Jacob: As a Man he Struggled with God

So this is Genesis chapter 29 and verse 31.

And we're gonna read through to chapter 30 and verse 24. When the lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Rubin. For she said, it is because the lord has seen my misery.

Shortly, my husband will love me now. She conceived again. And when she gave birth to a son, she said, because the lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this 1 too. So she named him Simyan. Again, she conceived.

And when she gave birth to a son, she said, now at last, my husband will become attached to me. Because I have born him 3 sons. So he was named Levi. She conceived again. And when she gave birth to a son, she said, this time, I will praise the lord.

So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children. When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, give me children or I'll die. Jacob became angry with her and said, am I in the place of god who has kept you from having children?

Then she said, here is Billham, my servant, sleep with her so that she can bear children for me, and I too can build a family through her. So she gave him her servant, bilhar, as a wife. Jacob slept with her, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Then Rachel said, god has vindicated me. He has listened to my plea and given me a son.

Because of this, she named him Dan. Rachel's servant, bilhar, conceived again, and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won. So she named him NAFTA. When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zillpar and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

Leah's servant Zillpar bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, what good fortune? So she named him Gad. Leah's servant Zillapar bore Jacob a second son. Then Leah said, how happy I am?

The women will call me happy. So she named him ASHA. During wheat harvest, Rubin went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But she said to her, wasn't it enough that you took away my husband?

Will you take my son's mandrakes too? Very well, Rachel said. He can sleep with you tonight in return for your son's mandrakes. So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. You must sleep with me.

She said. I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he slept with her that night. God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. Then Leah said, god has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.

So she named him issachar. Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, god has presented me with a precious gift. This time, my husband will treat me with honor because I have borne him 6 sons. So she named him Zebulam.

Sometime later, she gave birth to a daughter and named her dinner. Then god remembered Rachel. He listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, god has taken away my disgrace. She named him Joseph and said, may the lord add to me another son?

Thanks, Paul. Gotta love the old testament. Amazing book. And, lovely to, have you. My name is Tom, and 1 of the pastors here.

And as Paul said, this is a series that we've been working through in Genesis, looking particularly the life of Jacob, but very often we only really understand him as we see him as he is with his family. And the people who act around him and act on him, that's when his character comes through. And so we're going to be looking at this extraordinary passage today. And, for that, we do need the lord's help. So let's bow our heads and pray.

Father, we thank you for every part of your living word, and we pray that you would speak to us through it this morning. Do us good. We pray and show us Jesus. Oh, man. Now all the way back in the, the, the deep dark ages of October 20 24, we were looking at our catechism.

And, on 1 particular Sunday, we were on question 17, question 17. And that was, if you remember, although I'm sure almost nobody does, question 17, is what is idolatry? What is idolatry? And the answer there is idolatry is trusting in created things rather than the creator. For our, and then listen listen to these 4 things, for our hope and happiness, significance and security.

Ideometry is trusted in created things rather than the creator for our hope and happiness. For our significance and security. And that is quite a helpful definition because if you are new to the Christian faith, you may imagine an idol only as 1 of those giant golden or rock statues that people bowed down to in ages past, or you might think in more modern terms of an idol as a kind of religious building. So you go into a building and there's chapels and statues and icons and that all of that might come to your mind when you think of idolatry, and it certainly can include those things. But this is a helpful definition because it reminds us that an idol can be any created thing.

It can be any created thing that we look to for hope and happiness for significance and security. And sometimes, in fact, most of the time, Those things that we look to are not essentially bad things. So it might be a relationship that we crave and would love to have, or it might be the approval of someone who is important in our lives. Those are not necessarily bad things to desire, but when they become things that we need for hope and happiness and significance and security. When wanted things become needed things, then they've become an idol.

And here's the other tricky thing about idols be because they are very often good things. They can be quite hard to identify in the human heart, and they can take a long time to identify in the human heart, particularly if you're in a culture which says, no, you all ought to be driving after these things. And desiring these things. It can be hard to identify them. Tim Keller, in his commentary on the catechism, which is worth looking at if you, if you get a moment, says this about idolatry, The reason why it's so important to understand the sin of idolatry is that it can be growing in a part of your life for a long time and get very deep without it right away leading to, clear, visible, and easily seen violations of god's law.

And so, for example, if affluence and your career have become important to you, they've become idles. Too important to you. They've become idols. And that can lead you to working too hard and exhaustion. It can lead you to becoming ruthless.

