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There are passages in the Bible that, when you read them, can give you a feeling of being unnerved. Reading them causes you to examine your life more closely. They make you think carefully about how you are living.
The passages that are most uncomfortable are the passages about the future judgment. Imagine yourself standing before God in the future, and every deed you have ever done, as I mentioned in the call to worship, is brought into account.
Some of the deeds examined show that these deeds were born out of true faith, while other deeds show that you missed the mark. The Bible describes that every work that we do will be brought into account.
Everyone.
The Apostle John had a vision of the future judgment, and he said this in Revelation 20, verse 12, I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
The Apostle Paul wrote something similar in 2 Corinthians 5 .10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Now everyone here who has a relationship with Christ can take comfort. Your admittance into heaven comes through faith in Christ alone. So you may ask the question, why as believers will our works be examined?
This sometimes comes as a surprise to many people. The answer is, not only will your works evidence your true faith, since all believers have the fruit of the Spirit, but also your works will be examined by Christ to determine what your rewards will be in the age to come.
So what we do as believers matters greatly. Today, as we continue our sermon series through Genesis, we will see works performed by Jacob and his father-in-law, Laban. We'll see good works and we'll see bad works.
And the goal of this sermon is to teach us to perform acts of faith so that we will show the true fruit of believers and store up rewards in our future home. So I encourage you, as always, to turn with me in a Bible to Genesis chapter 30.
We're going to be looking at verses 25 through 43. We're slowly but surely making our way through this big book of the Bible. And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on pages 29 and 30. This sermon is titled, The Blessing of Obedience.
The Blessing of Obedience. And our big idea, our proposition, this is what the sermon is calling us to do. The Lord rewards those who do right. The Lord rewards those who do right. And this should motivate us to follow his will.
So we're going to see three faith lessons. And the first is to act honestly at all times. To act honestly at all times. And we're going to see this in verses 25 through 36. But before we jump into the text, let me give a little recap of last week.
This will help Larry, right? You weren't here last week, so. We saw the strange narrative of this competition between Rachel and Leah. Leah had children first, and Rachel later conceived and finally gave birth to the child Joseph.
Between the two sisters and the servant women, whom they used to conceive children, a total of 11 children came about. The last child we saw last week was named Joseph. And one more child born would come in chapter 35, and that is Benjamin.
What we see is the Lord uses this competition between the sisters, Rachel and Leah, to bring about 12. These are the 12 tribes of Israel. The Lord used strange means to multiply the offspring of Abraham.
The Lord promised that he would give many offspring to Abraham. And now, through his lying, the ball got rolling in a big way through this competition. If you think about it, how slowly things moved, right?
Abraham and Sarah had to wait. And then the one after that, Isaac, had to wait. And Jacob, they have 12 children. So the ball really got rolling here with God's promise that they would have many, many offspring.
The offspring of Abraham. But as I explained last week, the main idea of the passage was not the competition between the sisters. The main idea was the Lord's goodness. In the sermon, what the text showed us was the Lord's compassion toward the unfavored wife.
Rachel was the wife that was beautiful in appearance, and Jacob favored her. But the Lord looked on compassion to the unloved wife, Leah, by causing her to conceive children long before Rachel would. And the application for us is the Lord shows compassion on his children when they face suffering through the journey of the life of faith.
We also saw the Lord's goodness shown in the way that he is the giver of life. And he's not only the giver of life, he's the giver of purpose. We saw that he gave life in abundance by bringing about these many children.
And this shows us that life only comes from the Lord. The Lord not only is the giver of life, but he's also the giver of purpose for those who live. And in the narrative last week, we saw that Rachel thought that she lost her purpose in life because she could not bear children.
But she could, or I shouldn't say she could, she should have found her identity in the Lord. And when you find your identity in the Lord, it's not based on your circumstances or how your life might turn out.
It's based on your trust in him that he is guiding your path and he is your treasure, no matter what path he sends you down. And the third example of God's goodness being displayed is that he answers desires and prayers that accord with his will.
Both Rachel and Leah desired children, and the Lord answered this desire because it was the Lord's will that the offspring of Abraham would be many. And we saw many born in the world last Sunday through this competition.
So we saw the Lord's goodness last week. As we go through the life of faith, we are going to see our prayers answered when they align with the Lord's will. And we saw that last week. And so we must understand that when we pray, we must make sure our desires are in line with the Lord's desires.
And we know that through Holy Scripture, because he tells us what our desires should be. And this leads us to our text today. Jacob traveled hundreds of miles north to Haran to find a wife from the land of Canaan, which was the land of promise.
