing what we sometimes apply to theodicy.

You've heard this word, theodicy. So it's a major philosophical problem, right?

The problem of evil. And in terms of a theist worldview, how can there be a

God who has all power and be all good if there's evil and suffering in the world?

The idea being, if He has all power and He is all good, then why doesn't He use His power to prevent the evil that contradicts

His goodness? How can you have an all good and all powerful God if there's suffering?

If there's child molestation and human trafficking and bone cancer? How can you have a good

God that has that kind of power in this world? That's the problem of theodicy. It comes from two

Greek words, theos, God, to justify God, to vindicate

God. So this comes out of the Enlightenment. You have these Enlightenment skeptics, and all of a sudden they're creating this problem of theodicy.

How can God be vindicated? How can we vindicate the fact that God is good, has all power, and there's suffering and evil done in this world?

And so you have this whole project. Really, the only time that this project was ever done en masse was in the

Enlightenment, in this age of rationalism, humanism, and skepticism. And they're trying to vindicate

God. It's interesting. I don't agree with much of what she was or stood for, but Hannah Arendt, who wrote in the shadow of the

Holocaust on the banality of evil, and she said, theodicy came about when people forgot how to praise.

Theodicy came about when people forgot how to praise. So there's been no shortage of human suffering or evil that takes place in the world throughout human civilization.

We live in a fallen world. And yet, somehow, God was praised and he was worshipped as the one who's holy, the just judge who does right in all of the earth, the one who sees, the one to whom every man must give an account for deeds done in the body, whether good or bad.

And there was a worship, a reverential worship of the God who upholds and sustains and controls all things, who allows the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust.

And yet, the proud man will be put to shame. He'll get his reward in full. And the righteous who suffer, they will be delivered.

And there was a praise, and that praise came out often in the church through lament.

It comes out through the psalms and maskules and songs of lament. And it seems around the time of this project of skepticism and humanism and theodicy that the church forgot how to lament, how to see evil, acknowledge it as evil, mourn over the fact that there's evil and suffering, and yet do so in a way that is actually worshiping, praising the

God who delivers and controls and who is holy and good and has all power and can be trusted.

And I fear that we have lost our capability, our capacity to lament.

It used to be an actual part of worship. And now it's hard to find in a hymn. It's hard to find in a sermon.

There's a lot I've been reflecting on in verse 12. I have seen what Laban is doing to you. I can think of God today overlooking the shellings and the apartment blocks and the families that are being torn apart and saying,

I've seen what's going on in Ukraine. I've seen it. And we don't run behind to explain it away, to take up that project of theodicy.

We don't need to vindicate God. We praise Him. We lament. We mourn because there's suffering.

We don't mourn as those without hope because we have hope. We know the end. We know that God is holy and transcendent.

We know that He's good. But we don't pronounce. So while we're saying there is this path of sanctification in Jacob's life,

I just want to protect, I want to guard against being flippant about his experience of suffering. And I would caution us to be hesitant, to be flippant about people's suffering.

It's a wet blanket to slap on someone when you say, I'm so sorry you're suffering like this, but God's working it out to sanctify you.

It's like, lament. I don't have the answers.

You know? Now's not the time for me to pronounce that God is going to do this Romans 8 maneuver in your life.

Now's just the time to mourn. Now's the time just to grieve together. And we'll do well if we can grieve with hope.

And the time will come, maybe it'll be six years later when you can look back and you can see that suffering and justice and you can say,

God has been with me. God has been with me. I may not have the answers in this life, but God is good.

I can trust Him. Now the Psalms start to make sense to me. Now I get it.

I get why there's a masculine. I get why there's lamentations. I see it now.

So as we come to a close, just building off this point, I have three applications.

And they're three not applications. Three nots. Brief. We'll be brief. The three nots for Jacob in this six year trial.

This six year bearing up under injustice and suffering, the manipulation and deception and its impact on his own life and his work and his household.

It's hard. He's suffering. Here's the first not. Not karma, but faith in God's will.