It can block the development of a loving heart and the fruit of the spirit. It can thin out your relationships, which is a very evocative, like, phrase, I think. It can thin out your relationships. It can hurt your family relationships. It can hurt your friendships.

And all these things can be going on for a long time before it leads to a real overt example of lying or cheating or adultery, adultery because idolatry can lead to those things. In other words, you see what you're saying. He's saying when things like wealth and a better career become too important to us, not just important but too important, it can lead to you becoming ruthless. It can thin out your relationships. It can hurt your family relationships.

It can hurt your friendships. And all of that might be going on in your life for a long time. And in some ways, it might just become the new normal you. Without anything obviously destructive arising for it, I promise. And that's what makes it hard to identify.

It sort of brings a disunity and a chaos, but there's no really obvious signs that we're breaking god's law until eventually that does that does happen. And so do you see idolatry is always destructive, but it can be very subtle, and it can take a long time to detect. Now the passage in front of us this morning, is is fascinating on so many levels. And there are many there are many different ways of looking at this passage. But I wanna suggest to you that in this family, there is a problem with idolatry.

And it is in fact the thing that unites all of the different characters in some way. There is a problem with idolatry. Now it's not the classic statue idolatry. That actually comes next week. We do see next week the sort of idol that you can actually sit on because it's a statue.

But rather here, it's a different type of idolatry, and they're not necessarily bad things. This is the amazing thing about this passage. You think of poor old Leah. All she wants is the affection of her husband. She just wants to be loved by her husband.

Well, you think of Leah, Rachel rather. You know, she can't she can't have kids, and she's desperate for a child. She's desperate for a child. And then you think of Jacob who doesn't doesn't seem to want anything except an easy life. And none of those things are obviously bad.

They're not obviously bad. But what seems to be happening and it's back to the catechism is that love and children and comfort are being looked to for hope and happiness. For security and for significance. And that is what leads to the disunity and the chaos in this family home. And so I hope we're gonna see this morning that although this is an ancient text, it shows us firstly just how destructive idolatry can be.

But secondly, there is a verse in here, which is an idle smashing verse. And that's where we're gonna finish. We're gonna see how destructive it is, and then we're gonna look at the antidote to idolatry. Okay? So we're gonna work through the characters.

And firstly, we're gonna begin with Leah and just notice the language of desire in all that these characters say. So my first point is this Leah surely now he'll love me. Leah surely now. He'll love me. Verse 31, when the Lord saw.

That Leah was not loved. That's a very sad beginning, isn't it? When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved. You remember from last time, if you've got your bibles open, the words of verse 30, that Jacob's love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And there are a number of possible reasons for that.

Maybe he loved Leah less because she was the bride he'd been tricked into having. Remember that part of the story. Leah wasn't his first choice, not the 1 he wanted. He was tricked into having her and maybe he loves her less for for that reason, still bitter about it. Maybe he loves her less because she's less attractive than Rachel.

The text actually tells us that that Rachel was lovely to look at and beautiful, and Leah was less so in comparison to her sister. Maybe he loves her less for that reason, but whatever the reason or if it's a combination of the both, in verse 31, look what the lord sees when the lord saw. When the lord saw Leah. It's a beautiful thing. The lord sees her.

Jacob, he overlooks her. Her father, laban, he uses her. Rachel, her sister, and we'll see this later, despises her, overlooked, used, despised, but the lord sees her. He sees her, and he enables her to conceive. And so once again, who is the hero of this whole narrative?

It's the lord god who is constantly seeing an acting on behalf of, these sometimes left behind, sometimes deliberately sinful covenant people. He sees them, and he's acting for them when they can't act for themselves. And yet for all of that, don't you agree that Leah seems like a broken woman in this passage? She is seen by the lord. And yet just look at the names of her children.

Ruben. Surely, my husband will love me now. Simien. Because the lord heard that I am not loved. Levi.

Now at last, my husband will become attached to me. And so what do you think? Is that a bad desire? Would you call that a bad desire? Of course, it's not a bad desire.

In fact, she deserves it. She deserves it. It's something she ought to have. The affection and the love of her husband is something she ought to have. All she's wanting is for Jacob to look at 1 of these boys or all of these boys and say to her, come here.

Come here. This is fantastic. 3 cracking lads. Praise the lord. What a job you've done?