So he goes to a foreign land to find a wife, and now he has a wife. In fact, he has two. And 11 children. Actually 12, counting Dinah. And the Lord's plan has never been for Jacob to stay in Haran. The Lord promised Jacob and Abraham and Isaac before him that the land of Canaan would be theirs.
And now that his family has been established, he is ready to go back after serving his father-in-law Laban for 14 years. So let's look at verses 25 and 26 of chapter 30. As soon as Rachel had born Joseph, Jacob said to Laban,.
What we saw several weeks back is that Jacob had to work seven years for Laban in order to marry Rachel, the wife that he desired. But Laban deceived Jacob by giving him Leah instead of Rachel. Jacob was obviously not okay with this because he desired to have Rachel.
And in order to get Rachel, Laban made Jacob serve another seven years. So he had to serve a total of 14 years to get Laban's two daughters to be his wives. And after going through this experience of working for 14 years under his father-in-law Laban, he wants to go home.
But Laban doesn't want him to go home. Let's look at verses 27 and 28 and we'll find out why. But Laban said to him,. So Laban wants him to stay because he knows that he has been blessed because of Jacob.
Laban explains that he knows this through divination. You might be wondering, what is that? A simple definition of divination is that you know the future through consulting a medium, whether it be the divine or the dead.
But you'll notice in your English Standard Version Bibles that there is a footnote that gives an alternate translation. And that alternate translation is, I have become rich. And that fits better in the context since divination learns about the future and Laban here learns about the past.
That he's been blessed in the past. That his association with Jacob has caused him to prosper. So the edit would be, this is my understanding of this, So I don't think divination should even be in this text, if you're understanding me correctly here.
Now Laban understands that the only reason he has done well is because of Jacob. Laban knows that Jacob worships the Lord. And ever since Jacob has been there, things have gone well for him. I know a gentleman, a couple years ago, he was working in southwest Florida.
And the business he was running, he was going to stores and clearing out the racks of these stores. And then selling them for more online. He would literally buy 30 items, take them off the shelf, sell them for more.
They would put 30 more items on there. He'd come, take those 30 items, sell them for more. And this was his business. And as he was doing this business, there was one particular store that he spent a lot of time doing this at.
And as you might expect, the numbers of the store were going up. The finances were looking pretty good. And the manager was looking very good. As this gentleman was buying all these products. And the funny part of the story is that this manager got a promotion to a larger store in Orlando.
Probably largely because of this man's efforts in clearing off these racks. And selling these things for more. And so he was benefiting from the ambition of someone in the store. And so hopefully that store in Orlando, where he got a promotion, they probably figured out after a while, maybe there wasn't something special about him.
It was this guy who was making him look good. It's much the same way with Laban's success, since it has been dependent on Jacob. Genesis 12 .3 told us that people would be blessed through their association with Abraham's offspring.
As the Lord told Abraham, I will bless those who bless you. And Laban has not treated Jacob the greatest. But he has given him his two daughters. And he's treating them, for the most part, pretty good during the 14 years.
And so the Lord saw fit to bless Laban. However, things are about to turn sour for Laban because of his clear mistreatment of Jacob from this point forward. This is how Jacob responds to Laban's request for him to stay in Haran with them.
Verses 29 and 30. So Jacob said to him,. So Jacob agrees with Laban that the only reason his wealth has increased greatly is because of Jacob's presence in his life. But during Jacob's stay with Laban, he has only provided for Jacob minimally.
But now he wants to provide for his own household. He's got a lot of mouths to feed. He's got 11 children. So Jacob believes he is in a position where what he says should go. Because he knows his father-in-law is dependent upon him.
So this is what Jacob offers Laban. In verses 31 through 33. So Laban says,. So the beginning of verse 31 leads us to believe that Laban is willing to give just about anything to make Jacob happy. But Jacob specifically wants to have some of the flock for his own possession.
Up to this point, Jacob has looked after Laban's flock. But he hasn't owned any of the flock for himself. Jacob would like to have possessions to better provide for his family. Which is a noble thing to desire.
Jacob thought it was fair to take the abnormal animals, which would be less. You'll notice that the abnormal animals is the one he's asking for. Goats are typically black. So Jacob said, give me the lighter ones.
Sheep are typically white. And so Jacob said, give me the darker ones. And what Jacob tells Laban is that he is going to pass through the flock. And take the spotted sheep, the spotted goats, and the black lambs.
Now Jacob, as we've gone through this journey with him to see his development. He has grown in integrity in his life. And he tells Laban that if you find any normal flock in my midst, then you will know it was stolen.