Not karma, but faith in God's will. Karma being this sort of Indian mystical thought, spiritual thought that good brings about good, bad brings about bad.

So you say, why'd you donate at the soup kitchen? Karma, you know, good karma.

Hopefully something good will come back around, paying it forward in a cosmic sort of way. No, no, no.

If Jacob had that approach to this trial under Laban, even though God was using it to sanctify him, if he had a view of karma, he would have been no better than Laban.

If he's just like, oh, you know, I'm setting you up for disaster. I'm going to keep working hard because I can't wait to watch you fall.

If he had that kind of view, he would have become just like Laban. He would have started flirting with manipulating and deceiving and going back to the ways of the flesh.

He needed to not have a view of karma, a view of what goes around comes around, but faith in God's will.

Lord, I don't know why you've allowed this, why this is, but I trust you and I know you want me to be here.

We love a little too much when what goes around comes around. Maybe I should say we.

I love a little too much when what goes around comes around. I love poetic justice. It's a beautiful thing.

I love when there's an irony that is sort of on display in the theater of God's world.

I love when it happens to politicians, especially. But we have to be careful in our own lives that we don't operate in this kind of vague principle of what goes around comes around.

I'm going to work hard because I want things to go well for me, and I want to show up those people who aren't working hard so that bad things happen.

It's like you need to operate by faith in God's will. Are you trusting day by day,

God, this is the task, this is the relationships, this is what's in front of me.

I ask your blessing on it, Lord, and if you bless it to me, I just pray you'd give me a thankful heart.

Let me be filled with gratitude even when it's hard, even when it's difficult, when things seem to go south real quick,

Lord, let me not forget that this is your will for my life. These are the relationships, this is the work you've given me.

Help me to trust you, God. Help me to walk with you. Help me to seek your blessing. I was, speaking of that,

I don't have a lot of time for this, but I can't, I mean, I delight in these things. I can't help it. Maybe some of you know this.

It was a local event. There was this viral video some years ago that was posted, and actually how it was posted seems to be kind of funny.

It seemed to have been posted by the staff at this car dealership in Westport, F &R

Auto Sales. I'll say that because they've shut down since because of this very event. They seemed to post the video thinking somehow it vindicated them, when in fact, it brought all of the scorn and hatred of the internet, of which there's no shortage, upon them, and it all came when, this is sort of CCTV cam in their main office, they ordered pizza, and the pizza came to like $42 and some change, and they were kind of grabbing money from all the people who were eating, and they had a couple 20's and like two 5's to equal $50, and they gave it to the delivery driver.

So the delivery driver's perspective, alright, $42 and some change. They gave me two 20's, that's a little short, then a 5, and then another 5.

You would assume, as that delivery driver, that that was your tip, right? You only needed to give me 45, and even then, if you really were

Scrooge -like, I would give you change on that, but you gave me an extra 5 for a tip. Not bad. So he leaves in all the commotion, and they realize, like, hey, we didn't get our change.

They weren't planning on tipping him. So they call him and make him drive back. His name's Jared Tancy.

And the video that they posted was of him coming back. And he's gone, you know, I was under the impression that, you know, you gave me two 20's and two 5's,

I thought that was the tip. We never said that was your tip. You know, we were making sure everyone got their money in, and you needed to give us change, and they started berating him.

So he was kind of like, okay, I don't want this to blow up, you know, but I had to drive all the way back to give you change, and you're leaving me no tip, and, you know,

I'm glad that you guys, you know, everything's going well for you today. And he left. And then they spent the next few minutes just berating him and insulting him.

Then they posted the video of that. They thought it made them look good. So a $42 pizza bill ended up shutting down their whole business.

They got so much heat that everyone on the internet, even people from California or New Zealand, were leaving one -star

Yelp reviews, so they couldn't stand. And then Westport refused to renew their business license.

They ended up, therefore, effectively losing their jobs all over refusal to tip.

The delivery driver, someone watched this and made a GoFundMe page, and that tip that was potentially $7,

I looked at it this week, it was over $31 ,000. We love things like that, right?