Come here, darling. And yet time after time after time, it doesn't happen for her. Not so uncommon, is it? If a marriage is struggling to hope that bringing a child into it, we'll fix it. Marriage is going through the let's bring some let's bring a let's bring more children in, and maybe that'll bring us together.

Or what we really need is actually a holiday. That'll fix us. We just get out of here. Let's just get away. Somewhere different.

Some place new, that'll fix us. Well, no, we need something altogether more dramatic. Let's up church, leave church, up home, leave home. Let's start again. Let's go somewhere else, and maybe that'll fix us, and maybe it will.

Maybe it will. Maybe it will help too. But in this case, adding children to the marriage didn't fix it. They were a great blessing. But they didn't do for Leah.

What she hoped that they would do. And so each of these names is kind of doing 2 things. On the 1 hand, she's saying, a boy, the lord sees me. Another boy, the lord hears me, and she's taking the name of yahweh on her lips, which is great. The lord sees, and the lord has given.

But each of these names is also a lament, isn't it? Surely, my husband will love me now. Because the lord heard that I'm not loved, now at last, my husband will become attached to me. It's really difficult to know sometimes, isn't it? When the desire for a good thing starts to become a little bit unhealthy.

It's back to that Tim Keller quote. It's it's just hard. It's hard, you know. It's hard to know. When does a hope for something good?

Start to become a bit of an obsession. Surely, my husband will love me now. Because the lord heard that I'm not loved. Now at last, my husband will become attached to me. Could we say?

Mean, what do you think? Could we say that the love of her husband and the affection of her husband has become a little too important for her? Well, the narrator doesn't step in and tell us that that's what's actually happened. But from the repetition of the names, from that repetition, Levi Rubin Simien. It does seem to be the case that the more Leah chases this good thing, the love of her husband, the emptier she becomes.

The love of a husband is so important and she deserved it, but it could never deliver for her, the hope happiness, security, and significance. That she longed for. Surely now. My husband will love me. Secondly, Rachel.

Give me children or I die. Now there's the language of desire. Give me children or I die. Chapter 30 verse 1, when Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. And so she said to Jacob, give me children or I die.

Now those are some pretty powerful words, aren't they? And again, the question is, is the desire good or bad? What do you think? Is the desire good or bad? It's good.

It's a good desire. Isn't that a Genesis mandate type desire? To go into the world, to have dominion, to be fruitful, to multiply. There's a good desire in there. And, you know, to be fair on Rachel, in her culture, it would be incredibly tough.

For her to be barren year after year after year and not be able to bring children in the world. People would have put all kinds of scorn and shame on a woman like that or maybe assumed that there was some unrepentant sin in her life which was causing her not to be able to have children. All of those ideas were around. And so here we have a good desire, but do you see how quickly in the human heart? I would like, become I must haves.

There is something disordered in Rachel here, and about the way she's speaking. You can see it in the text verse 1. When Rachel saw So this is interesting because when the Lord sees, he moves in mercy. When the Lord saw Leah, he moved, when Rachel sees something, it brings jealousy into her heart. When Rachel sees when she saw that she was not bearing Jake of any children, she became jealous of her sister.

And so look, what is the presenting issue here? Well, the presenting issue is she can't have children and she would love to. But you notice the other desires that are working, verse 1, she became jealous. Of her sister. And so, okay.

Is that the biggest issue? Is that the biggest issue? Not having children was surely a grief to her. But neither does she want to be outshined by weak eyes? Leah lives in her shadow.

Not the other way around. Rachel doesn't live in her shadow. She's the lesser, less wanted, less beautiful, less able, and now she is able to do what I am not. She's jealous. But there's more that tells us how disordered this is.

Look again at verse 1 to 2. She said to Jacob, give me children or I die. That looks an awful lot like an accusation, doesn't it? Will you give me children? It's you who's stopping me.

You can manage it with my sister, I see. You're able to bring kids into the world through her. Why not with me? You give them to her and you don't give them to me? Give me children or I die.

In fact, we know it's an accusation because of how Jacob responds to her. Look how he responds verse 2. Jacob became angry with her. And said, am I in the place of god? Who has kept you from having children?

Am I god? You think I'm god? You think it's me doing this? You think I can open up your womb and make it fruitful? You think it's my fault?

And I'm holding back, I'm withdrawing from you. It's so different, isn't it the last time? Remember last time, the, the hugging and the weeping, and 7 years felt like a few days because he loved her so much, and it was all gonna be bliss. But this is married life. Look at it now.

