Let’s Make a Deal
Genesis 29:15-30
We continue this morning with the life of Jacob, whom Jesus names along with his father, Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham as being alive and in special relationship to God. We have to keep the after picture clearly in mind when reading about Jacob. If we don’t, we might ask how this rascal could be one of His saints. As we have studied, Jacob had cheated his brother Esau out of the birthright and then stole his blessing by deceiving Isaac and even lying using the LORD’s name as part of the lie. The LORD had a lot to do with Jacob to transform him. The LORD had promised great blessings to Jacob, and He is good to His word.
Last week, we saw how Jacob had arrived at his uncle’s house, having met his daughter Rachel at the well. It looked like th LORD was in the arrangements. Jacob was in love, and Rachel was the daughter of Laban whom his mother had instructed to marry. It looked like happiness ever after.
In today’s passage, things appear to continue smoothly. H e had been there thirty days as Laban’s guest. It is hard to say whether he took advantage of hospitality for that month or whether he helped with the sheep. But after thirty days, Laban lets Jacob know he needs to earn his keep. Shepherding is hard, dirty, and sometimes dangerous work. It ranks with hoeing cotton in the blistering Southern US sun. Many of you have stories like this one, and it has been the cause of seeking better employment elsewhere.
So it was time to make a deal. Jacob shows how much he loves Rachel by agreeing to work seven years for her. Usually it was the bride’s family to pay a dowry to the groom. But Jacob agreed to hard labor to purchase his beloved. Laban must have been delighted with the deal. He agreed and set up the wedding. For Jacob it was buy now and pay later. And boy he would pay.
Wedding feasts were a big affair in the Ancient Near East. It lasted for a week. The entire community came together and there was much food, drink, and festivity. On the first night the bride was introduced into the tent of the groom to consummate the marriage. Jacob was probably a bit tipsy on drink and his joy that his beloved was his. So under cover of darkness, the veiled bride was introduced into the tent and the marriage consummated.
Morning was a rude shock when he woke up nest to Rachel’s sister, Leah. He had been tricked.by his uncle Laban. Jacob had more than met his match with his wily uncle. He who had deceived both his father and brother had himself suffered the pain of deceit He confronts Laban about it who says that the younger daughter cannot marry before the older. It was a pretty lame excuse. But Jacob had consummated the marriage with Leah, so he had to keep the deal and work seven years for her. What pain he felt.
Now Laban pulls another one of his deals. After the wedding week for Leah, you can work another seven years for Rachel, another buy now pay later. But Jacob loved Rachel so much that he agreed to the terms. Seven years for a despised wife, and then seven years for the love of his life. Since these were his only wages, other than basic subsistence, he would have nothing after 14 years but his wives. This looked like a road to perpetual slavery. O what a cruel deal! But Rachel was his. To him the price was right. But he would not be going home to his father and his father’s blessings anytime soon.
So, we see this as a love story with a twist. It is easy to get swept away by the romance, especially when we can get the emotional lift without having to go out into the field and tend the sheep for his deceitful father-in-law. It is so much easier to sympathize for the difficulties for others than it is to go through it one’s self. Perhaps this brought him unto a little bit of understanding to the pain Esau felt by being deceived by Jacob,
God had to bring Jacob to the realization that as one who has been chosen and blessed by the LORD, he had an obligation to be a blessing to others and not a curse. God is always honest in his interactions. He never deceives anyone. Anyone who bears the image of God as his/her child has the spiritual DNA of the Father. In other words like father, like son. God the Father is in every way perfect. That perfection at some point must start to come out.
In Jesus, we have the perfect example of like Father, like Son. Hebrews calls him the express image of the Father. Yet is says that Jesus Himself learned through the yoke of obedience and suffering. It is hard sometimes to put the portrait of the sinless Son who is God the Son with the human Jesus who grew in his relationship with the Father. Jesus was a natural and Eternal Son.
But when God deals with us, He is our Father by adoption. We have been taken out from the house of Satan and made sons and daughters in the house of the Heavenly Father. But adopted children bring baggage into the household. They bring the baggage of bad habits learned in their first household. They had lived in a world of deceit, deceiving and being deceived. This is totally unacceptable. The Father takes us from where we were, baggage and all. Then He begins the process of discarding bad habits, sin, rebelliousness, and whatever else is not to be part of the child’s new house. These must go. Sometimes they go hard. Hebrews says that sin clings to us like weights on a runner’s legs. It is hard enough to run the race unencumbered, but just think what a marathon would be with five-pound weights on.
I can remember when my first youth group took me roller skating. I was over thirty years of age, but in reasonably good tone considering. I had ice skated as a young boy, so roller skating should be a piece of cake. Right? After all, one never forgets how to ride a bicycle. I soon learned the painful lesson that there is a word of difference between ice skating as well as the difference between 30 and 13. The wheels on the skates, not roller blades, was heavy and trying to lift them of the ground soon made my legs feel like jelly. Not only that, but halfway around the track, I body slammed the oak floor. The youth laughed their heads off. I really hurt, but I didn’t try to show it. I got up and went another half around the track and fell and body slammed the floor backwards. The youth then said they had video and were going to send it to America’s Funniest Home Video’s. I had bruises front and back. But this was nothing like the bruise to my ego.
Sin in one’s life will weigh one down. Then when you fall, your old father, the devil, laughs his head off at you. The world laughs at the calamity of the Christian, especially the self-induced kind. And sometimes the brothers and sisters in the church laugh as well.
It is not the will of a loving God to leave us fallen upon the floor. He has much higher purposes for us. If we are His, then He will see to it that we become like it. The lessons we learn can be hard and bruising, but afterward what Jesus said about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will also be true for us as well. It is comforting for us to know that the work o sanctification belongs to God and not us. If roller skating was necessary, and thankfully it is not, then God would make it happen. First of all, God would say that you cant does this by yourself. You need to be teachable. You must be discipled. Eventually mastery will be achieved by God’s grace. Take comfort that it is “God who is working on you, both to will and do of His good pleasure.”
We will be continuing on Jacob’s journey in the weeks to come. We will learn that God will bring Jacob through “may toils, trials, and snares.” From this we shall learn much.