It's like, this is exactly what we wanted to turn out. And yet that delivery driver would do well, if he was a believer, and I don't know that he was, to operate not by karma, to not take pleasure in the downfall of those who persecute him, but to operate by faith in God's will.

And how much better it would have been if he came in and just said, I'm so sorry, I misunderstood the situation, you know,

I'm really sorry. See, I'm a Christian. The last thing on earth I would ever dream of is taking something that didn't belong to me.

I didn't know that wasn't your... How much better? Oh, that looks like operating by faith and not by karma.

Second not. Not stoicism, but sanctification by God's guidance.

Not stoicism, but sanctification by God's guidance. Stoicism, you hear that word, it's a very stoic appearance.

It was actually an ancient philosophy, stoicism. It's similar to Buddhism in a lot of ways. It's kind of, you overcome adversity or pain or suffering in this world by being resolute.

You persevere against it. Virtue and rigor and everything that's manly and pious, that's what's going to steal you and help you to get through life and not be caved in by suffering or loss.

And so the idea is be stoic, be resolute. And there's a danger of describing sanctification in the

Christian life as, really, what is stoicism? My point here is stoicism is not

Christian sanctification. Stoicism is not God's answer to suffering injustice or evil trials.

Stoicism is not what would have helped Jacob weather the storm of six years of injustice.

Not stoicism, but sanctification by God's guidance. Sanctification by God's guidance.

If God is the one blessing, if He's creating the parameters of what my work and my life is going to be today, this week, this season, these six years, then

I'm going to walk according to His will and His ways. How does He call me to be? That's how He's sanctifying me.

I'm not trying to be resolute. I'm not trying to be tough. I'm not trying to be above it all. I'm trying to walk by faith in God's will as He's sanctifying me by His guidance.

And so there needs to be this recognition that we persevere not by being stoic, indifferent.

Oh, I'm just tougher than that. I've got thick skin. No, no, no, no. It's by recognizing that God is sanctifying you as He's guiding you.

And the suffering hurts and it's not easy. But you recognize what He's doing and you follow the guidance

He's given you. There's a big difference between recognizing God's presence in a difficult circumstance as opposed to becoming indifferent to it.

Well, you know, hey, what can I do? It's out of my hands. Big difference between the two. Between saying, yes, this is hard.

We did not see this coming. This has taken our breath away. But God is in this. God is present. There's a big difference between that and, well, what can we do?

This is the way the cookie crumbles. That's stoicism. It's not sanctification.

Look at Psalm 43. This is so beautiful.

I wish we could just have a sermon on Psalm 43. I use this term God's guidance because we need to be guided through.

Sanctification is not something that we passively are transported along. It's something active. It's an engagement.

God has to guide us through it. Every day He had to guide Jacob in his labors, in his dealings with Laban and the other flocksmen.

Psalm 43, beginning in verse 2. Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.

This is right out of the pages of Genesis 31. Deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.

How is the psalmist going to be guided? For you are the

God of my strength. Why do you cast me off? Notice that the psalmist is actually experiencing suffering.

Why do you cast me off? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? That's how it feels sometimes when you're being sanctified, doesn't it?

Where are you, God? I know you're there, but you're not there there. Oh, send out your light and your truth.

Let them lead me. Right? I'm being sanctified by this.

I'm suffering. I'm struggling. It's hard. I don't even know where you are, God. Send out your light and your truth.

Let your light, let your glory, your truth, your word, let it lead me.

Let it guide me as I'm being sanctified. Let your light and truth bring me to your holy hill, to your tabernacle.

Let me come back to fellowship. Come back to worship. Guide me as I'm being sanctified to call upon your name.

Verse 4, Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. On the harp

I will praise you, O God, my God. He's not even able to praise now.

And he's saying, guide me because I know that when I get there, I'll praise you. That's what I want to do.

Then I will praise you. Why are you cast down on my soul?

Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God. I shall yet praise him. The measure of a

Christian sanctification is, of course, not how they behave in the tabernacle. It's how they behave in verse 3.

It's how they behave when they're struggling. They're saying, where are you in my spirit? It's disquieted within me.

And it's like, guide me, God. Guide me. That's how they handle the painful, unjust, deceitful times and people in their lives.

That's the strength. That's the display of their sanctification. And Jacob is not perfect.

We can't even really say Jacob is mature yet. He's a man, but I wouldn't say he's necessarily a mature man.

But he's becoming a mature man. He's becoming a man of godly integrity. If you've been reading

C .R .R. Wiley with us, he's a man of piety. A real man of piety. But even

Jacob would say, you give me too much credit. Psalm 41 .12 As for you,

O Lord, you uphold me in my integrity. That's what Jacob would say. It's really not me.

Honestly, I have a mind of what I want to do to Laban. But God has upheld me in my integrity.

He's guided me in this sanctifying trial. Third and last, not.

So we've had not karma, but faith in God's will. Not stoicism, but sanctification by God's guidance.

The third and last application. Not self -actualization.

You're really writing things out now. You're like, oh, I thought stoicism was the hard one. Self -actualization. But a patient pursuit of God's blessing.

Self -actualization, you'd hear it in life coaching. Things like, release your inner potential. Let yourself go.

It's in you. Realize who you are. Realize who you can be. It's sort of military recruitment posters.

All that you can be. If Jacob had that view under these six years in Laban, if he was all about, this is just,

I'm going to show what's really in me. I've got a heart of gold. I know I'm a champion deep down. I'm going to self -actualize under Laban.

It would have been a disaster. Not self -actualization. Please, do not actualize what is within you.

Jeremiah 17, 19 hearts are within you. Do not actualize. Your inner potential is not a good thing.

Your inner potential as a Calvinist, it's about the worst thing. Inner potential's awful. Inner propensity for depravity.

We're not about self -actualization. If anything, self -restraint. Self -limitation.

Not self -actualization, but a patient pursuit of God's blessing.

And I carefully choose those words, patient pursuit. They seem paradoxical, don't they?

How can you patiently pursue something? Pursue, it's like running with all your might after something, but patience is like being cautious, careful, elaborate.

And really, it's like, yeah, that. Patiently pursue God's blessing. Don't run after it wildly and then burn yourself out.

Don't do it in fits and starts. But also, don't be so patient that you're actually just being lazy.

You're not actually using the means of grace. You're not actually seeking God's blessing. You're just going through the motions. You're not seeking

God's blessing. You don't even want speckled cattle. You're like, no thanks. I'll just be patient.

I'll be patient for your blessing. God's like, no, no, no. I'll just be patient. Actually, I really don't want my life changed at all right now.

But that's not God's blessing for you. And God gives speckled blessings, and you need to patiently pursue them.

And the reward will be worth the effort. Why do we not patiently pursue?

Why do we have fits and starts, or why do we never even start at all? Why are we either too patient on the one hand, or not patient enough on the other hand?

We lose heart. We self -defeat. Why do we ignore God's counsel? Why don't we just do it the way

He tells us to do it, the way He's guiding us to do it, according to His wisdom and His light, His truth, these things that are meant to guide the psalmist through Psalm 43?

Could it come back, all the way back, to that simple, two -fold insight of Calvin, that we don't acknowledge

God, ask God for His blessing, and then praise Him and thank Him as we receive it?

Could it be as simple as neglecting the Lord's faithfulness, neglecting His goodness, having thanklessness and discontentment deep within us?

Could it be that we really just don't trust Him? That even though time and time again, and even in our own lives, we see that He's turned speckled cattle into abundant blessings, we just don't trust

Him this time. Not with this flock. Not in this way. Well, brothers and sisters, all

I can say is, if you would experience what Jacob is experiencing, the grace of God's presence bringing sanctification, strength, righteousness, integrity into your life, then bear up as God leads you through the trial.

