Growing Pains

Again, I’m so happy that you’re here today with us, worshipping us, serving with us, GROWING with us. You know that’s what we’re doing here, right? We’re growing together.

Some of you are growing physically. Every Sunday I see some of your kids, and it’s like they’ve doubled in size. I can relate. Every time Andrew comes downstairs these days, it looks like he’s grown an inch.

I’ve told you about the growth chart that my parents have at their house down in East Memphis on one of their interior door frames. Actually, there are two growth charts. On one side of the door frame, you can still see all the marks from where my brother and sisters and I were growing up, getting a little bit taller each year. And for some of us, taller…and taller.

And, now, on the other side of that door frame, you can see all the different marks that represent the next generation—my boys and all their cousins. And it’s fun to go over there and measure the guys and compare them to where I was at their age.

Sometimes, the guys, especially, can get competitive. Other than my middle son, Jack, who is 6’7”, my nephew, Zachary, is pulling the lead right now, and you can tell—he doesn’t gloat or anything, but you can tell that he’s happy to have the title. I was happy to have the title for many years back in the day, until I went to college and came back one weekend to my kid brother having grown a foot!

I’m serious, it was like I went off to school one week, looking down at him to talk to him, and the next thing I know, I’m looking him in the eye, and the next thing after that, I’m looking up at him!

My brother, 18 months younger than me, who, the whole time we were growing up came up to about my armpit was now taller than me!

I tried to catch back up. Ate my vegetables. Tried to get plenty of sleep. But it was college and neither of those things are easy in college. Finally, I gave in and let him have the title.

Now, of course I’m joking…kind of. Because while guys can be competitive about our height, we all know that there’s really only so much you can do to control how much you grow.

It’s true for physical growth, and it’s also true for spiritual growth, the kind of growth that we’re going to be thinking about together this morning.

As I said before, part of the reason we are here together is to GROW together. Like we say at the beginning of each service, we are here for EACH OTHER, to strengthen and encourage each other to GROW into who God wants us to be.

And while there are things that we can do, as followers of Jesus, that we should do to influence our own growth, ultimately spiritual growth is something that God does within us. He motivates us to come to church, to dig into his word, to spend significant time in prayer, and, sometimes to help us grow, He allows us to walk through difficult seasons.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier. When my brother was growing aggressively back in those days, he was also in a lot of pain. His knees hurt, his ankles hurt. Most of joints hurt at some point or another. My wife Jennifer had the same thing happen. She grew quickly during her last year or two of high school, and she still talks about how much her joints hurt. Same thing with our kids. Maybe you’ve experienced that too. Growing pains are real.

But not just in the physical sense. Growing pains are real when it comes to spiritual growth as well. Sometimes—God is never the author of evil—but He will often use the frustrating, painful circumstances of His people to teach us to trust Him, shaping us into He wants us to be.

After all, there will be seasons when life is just hard, when family isn't getting along, when we feel rejected, overwhelmed and alone. If you are in leadership, you will inevitably face criticism, and you may even be tempted to throw in the towel. As a parent, you may be tempted to just walk away. Is that the answer? If life gets hard to the point of suffering, does that mean that God has forgotten you or that He's finished with you?

No. It could be that he’s priming you up, setting you up, to grow.

But that’s incredibly hard to feel when you’re going through it, isn’t it?

If you have your Bibles, get them open to that passage we read together earlier, Genesis 29. We’re going to be covering a lot of territory this morning like we did last week, but the reason I want us to dig in here is because I really believe, as we look at the life of Jacob here, that we find some answers—some keys to growth in the painful seasons of life.

Again, God is not the author of suffering. I’m not saying that at all. All the problems that Jacob faced in Genesis 29-30 were either problems of his own making or problems that came as a result of someone else’s sinful behavior.

And that’s usually life, isn’t it? Most of our problems are either a result of our screw-ups, our bad attitude, or someone else’s screw ups, someone else’s bad attitude.

But still, God, in His goodness, can use even the problems that WE cause to help us grow.

In these two chapters that we’re digging into today, Jacob experiences serious growth. His family grows, his possessions grow, and, and most importantly, Jacob grows a little more into Israel, the man God created Him to be. And again, I really hope that WE’LL grow together today, as we work our way through these chapters. So, let’s dig in here., starting in Genesis 29.