But Jacob tells him this to state clearly, I am not going to steal. You can trust me. So here's Laban's response to this in the beginning of verse 34. Laban said, good, let it be as you have said. Now on the surface, it looks like Laban approves of the deal.
But Laban, who has never grown in integrity, unlike Jacob, is plenty happy to steal from his son-in-law. Let's see how he does this in verses 35 and 36. And Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock.
Laban's a real stand-up guy, isn't he? We can tell that Laban did not even ponder agreeing with this deal. By the fact that the text says that that very day, he stole Jacob's flock in order to hurt him.
What Laban did is he took all the abnormal sheep and abnormal goats from the flock and he gave them to his sons. Verse 36 tells us that Laban, his sons, and the abnormal flocks went a long ways away, three days' journey.
And you might wonder, well, what's the point of that? Well, the reason probably is that he did not want to let these herds mix up with Jacob's. So Jacob is left with the normal flock that are going to have a difficult time producing abnormal offspring.
The only flock that he could keep according to the deal with Laban. So Laban puts him in a difficult situation. Now, in the genetic pool, this is interesting. Brandon and I were actually at the zoo this week, so I was actually thinking about this.
Good timing. Now, in the genetic pool, there was the capability that these animals could be abnormal. The white sheep, the dark goats, they could come out spotted and speckled. But they would be few and far between.
Where if the abnormal flock stayed and mated, Jacob would have a much larger flock. So you see what Laban's doing here? Laban's goal is that he would have many that would be his. Right? The white sheep, the dark goats, and the spotted would be so few that Jacob's flock would be pathetic.
So Laban makes sure there is a large separation between the flocks to ensure that his flock would continue to prosper and Jacob's would dwindle over time. So Laban is an evil man. His goal in life is to get what he wants any way he can get it.
He has no fear of God and no fear of punishment for wrong actions. What is extra evil about Laban is that he knew that he was blessed because of the Lord, and yet he deceived Jacob anyway. This is the beginning of Laban's demise.
He only was blessed because of his association with Jacob. And now he has lost that, and the Lord is going to weaken his once strong standing. We should not be like Laban, looking for shortcuts at every turn in order to advance ourselves.
Laban's flock may have been less by giving a cut to Jacob, but now that he has done this, he will lose the prosperity that he had. And this is the height of foolishness. Those who desire to take shortcuts don't know when to stop, even when they see that the good path is beneficial, as Laban has seen.
Proverbs 6, 12 -15 says, A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord.
Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly. In a moment, he will be broken beyond healing. Proverbs 10, 9 says, Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his way crooked will be found out.
Laban did not listen to these words. The honest path is the path God calls his people down. And what does this look like for us? It means paying your taxes. It means keeping your promises, even when it hurts you.
It means pursuing an honest living and not pursuing get-rich-quick strategies, which people just jump at like it's no big deal. You might wonder, you might say, Seth, is it okay to buy a lottery ticket?
I'm going to say don't. This is my pastoral advice. I would say do not buy a lottery ticket. The Lord is going to provide for you. And the trail that people go down with these get-rich-quick streams, the stories tell this whole story, right?
These people's lives are ruined. No one's meant to get rich fast like that. Make an honest living for the Lord, and he will take care of you. That's the path that the Lord wants you to go down. And for students in this room, it means taking a lower grade to do the right thing rather than cheating and getting a better grade.
When you act honestly, what you are doing is trusting the Lord and trusting that his path is the best path for you, because it is. And the ultimate test of honesty and integrity is who you are when no one is looking.
We should do the opposite of what Laban did and act honestly, trusting that doing the right thing is worth it because the Lord will reward you. Matthew 6 .4, as I already read this morning, says that when you do what is right, God will reward you for that when you meet him in the future.
He notices everything righteous that you do. And so keep that in mind as you obey him, and may that motivate you. The Lord rewards those who do right. And the first faith lesson for us to see in this text is to act honestly at all times.
The second faith lesson for us to see in this text is to exercise faith in him alone when the picture is blurry. We'll see this in verses 37 through 39. So Laban deceives Jacob. And what we are going to see now is that Jacob takes a better way and outsmarts Laban.
While Laban uses deception to bring about his desired outcomes, Jacob uses faith and wisdom to bring about good outcomes for himself. So let us first see him exercise faith in this second faith lesson, verses 37 through 39.
Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink.
And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks. And so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. So Jacob comes up with a plan to make sticks a certain way to produce his desired result.