Not with karma, but with faith in God's will. Not with stoicism, but sanctified by God's guidance, and not self - actualizing yourself, which is just foolishness.

But patiently pursuing God's blessing. We open the service with part of this.

I'll just close with these lines. Love the Lord, all you His saints, for the

Lord preserves the faithful. He fully repays the proud person.

Be of good courage. He will strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the example we have in Jacob. Even the example we have in Laban, Lord, we see this contrast.

We see in them the two ways to live that are set out in Psalm 1. There is a way of the righteous and a way of the wicked.

We see their ends. We see the consequences. We thank You, Lord, that You give us as examples these men.

These stories, Lord, of what You were doing. And then, Lord, the greatest story and the greatest example in our

Savior, who lived the life that Jacob could not live, and died a death to save people like Laban, people like us.

Help us, Lord, to be humble. So humble,

Lord, that we patiently pursue Your blessing, even when it seems lame, sick, ill, weak, small, feeble, fickle.

Let us remember, Lord, that You give speckled blessings in our lives, and You cause them to grow in abundance.

Give us hearts that long for those things. Give us patience, Lord, not to pronounce upon Your ways.

Let us recover, lament, even in our own lives as we experience suffering and trial. Help us,

Lord, to help others have a right view of who You are, the utterly holy, infinite

God, as we learn both to worship in thankfulness, but also to worship in praise and lament.

We pray, Lord, that You would help us as a body to be mindful and watchful over each other, to see those who are suffering when they come into the tabernacle, that we might equip them and bear them up as we all praise together.

And thank You for the work that You've begun and are faithful to complete. It's in Your name that we pray. Amen. Now's our time for interaction.

So this is a time that we invite the men of the congregation to perhaps share a word of reflection or ask a question, share a comment.

And all of this is meant to build us up, that we all can, together as one body, be edified. So I had never picked up on the little detail that Laban was basically stiffing

Jacob when it came to the sheep. Yeah, he was quite a guy. So Jacob ended up starting out with a sheep, with an entire flock of unspeckled sheep and goats.

And so he basically had to just start out with nothing.

Effectively. Yeah. So he only picked up on the future speckled, not the existing ones.

So it's interesting that Jacob never went back and confronted

Laban about it, as far as the record goes. Yeah. So thanks for pointing that out.

That was good. Yeah. Amen. He clearly, we look at that vision that he had, he clearly understood what

God was going to do. So he was patient, against the odds. That was walking by faith and not by sight.

It's like, my first car was, it was amazing that I could even get a sticker for it.

I mean, it was probably not road legal in a hundred ways. Everything that could shake shook.

Bolts would make their way up. License plate would be swinging. It was a complete junker.

And it would be the equivalent of Jacob being like, I'll work if you give me that. And Laban's like, whew, okay.

And then right before he gives it, he breaks the axle or something. He just makes it like completely undrivable. And yet God turns even that into mighty abundance.

And so that is God's way in his people's lives. Speckled blessings. That was a tremendous exposition.

I've read that many times, and I just what you just pulled out of that is amazing.

You hadn't quite gotten to this yet, but the thing that really touched me is the fact that you mentioned he talked to Rachel and Leah at the same time.

And if you see how that whole family began, it was just a lot of strife and a lot of, you know, trying to one -upmanship and everything like that.

And it's almost like at the same time that Jacob is being untwisted, Leah and Rachel are also being untwisted because they were basically

Syrians, totally different, you know, mindset. And they were their father's daughters. But by the time it comes around to this, and even after this, you can see that they all they're all a family.

And then when you get up into Joseph, you know, the life of Joseph, they all work together as a family as opposed to just infighting with each other.

It's really quite a fascinating account. It's a blessing the way you taught it.

I'm blown away by the whole thing. I read that. I've just never picked the details out. And like Dan was saying,

Laban really was working right from the beginning to just put the screws to his son -in -law.

It's amazing how he turned it all around in the end. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, Laban was a real peach.