Just a reminder of where we are in Jacob’s story. In our passage last week, Genesis 27-28, Jacob had to leave town, flee with no supplies, nothing at all, after deceiving his father, Isaac, and his brother, Esau. Remember how he dressed up as Esau and tricked Isaac into giving him the blessing instead of his brother? His brother was so mad that he vowed to kill Jacob as soon as their father died.

So, Jacob took off, had a crazy dream about a ladder reaching all the way to heaven, angels ascending and descending the ladder, and God, promising to be with him and to make him prosperous.

And that’s where we find Jacob today, as he continues on his journey and finally arrives in Haran, the place where his mother, Rebekah, was from.

Look again at what happens, Genesis 29:1-3

Genesis 29:1–3 NASB 2020

Then Jacob set out on his journey, and went to the land of the people of the east. He looked, and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, because they watered the flocks from that well. Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, they would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep. Then they would put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.

Jacob stumbles on this situation, these shepherds, probably young kids, hanging out, waiting on everybody to show up, so they can work together to lift the big, heavy stone covering the well, and Jacob asks these guys if they knew his uncle, Laban. They said they did, and, as a matter of fact, here comes his daughter, Rachel.

Now, if this was a movie, this would be the part where love interest first appears with light shining down on her from heaven, the wind blowing her hair, this beautiful shepherdess doing a man’s job with nobility and grace.

Jacob is hooked. I mean, this is love at first sight. First he tries to get rid of the other guys in verse 7, “Water the sheep and GO!”

Rachel comes up to meet them, and Jacob immediately flexes. He goes and rolls the huge stone away himself, and probably staring at her the whole time, waters his uncle’s sheep.

Jacob loved Rachel, and he loved Rachel’s family, mostly because they were the family of his mother. The narrator reminds us multiple times that Laban was “his mother’s brother.” Jacob was a mama’s boy, and he probably grew up hearing stories about Laban and his mother’s family.

He kisses Rachel, but not in a romantic way—yet. That’s the way they said hello in those days, still do in many places today. You’ll notice that Laban does the same thing to Jacob in just a few verses. But he’s so struck by her, so thankful that he’s found her, that he raises his voice and weeps.

Rachel takes off tell her dad, Laban, about this new handsome cousin in town, and Laban runs to meet him and tells him, Genesis 29:14

Genesis 29:14 NASB 2020

And Laban said to him, “You certainly are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.

Before this story is over, we’re going to see just how true that is. After a while, Laban tells Jacob, “Look, you’ve been here a month doing all the chores. Just because we’re related, why should you work for free? Tell me, what do you want your salary to be?”

Here the narrator interrupts to tell us that Rachel wasn’t Laban’s only daughter. He also had a sister, an OLDER sister, but, at least from Jacob’s perspective, she wasn’t as physically attractive as her younger sister. Literally it says that Leah had “weak eyes” while Rachel was “beautiful in figure and appearance.” She was good-looking in all the ways—a lot like Jennifer Shackelford.

Jacob takes a chance. He knows that it’s not culturally appropriate for the younger daughter to be given in marriage before the older one, but he takes his shot. He says, “How about if I work for you for 7 years, you give me your daughter Rachel in marriage. Happily, Laban agrees. And scripture tells us in Genesis 29:20

Genesis 29:20 NASB 2020

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him like only a few days because of his love for her.

Everybody say “Awww.”

At the end of the seven years, Jacob realizes that there haven’t been any wedding invitations sent out. No cake has been ordered. The venue hasn’t even been booked. As far as he can tell, Laban has no plans at all to keep his end of the bargain. To the point that Jacob has to go him and tell him bluntly, “Give me my wife!”

Laban says, “Alright, alright,” and he throws a party, a big wedding feast. but on the big night, instead of Rachel, he brings his older daughter, Leah, to Jacob.

And as you can imagine, the next morning, Jacob was not happy. The deceiver had been deceived. That’s even the language that he uses, verse 25, “Why then have you deceived me?”

Laban tells him, “Hey, hey, hey, I was just doing the right thing. It’s not our custom for the older to look on while the younger gets married. So, let’s do this. Finish out the week of this wedding feast, and I’ll let you marry Rachel at the end of this week, if you’ll work for me for another seven years.

Again, the deceiver was deceived. And that brings us to the first thing I want us to take home today, the first growth principle to remember in difficult seasons. See, sometimes…

God uses difficult seasons to address our sinful habits.