And what we just read was that the flock came out striped, speckled, and spotted. The white goats would become darker, while the black sheep would become lighter, and he would build up his flock. And what he did is he set the sticks with the white streaks in them in the trough.
This would have been the place where the flock would go to drink. And when they went to drink, they would mate and produce offspring. And you might be wondering, how is this going to produce spotted and striped animals?
Is there something magical in the sticks? And the answer is, of course, no. We don't know for sure why Jacob used this particular strategy, but the biblical evidence points to the fact that Jacob was exercising faith here and not trusting in superstition.
Last week, we looked at how Rachel and Leah wanted mandrakes. Mandrakes was this supposedly magical plant that enabled fertility with those women who were barren. I explained last week that Rachel and Leah had a flawed theology that said that God gave them fertility and the mandrakes did, too.
But, of course, we know, right? It's not both. It's either one or the other. And we know that God is the giver of life, not the mandrakes. Now, some may interpret this passage the same way. That is, that Jacob believed these sticks had some supernatural power and he believed that God was going to give him spotted and striped flock.
But the biblical evidence does not point that way. In the next chapter, in chapter 31, verse 7, Jacob said that God did not permit Laban to harm him. In other words, the Lord was the one who made it so that his flock would be multiplied and not a superstition.
And Jacob also said, in verses 10 through 12 of chapter 31, that the Lord revealed to him in a dream that the flock would produce the desired results. And Jacob responded to the Lord telling him this in faith.
So, as we look at this text, we can see that Jacob was placed behind the eight ball. He made a deal with Laban, a deal that Laban had no plans on keeping. Jacob thought he was going to have a portion of the herd, and instead it turned out that the strong herd he thought he would have would be very small because of Laban's deception.
But instead of sulking and throwing in the towel, Jacob exercised faith in a very difficult situation, bringing about the desired result that he wanted. And we must do this also in our own lives, because you're going to face difficult circumstances in your life where it feels like the fight is uphill.
And you may be facing one right now. And you may wonder, what am I going to do to get through this? You need to exercise faith to persevere through the blurry situation, just as Jacob did here. And the Lord will guide your path forward.
And you can look at trying times in the past when you wondered, I don't know how I'm going to get through. But if you belong to the Lord, you know that the Lord is faithful, and you know that he carries you through.
And he made the picture clear here when it was blurry for Jacob. And he does the same in your own life. So this is the second faith lesson here. The Lord rewards those who do right. And the second faith lesson that we see in these verses is to exercise faith in him alone when the picture is blurry.
And our third and final faith lesson that we'll see in this text is to understand how valuable wisdom is. To understand how valuable wisdom is. Let's look at verses 40 through 44. Jacob not only made sure that striped, spotted, and speckled flock came about, but he also desired that the spotted would be stronger than the normal flock.
What we just saw in the second point is the exercise of faith by Jacob. And now we are going to see the exercise of wisdom in verses 40 through 42. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban.
He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock that they might breed among the sticks.
But for the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. Now in the verses before this, in verses 37 through 39, Jacob trusted that if the flock mated before the peeled white sticks, that the offspring would come out spotted and striped, so abnormal.
Now in these verses, the text explains that Jacob desired for the abnormal colored herd to be stronger than the normal colored flock of Laban. And if you look at verse 40, Jacob separates the lambs. He separates the darker and spotted lambs from the white lambs.
He has the white lambs face the spotted and darker flock so that the spotted sheep and dark lambs will be produced. You see what he's doing here? He's switching up his strategy here in order to multiply the abnormal offspring.
So whether it be goats or sheep, he's getting the desired result that he wants. And verse 41 tells us that whenever the stronger were mating before the trough, he would put the peeled white sticks down so that his herd would be stronger.
Again, there's nothing supernatural about this. There's no superstition happening here. He's just saying, Lord, these are the flock that I want to be stronger. And the Lord is blessing that because he's trusting that the Lord is going to do that.
So we see great wisdom being exercised by Jacob and faith, but wisdom here in this point, through his trust in the Lord and wisdom, Jacob has multiplied his flock. And the wisdom that Jacob exercises is using his expertise in zoology to bring about a good result.
In point two, we saw Jacob exercise faith by trusting that the Lord will give him the right colors for the flock. But we see his wisdom demonstrated in these verses through making sure his flock is stronger than Laban's.
And the Lord desires for us, much like Jacob here, to use wisdom in our lives also. Proverbs 3 .13 says,. Proverbs 4 .7 says,. Faith and wisdom go hand in hand. Ignorance is never a good thing. Sometimes people understand faith to say, you know what?