Well, hey, thank you for your sermon. It just struck me a little because, you know, if things are going bad for somebody, or even myself, maybe,

I always kind of go to Romans 8, 20, 29. It kind of gives me comfort. But you were saying not to go straight to that, which kind of struck me as was strange.

Maybe if you can clarify that. But I would think that if somebody's having a hard time, we know we're going through that hard time, but that eventually, to the end, that that's a verse

I really grab on for hope. Yeah. So why would I not want to say something was really going bad for Hogan and remind him that?

Why would I not want to say that? I would put it like this. Of course, you want to be able to say

Romans 8. And I think you can't go wrong in necessarily saying it.

You can go wrong in when you say it. And so I think it's the part of wisdom or maturity to be able to discern when will

God's word be effective and of a deeper and more lasting comfort than it would be if I do it right away.

Right when some tragedy happens, if we all of a sudden spring open and we're like, hey, look, don't worry. It's going to be all working out.

Isn't that great? They have barely even processed or begun to walk through the pain of it all.

And it's like putting a band -aid on a gunshot wound. It's like, isn't this wonderful? Whereas even

Job's friends, they sit and they lament with him days,

I think weeks actually, before they actually address him. That I think is, again, wisdom to know that the truth will be of greater comfort and it will be more lasting in that person's life and you'll be able to help them see it and build on it as you're patiently mourning with them before you start putting the, hey, don't worry, it's all in control and God's going to work it out for your good.

If you do that right away, not only does it come off as superficial, might even be disingenuine, sometimes it can even be hurtful.

Sometimes the reaction to that is like, do you even know what I'm experiencing? It's almost like it doesn't even matter what you're experiencing, because this is true.

Oh, do you not have enough faith to believe this? Well, wait a minute now, I'm wondering about your faith. It's like, I think godly wisdom says that, and again, this is why

I just highlight verse 12, it's like God sees, and sometimes that's the most you can say. I don't have words for this, all

I know is God sees it. And it might be three weeks before you can spend some time in Romans 8.

I think it's just the part of godly wisdom and that's hard. I've been there a few times, it's hard. It's like everything in your bones wants to just be like, don't worry, it's going to be good.

God's going to be glorified. It's like you want to say that so bad. But I think the better thing for a brother or sister is just to mourn with them first.

Well, I like the way you just put it. I mean, I was wondering, well, why would you not use God's word in Scripture? But you're saying, see where you are, use

God's Scripture, maybe a different Scripture for now. Obviously we have to go to God's Scripture, or the example,

I think it was a week, don't quote me exactly, but I think it was a week. Alright, well, thank you. Thank you,

Ross. I was blessed by that sermon, and I think Mike took the words right out of my mouth. And all that he said,

I was probably going to say the exact same thing. But I'm still, I still think

I would be encouraged by the whole Romans 8 thing, even going through a valley. You know, going through difficult times and struggles and trials,

I personally really do cling to that. And I'm blessed by that.

And I think it's just because I'm such a prideful person, you know, that when

I am broken, and I'm going through valleys, or whatever it is that I might be,

I know that it is for my good as a believer. And I think maybe people take to that differently than, and maybe might use that a little differently than I do, but yeah, so that's all

I'll say on that. And the other thing, I'm just encouraged to see where Jacob's coming from, and where the

Lord is leading him, as taking ownership for his own family, his wives, his children, and seeking to be out, the head of his own family, so to speak.

And I was just blessed by the whole sermon, and everything that was portrayed. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Yeah, I'm glad that there's been some follow -up on, because I want to be perhaps more clarifying about, you know,

Romans 8, sort of shooting from the hip there. You know, my main point, again, would be, we always want to use the word, and we always want to approach things with God's wisdom and God's truth, but I think knowing the truth is only part of having

God's wisdom. Using the truth requires having a word in season and out of season, and knowing the difference.

And if we're ultimately there to bring comfort, then we should want to have the most comfort we can bring.

And if we don't allow there to be mourning, or lament, or the acknowledgement of suffering, then we end up saying, actually, this isn't really suffering at all.