That’s obviously what he’s doing with Jacob. He’s working to shape Jacob into the man that He created him to be, the man that would give rise to a nation, a nation that would give rise to a Savior, THE Savior of the world, Jesus.

And again, as we’ve seen, Jacob’s big issue was manipulation, control and deceit. He manipulated his brother, controlled his brother, and with his mom, deceived his father. And what better way to weed out that kind of behavior than to be confronted with someone who shows you what it feels like to be on the receiving end of manipulation, control, and deceit.

Jennifer and I were talking about this the other day, and she pointed out something you already know if you’re a parent, and that’s that nothing makes you want to clean up your act more than when you see your sin, your habits, your insecurities, your brokenness in your kids as they get older.

Maybe your issue isn’t deceit as much as it is greed. And you find yourself working for someone who’s greedier than you are. Maybe your issue is anger, and you marry someone who is angrier than you. Maybe your issue is pride, and God, in his goodness, puts your desk at work right next to…an Ol’ Miss fan.

I’m just…being serious.

But for real , God does that, doesn’t He? He knows our hearts. He knows our tendency to be blind to our own sin while judging the sins of others, so He puts someone in our lives just like us.

And if we’ll remember that, if we’ll listen to the Holy Spirit who indwells us, if we’ll prioritize having people around us who will call us on our junk, people who will, in love, say to us when we complain about the guy or girl at work or at home or on the pickleball court, “I hear what you’re saying, but you know that person is just like you.”

If we’ll put ourselves in a position to grow, we might actually grow as God chips away at our sin through the difficult people around us.

Let’s keep reading.

So, now Jacob has two wives, but not just two wives. He also has two concubines, servants of his two wives. Just so you know, this is not God’s way. God’s way in marriage has always been one man with one woman for life. Certainly that doesn’t always work out today, and we are thankful for grace, but God’s design has always been one man with one woman for life.

And really we see that here . Sure, Jacob had two wives, but the bible does not present it as a good thing, an admirable thing. On the contrary, this was a terrible situation, a terrible situation for everyone. Right from the top, in Genesis 29:30 we learn that “Jacob…loved Rachel more than Leah.” Which means that Leah understandably feels jilted and hurt. Verse 31 gives us good news, though. It tells us that the Lord saw Leah’s misfortune. He saw her abuse, her sorrow, her pain. Aren’t you glad to know that the Lord sees us in our victimization. He sees us when we are mistreated or maligned. He saw Leah’s pain and gave her children. Meanwhile, Rachel is unable to conceive, and verse 1 of chapter 30 tells us that, as you might expect, “she became jealous of her sister.” So, now it’s not just Leah who is hurting. Now Rachel feels it, too. And not just Leah and Rachel, because also in verse 1, Rachel tells Jacob, “Give me children or I will die!” And Jacob, furious, tells her “Am I in the place of God?”

The truth is, neither Jacob, nor Rachel, nor Leah, from what we can see, have called out to God, Jacob hasn’t spoken to God at all since that crazy night in the wilderness with the ladder to heaven. He didn’t ask God before agreeing to work with Laban. He didn’t seek God’s wisdom and provision in who to marry. Of course, Leah and Rachel had no choice in those decisions, but when Rachel can’t have children, instead of praying for children, she blames her husband.

Again, this is not a good situation. In fact, it’s a mess—just a heavy, sinful, emotional mess. But what’s beautiful here, the thing that I want all of us to see is that God works to fulfill His promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and ultimately He secures our salvation, right in the middle of this mess!

You say, “What are you talking about?” Look at these first four children at the end of chapter 29. First you have Reuben and Simeon—and by the way, all these names have meaning. For the sake of time we’re not going to get into the meaning. But, through Leah, we have Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah.

You’re thinking, okay, what’s the point? One commentary I read put it this way. “Without Leah, Reuben, Levi, and Judah would not have been born, and neither Moses [from Levi] nor David [from Judah] would have appeared. God’s work descended deeply into the lowest worldliness and there was hidden past recognition.”

Out of “the lowest worldliness” came great heroes of the faith like Moses and David, and ultimately Jesus.

See, that’s what God is doing here right in the middle of this twisted, broken situation. He is building a nation! Remember what He promised Jacob back there in the wilderness with the vision of the ladder to heaven, that his descendants would be like the dust of the earth? That’s what He’s doing here, in the middle of this mess, God is making good on His promise.