And so do you see what's happened to Rachel? She's got beauty. It's not enough for her. She's got her husband's affection, and it's not enough for her because Leah has got children, and she needs children. And she's jealous of her and she's angry at him, and it's exactly what happens.

When we either love wrong things, or we love right things in the wrong way. When an idol takes hold of our hearts, we can no longer see and enjoy what we do have, beauty, and a husband's affection because we're mad for the thing we don't have. Idolatry has that blinding power, doesn't it? We can't see what we do have because we're mad for the thing that we don't have. Give me children or I die.

Thirdly, let's look at the sisters. We've looked at Leah. We've looked at Rachel. Let's look at the sisters. Wasn't it enough that you took away my husband?

Wasn't it enough that you took away my husband? Remember that quote at the beginning. When idols get a hold, It can lead you to becoming ruthless. It can block the development of a loving heart and the fruit of the spirit. It can thin out your relationships and here's the sentence.

It can hurt your family relationships. Ideometry hurts family relationships. That's what happens here. And so you can imagine it. I wanna put you put you put yourself in this family home.

Okay. And you've got Rachel. She's in the lounge. And she's watching Tully and she's she's simmering. She's simmering with jealousy because yet again her sister is pregnant and she's not.

And then you've got Leah in the kitchen. And she's making more noise than she needs to. She's slamming doors so that other people can hear. She's huffing and puffing so that other people can hear. And she's simmering.

Because yet again, her husband spent last night with her sister, and not with her. And then there's Jacob, and he's in the shed because he's trying to get as far away from this home as he can. Okay? You can picture it. These desires.

This is what happens with idolatry. They simmer away until eventually a confrontation is inevitable. Unless they're dealt with, a confrontation is inevitable. And it happens in verse 14. During wheat harvest, Rubin went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants.

Now, this is a type of root vegetable. It's like a plant or a vegetable, which was believed to help with fertility. So that's why it's important in this conversation. A root vegetable believed to help with fertility partly because the roots sometimes look a bit like human beings. And this is really weird.

You'll have to Google it, not now. Definitely not now, but later. Go and have a look at the mandrake root, and sometimes it actually takes the form of a human, and that's why they believed it had fertility fertility properties, which he brought to his mother Leah Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes because she wants to get pregnant, and she's not getting pregnant. And so maybe these will help. If she grinds these up and sprinkles them on her porridge and eats them or boils them and puts them in a, you know, a multivit shake of some kind.

You know, maybe that's gonna help her. But Leah said to her, wasn't it enough? That you took away my husband? Are you gonna take my son's mandrake too? Very well, Rachel said he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son's mandrake.

And that sentence is every bit as strange as it looks. It is that weird. Here is Rachel, and I've I've actually scripted this because it I I just to try and get it right. Here is Rachel. If you give me some of those mandrakes, I'll let you sleep with your own husband tonight.

Leah. Yeah. Okay. My son who is also your nephew will give you some mandrake so that I can sleep with my husband who is also your husband. It's just a normal day, isn't it?

It's like, you know, nothing to see here. It's just this is the average old testament sort of life. You know, I it's amazing. Isn't it this? How how idolatry can give life a strange, unusual shape?

Idolatry makes life a bit weird. You think of the person who's desperate for the approval of somebody else. Somebody at their work or somebody at their school, and they're desperate to be seen by this person. What kinds of strange things might they do? They might change how they dress.

Completely change how they dress. They might change what they eat. They might even change how they speak. They might reject otherwise good and faithful friends all to get at this thing that they want, which is what happens. If if a non god becomes god to us, we will start to justify all kinds of unusual behavior because we want to get at this thing.

Things that would have once seemed strange to us. We do because we wanna get at this thing and we so believe that we need it. And so that's what you've got here. You've got 1 sister who's trying to buy a fruitful womb. You've got another sister who's trying to purchase her husband's affection.

And you've got Jacob in the middle, who is totally passive. Totally passive. We'll see that in a minute, but look, I mean, look at verse 16. When Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. You must sleep with me, she said.

I have hired you. I mean, I have hired you with my son's mandrake, so he slept with her that night. I mean we'll come on to that in a minute. But you see what happens with idolatry? You know, the friends, these are sacred things.