It's a blind leap. I'm not trusting anything here. I'm just going to trust. That's not true. Knowledge is a good thing. Wisdom is a good thing. And they go hand in hand. The Lord wants us to learn things and to apply truths that we learn to our lives so that we live the way he wants us to live.
Jacob is blessed here through his exercise of wisdom. And the question I have for you is, do you exercise wisdom in your life? Do you have wisdom in your life? And the thing about wisdom is that you can't use it unless you have it.
Wisdom is more valuable than the precious things valued by this world. Proverbs 8 .11 says,. You think about Solomon, right? He could have had anything. And he asked for wisdom. And the Lord was pleased with that request from King Solomon.
And wisdom is exercised in a few different ways. Wisdom is seen as a good thing, but it's typically tied to morality. To sin is to act foolishly, and to live out holiness is to act wisely. But wisdom can also be what Jacob is doing here.
The knowledge he gained in understanding how to develop strong and healthy herds benefited him greatly. He made it so that his flocks would be stronger than Laban's. He exercised wisdom. And not to apply the knowledge he had would be to act foolishly, even though it was not sinful.
Okay, so I hope this is making sense. So wisdom is typically moral, right? To sin is to act foolishly. To act wisely is to live out a holy life. But wisdom can also be non-moral. Like if you take a wrong turn when you are driving, you might say, that was foolish of me.
Or you may buy the wrong materials to build your house, and it might cause problems down the road. Now, that's not sinful to do that, but it is foolish. So do you have wisdom in your life that will lead to better outcomes?
That's how the Lord designed life to be. We would learn things the right way, and then use it, and then better outcomes come from it. How much more important it is to use wisdom in regard to morality?
You can make immoral, foolish choices and ruin your life. Or you can make moral, wise choices and send yourself on a good path, the path of life. And when I say the path of life, what I'm not saying is that it's always a path of comfort.
We know that from the life of faith. What I mean is that the Lord's blessing is upon you, and you do not face the trouble that sin causes. Because sin will cause problems, guaranteed. But the path of holiness, even though the Lord might send difficulties to increase your faith, it's always the path of blessing.
Sin always leads to pain, but using God's wisdom sends you down the path of life, and its end is eternal life. So as we look at this, and as we think about wisdom, we should model Jacob's example of wisdom.
We should pursue it like it's more important than gold, as Proverbs tells us. And how much better our world would be if people actually did this. If you pursue wisdom, the Lord's wisdom, and don't have wrong pursuits, you're going to be in the minority of people in this world.
That's what we're aiming to do as a church, as followers of Jesus Christ. So the Lord rewards those who do right. And the third faith lesson that we see in this text is to understand the value of wisdom.
So to recap this sermon here, the Lord rewards those who do right. And we've seen three faith lessons, to act honestly at all times, to exercise faith in Him alone when the picture is blurry, and to understand how valuable wisdom is.
What we have seen in this sermon this morning is what to do and what not to do. There are consequences to our actions, not just in an earthly sense, but in an eternal sense as well. One of the most sobering truths of Scripture is that everything we ever do is being written down.
There are two books in heaven that will be used at the final judgment. One book is the Lamb's Book of Life. Every name written in that will receive entrance into heaven because Jesus paid for the sins of those people.
The other book is described in Revelation 20 .12, and it's implied in 2 Corinthians 5 .10, and that is there's these books. Everything we ever do has been written down. Again, this might make you feel uncomfortable, and it should.
It's meant as a warning to say, follow the Lord's way and not the sinful path. And what happens is that these works, if your name is in the Lamb's Book of Life, your file, whenever that's brought out at the judgment, is going to show that you had true works of faith in Christ.
It's going to show that you were real. It doesn't mean you lived a perfect life. Of course not. But there will be true works of faith in there. And these works are also going to determine your rewards in heaven.
One of the beautiful things of Scripture is that God not only saves us, but he wants to reward us for our faithfulness. Matthew 6, Jesus said, The Lord Jesus has promised this to all who follow in him.
So may we be people who understand that the Lord rewards those who follow his way. Now next week, we will look at Jacob's departure from under the tyranny of his father-in-law, Laban. And I look forward to opening that up with you.
Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. I thank you for passages of Scripture, Lord, that we don't typically go to. But there's many precious truths that we must pull out, that you want us to pull out.
And this story was written for our sake. It isn't just a story for us to read and be entertained by. This is a story that we're supposed to read and be transformed by. That's what all of Scripture, all of Scripture was written to profit us.
That the man or the woman of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. And may this passage, Genesis 30, verses 25 through 43, may we be transformed as a result of pulling these truths out and living by them.
And I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.