And that brings us to another growing pain point, something else to remember when we find ourselves in difficult seasons. God uses difficult seasons to address our sinful habits, and second…

God uses difficult seasons to accomplish His mission through us.

What was God’s mission here? To fulfill a promise to a faithful man and build a nation that would provide a Rescuer, a Savior who would die as a gift to the nations, to save us all from our sin.

The story continues, and the whole thing festers into an even bigger mess. Rachel can’t have children, so she gives Jacob her slave, Bilhah, to have children on her behalf. She has two children—Dan and Naphtali—but notice that Bilhah is not naming these children. Presumably she’s not raising these children. Bilhah’s children are now her children.

Not to be outdone, Leah gives Jacob her slave, Zilpah, and Zilpah had two children with Jacob, Gad and Asher.

And then there’s this whole drama about mandrakes, where basically Rachel agrees to let Leah sleep with Jacob in exchange for this fertility fruit that Reuben found out in the field. And so Leah has three more children—Issachar, Zebulun and a daughter, Dinah.

And then finally Rachel goes to the Lord, because scripture tells us that God listened to her and she gave birth to a son named Joseph.

I really is a mess, isn’t it, but again, in the middle of this mess that Jacob created, God is at work putting His plan into action. Listen, I don’t know what your mess is, but don’t you think that it’s at least possible that God could redeem it for His glory, for His mission?

What is our mission? We talked about it this past week in my Midweek Bible Study. Here’s what it’s not. It’s not so we can sit back and wait for our ticket to be punched to heaven. It’s so that we can do our part to see that the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord from the neighborhoods here in Bartlett, to the nations of the world! That’s our mission. That’s what we’re doing right now. And you know what props us up and enables us to do that like nothing else?

Our problems. The way we respond to the brokenness of this world. That’s why Jesus told us to do weird things like “Love your enemies,” and “forgive those who hurt you” and “bless those who persecute you.” When life gets hard, it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate the reality of God’s presence in our lives like nothing else.

So that our friends and family members start to think, “What is it that makes Fred so different?”

God uses difficult seasons to accomplish His mission.

Okay, one last part of this story. God is growing Jacob, slowly shaping him into the man he was created to be. God is growing a nation through Jacob, a nation that would give rise to a Savior, the Savior, Jesus. But God didn’t just promise to multiply Jacob. He also promised to take care of him, and in the rest of chapter 30, which we read together earlier, we see how He does that.

And again, it’s just more deception. Jacob comes up with a plan to build his own herd, but immediately Laban tries to deceive Jacob by moving the kind of sheep and goats Jacob needed fifty miles away. Jacob tries to deceive Laban by trying to get the animals to mate in front of certain sticks that he’d carved up, thinking that would help give him the kind of sheep and goats he needed.

Of course, what we know is that none of this deception and maneuvering was necessary. God was already at work. Jacob needed speckled goats. God gave him speckled goats. Jacob needed black sheep. God have him black sheep. It had nothing to do with Jacob’s effort. It had everything to do with God’s love.

Don’t you know that God loves you? Here’s one more thing to remember when life gets hard. God uses difficult seasons to address our sin habits. God uses difficult seasons to accomplish His mission, and third…

God uses difficult seasons to increase our influence for His glory.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that God is going to make you rich or powerful through the difficulty that you experience in this life, although that’s certainly possible. But what I am saying is that when you come out on the other side of whatever it is you’re going through, God gives you the opportunity to use that pain, that heartache, that grief to influence others for His glory.

The one who grieves the loss of a loved one becomes the counselor to others who are grieving. The one who suffers the abuse of a boss becomes the encourager to others who suffer similar things. The couple who survives a difficult season in their marriage becomes a beacon of hope for others who are struggling.

That’s what our God does. Rather than condemning us in our mess, He redeems it for His glory through the power of the Redeemer in us!

Our Redeemer who came to us and gave His life right in the middle of our mess. Talk about deception, remember that it was Judas who deceived Jesus, sold his master for thirty pieces of silver, and betrayed him with a kiss. The religious leaders used false testimony to condemn Jesus. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, yet “handed him over to be crucified” But God used all that brokenness, all that deception to fulfill his promise to Jacob that his offspring would be numerous “like the dust of the earth.”

And He’s still fulfilling it today. Today, you are invited to play a part in this great story. No, it won’t always be easy, but no matter how hard it gets, you can know that God is faithfully working to keep His promises.

Because of Jesus. Wouldn’t you like to know Jesus today?