These are sacred things, marriage, love, children, intimacy. These are sacred things. But now they have become bargaining chips. And they have become negotiations, and they have become objects, which is what happens with idolatry. When the thing is god and not god, everything gets weird, and it gets disordered.

And it pins out our relationships. Wasn't it enough that you took my husband for 3? Let's look at Jacob. This is a series about him after all. And because he says almost nothing, I've just had to call this the desire for an easy life.

Jacob, the desire for an easy life, and I say that because apart from verse 2, Jacob says in this whole section, not a thing. There is no example of him seeking god or inquiring of god. There is no example of him demonstrating leadership in his home. There is no example of him saying no to dumb stuff. It's like he's in a boat with 2 oars.

And instead of trying to row a proper course and to chart his own way, even if it's gonna cost some effort, he drops the oars, puts his hands behind his head, and just allows himself. To be carried by the current of whatever other people wanna do to him. Let me show you it. Verse 3. Then she said, here is Bill Her, my servant.

Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her. Almost exactly the same phrase that Sarah uses with Abraham, if you know the story. So she gave him her servant Bill her as a wife. Jacob slept with her. Verse 9.

And again, in verse 9, it's the same kind of thing, but this time when Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant, Zilpa, and gave her to Jacob as a wife, and what happened, Leah's servant, Zilpa, or Jacob, a son, in other words, he slept with her. So, okay, whose idea was this? Who's idea was this? Well, to be fair, it was it was Leah and Rachel. At least they're the ones in the text who come up with this idea, and that was not good.

And so once again, in this series, we have a family that is trying to get a good thing in a bad way. We've looked at that before, haven't they? They try to get good things in bad ways. I can't have children, but I want them. Here's my servant.

Why don't you sleep with her? But as a husband, Jacob definitely has the right to say no. And he definitely should say no. I mean, he ought to know his history. When Abraham took Sarah and then the servant Hagar, it went badly.

When lamech back in Genesis 4, if you know his story took 2 wives, it went very, very badly. In fact, every time that mankind departs from the Genesis to 1 man, 1 woman for life, golden standard. Whenever that is left, it tends to tank. Very quickly. And so, okay.

If we're being really generous to Jacob, We might forgive him for having both Leah and Rachel because that was a nasty trick by Labour. We could say fair enough, but to take on 2 more servant wives without a word. I mean, man, where is the protest? Where is the objection? Where is the principle?

Where is the prayer? I mean, you remember what Isaac did when Rebecca was Baron in chapter 25? How did he respond to that by taking a servant wife? No, he didn't do that. He prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed until the lord in grace moved in the family.

But for Jacob, It's a yes to everything. Yes to the sleeping arrangements. Yes to being hired. Yes to more wives. Drop the oars, hands behind the head.

He's carried away. And the problem is brothers. Although to some of us, that might seem like a rather attractive way of living, just to drop the oars and just allow ourselves to be carried for the sake of an easy life. You see what happens here, it actually makes his life not easier, but very much harder. Because he won't stand.

And so what he ends up with is 4 wives, a broken family, a chaotic home, children that are gonna go on to do wild things, And so in the end, as an act of love for his family, Jacob should have said more, and he should have said no. That's the problem with letting the oars go, isn't it? Is that it is fundamentally a self serving decision. Let them do what they want. Let them go down in chaos because I'm having an easy I want an easy life.

Leah, surely now my husband will love me. Rachel, give me children or I die. The sisters, wasn't it enough that you took my husband? Jacob, the desire for an easy life. And so do you see that among other things, this story is a case study in idolatry.

It's a case study in what happens when good things become god things to us. Life gets unusual, and it falls apart. And yet, lastly, do you see that in all of this mess, there is a verse which smashes the idol. There is a verse here which if we can get hold of it and apply it consistently, is gonna put us right again. And it's in chapter 29 verse 35.

Leah conceived again. And when she gave birth to a son, she said, this time, I will praise the lord. Fourthly and lastly, Fifthly, rather, the idle smasher. This time, I will praise the lord. Surely, my husband will love me now.

Because the lord heard that I am not loved. Now at last, my husband will become attached to me. This time, I will praise the lord. And so quite clearly, when Judah comes along, something changes inside Leah. It may only change for a little while.

But something changes in her when Judah has born. Something has made her go from a lament. Surely, my husband will love me now. To praise. This time, I will praise the lord.