We end up sort of marginalizing or even removing that there is something evil that's happened, something that's caused pain.

And we've, again, following Swinton, sort of integrated it in like, well, this is just part of goodness. And now you're a lot closer to a

Buddhist or a Stoic way of thinking than a Christian way of thinking. And so I think that's the point I was trying to make.

Yeah, I would just agree with you there. I think that it's in the superficiality of how we apply the passage that there's a problem.

And I can speak from experience. It's not like I've had great trials in my life, but we've had some. And you know, there have been well -meaning people who come and say, well, the

Lord's sanctifying you. And it almost comes across as, well, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.

Yeah. Which is kind of closer, like you were saying, to kind of a Stoic mentality. And it really doesn't help, honestly.

But that's not to take away, obviously, from the lasting comfort that we get from the fact that God holds everything in His hand and nothing happens apart from His will.

And He does do all things well and for the good of those whom

He has called. But I do really appreciate the point you made because we can, this is the sad thing about us sinful human beings.

We take deep truths and we make them shallow and hollow in how we apply them often.

So we always need to be cautious about these deep great truths that we don't cheapen them in how we apply them.

So I appreciated that. Kind of along with the lines of that, this point you made, though,

I was kind of curious if you think there is a place for theodicy for a vindication of God or whether we should avoid that altogether.

It almost sounded like you were asserting that the very concept comes out of the Enlightenment.

I'm guessing that you do see a place for it at times. But I'd just be curious to hear your thoughts on that.

What is the appropriate place and what's the inappropriate place for a discussion of theodicy?

That's excellent. Thank you for pointing that out. Certainly there is a place for theodicy. We can't let the skeptics have all the fun here.

In terms of apologetics, it's like whether you like it or not, you're going to have to talk about this. Most people in our culture that have spent any afternoon of their life looking up how to debate atheists or Christians have encountered debate about the problem of evil.

Debate about God's goodness. The so -called new atheists, you know, Dawkins, Hitchens, who's now deceased, and others, this was their primary attack, right?

Is God good? Why is there evil? It's been popularized and most people, even if they don't understand all the issues that play, and they certainly have very little understanding of what the scriptures have to say about it or how

Christians have actually responded to these things, and they certainly at least have, as a sort of little defense mechanism, this problem of evil.

It's kind of like, don't talk to me about God, don't talk to me about Christianity, because theodicy, generally speaking. And so, in order for us to give an answer to every man, in order for us to be sons of Issachar, we certainly need to be able to grapple and address these issues, and that is a right way of defending

God, defending the truth of his word, and, you know, not in a way that he needs to be defended, so much as showing all your criticisms are bankrupt.

You know, you of all people should have either the biggest problem or no problem at all with the problem of evil.

You know, your world, you cannot account for it. Ours does. And so that's a starting point.

I won't go into all that, but hint, hint, that's how you kind of want to handle those things. Where you don't want to apply it, of course, where you don't want to vindicate

God is when you're actually dealing with people who are suffering. And there,

I think we just have to be careful not to pronounce upon God, but to let him be God. And not in a way that removes him from his sovereignty or his purpose, but in a way that says, you know, we mourn that there is suffering, and we know that God is good, and we know that God is holy.

And really pressing who God is and the things that we can account.

And being careful not to take the things that we can account. There's a right way to do that. I think of Jesus with the

Tower of Siloam collapsing. Again, doesn't go into theodicy, doesn't give an explanation, just makes an evangelical call.

Repent, lest you also perish. So there's an appropriate format for that, but if those were grieving family members or a mother who was pulling, you know, her child out from the ruins, that would not be the time to do a theodicy engagement, right?

That would be the time for lament, and the hope of being a witness to the holy

God who can be trusted. And ultimately who will fulfill those longings for a world that is not right, and yet is meant to be right.

And so if that doesn't lead us to the gospel, nothing else will. And theodicy is always met within its fullness at Golgotha.

That is theodicy. Right? That is. And so we're whiffing on the ball if we're not connecting these issues to the gospel, to the cross.