She's moved from lament into praise. Now, what is it that has changed? That's the question. Now some people suggest that it was Jacob who had changed, that 3 boys weren't enough. But when he saw 4, he thought, well, I'm gonna sleep with you again, and I'm gonna love you, and I'm gonna give you all the affection that you deserve.

They think the changes in him. I think the whole flavor of this says that's unlikely. I think the change has taken place in her. Maybe she's realized now that more children won't heal her marriage. Maybe she's starting to learn that a human relationship will never give her the hope and the happiness.

The significance and the security that she needs. Something like that seems to have happened. And so does she still want to be loved by her husband? Of course, she does. I don't think that desire has just evaporated and gone away with the birth of Judah.

But with boy number 4, that longing seems to have been reordered. It seems to have been put into its right perspective. So that now the love of Jacob is not the ultimate in her life. Is it good? Yeah, it's good.

Is it important yeah, it is. Does she deserve it? She really does. But it now seems to sit somewhere beneath this new desire, which is to look up and praise god for his generosity and to begin to seek him for hope and happiness security and significance. And that's what I love about Leah.

She struggles along in this chapter. But at least for a season, she puts her finger on something that is so helpful and so important to us, that praise is the antidote to coveting. Praise is the antidote to coveting. How does that work? Well, you think of something.

Think of something you maybe don't have but really would like to have. Maybe it's something in this passage. Like a love of a spouse or a relationship or a child or something else, something altogether different, something that you really want. Now how do we work this out? 1 of the things we can do is to say, okay, lord, please would you help me.

Please would you help me. I really would love this thing. And I desire this thing. And it seems to me that it's a good thing. But I don't wanna make it my ultimate thing.

And I don't wanna go down that old root of needing it and being jealous for it and being angry in my relationships. And I don't want precious things to be thinned out in my life because this has taken hold. And so this time, lord, I know what I've done last time, but this time, Would you help me to leave what I don't have with you and to praise you for what I do have? Which as it turns out, if you're a Christian, is quite a lot. The lord Jesus Christ as my savior.

And god as my father. And the Holy Spirit as my helper. And the church as my family. And a creation to enjoy, and work to do, and heaven is my home. And god is my treasure.

And so give me faith to leave what I don't have and would love to have and may never have with you and help me to praise you this time. This time help me to praise you for all that I do have. And so do you see a Christian? A Christian is not a person with no desires. A Christian is a person with redeemed desires.

Good things are still good. But now the lord Jesus Christ who has forgiven my sin is at work in my heart to help me to see that things are things and god is god. And that all of my hope and happiness. Security and significance can be found in him. Hello.

Friends the lord Jesus Christ. Comes from the line of Judah. He does not come from the line of Levi. He does not come from the line of Ruben or GAD or ASHA or Isakar or Joseph even. He comes from the line of Judah because our lord Jesus Christ is a praising man.

He's a praising man. And he says this time, his life is this time. I will praise the lord. This time and every time, I will praise the lord, and that is what he does in the hearts of his people. He smashes idols with praise.

Praise. He doesn't cause us to obsess about what we don't have and love would love to have. He causes us to praise for what we do have. So do you see that Leah tells us that no human love can satisfy the soul? And maybe someone needs to hear that.

No human love can satisfy the soul. Rachel tells us that no child will ever be enough. Jacob tells us that doing nothing is not nothing. It's a dereliction of duty. Judah tells us that praising God for what we do have is always better than stewing over what we don't have.

And so by the grace of god, let us say together, whatever our battles, this time, this time. I will praise the lord. Should we pray? Heavenly father we are sorry that we are so prone to wander and prone to leave the god that we love. In the words of be thou my vision, we we know that thou and thou only ought to be the first in our hearts.

And yet we're sorry that so often created things whether they be essentially bad or not bad, they can become first in our hearts. And when that happens, it affects everything. It affects us. It affects our relationships. And life goes so wrong.

And so we're sorry for cherishing. These things above you. We thank you for the lord Jesus Christ, the son of praise, the praising man. We died on a cross for all of our idols and has taken everything nasty in our hearts and he's paid for it all, and his blood has been shed. We thank you for the lord's supper, this bread and juice, which reminds us of that sacrifice, the the blood of Christ, which cleanses us from all idols and all impurities.

And we pray, please, that, we take it again that you would put faith in our hearts, put trust in our hearts, that we might look to you for all of our happiness, for all of our hope, for the significance we long for and the security that we need help us to see and to trust that in Christ alone are all of these things in his name. Oh, men.