A Tale of Two Sisters
Notes
Transcript
How many of you are fans of The Price is Right? I hate that show. I don’t hate it because it is a bad show. I hate it because I would be no good at it. I’m terrible at guessing the value of a vacuum cleaner, a full kitchen set, or some tropical vacation package. Any time someone asks me to guess how much they spent on something, I am usually wrong. So, I would make a terrible contestant on The Price is Right.
To do well on a show like The Price is Right, you have to study the value of all sorts of things. But what is the true value of something? We can measure the cost of something in dollars, but what is the true value of something? What is the true value of your car? What is the true value of your house? What is the true value of that family heirloom?
What is your true value? Where do you find true value?
As we engage the text today, we are going to see a tale of two sisters. Last week, we read the story of Jacob arriving in Haran, meeting his uncle Laban, and his beautiful younger daughter, Rachel. Jacob was smitten. So, when Laban asked what Jacob wanted in return for working for him, he asked for Rachel. Jacob worked seven years before his wedding day, but on the day, Laban swapped Rachel with her older, but not as good looking sister, Leah. Jacob was outraged, but Laban explained it is not their custom to marry off the younger daughter before the older. This was how Laban resolved that issue. So, Jacob worked another seven years to marry the woman he wanted in the first place, and at the end of 14 years, he has two wives, sisters of one another.
There is so much tension in this passage that it breaks my heart. As we read this passage, I want you to see the choices made, the results of those choices, and what we can learn through these two ladies.
The first verse we read today says,
Now the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.
In a world where a woman’s value was often attached to bearing children for her husband, Leah was unloved, and God’s compassion on her was the gift of children. Now, we have a tendency to read over sections like this because we see a list of names and we want to get back to the story, but my friends, this is the story! Look at what Leah says as she gives birth to Jacob’s sons.
Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.”
Haven’t I always told you Hebrew names have meaning? Reuben’s name means, “See, a son.” But listen to what Leah said. “Now my husband will love me.” This is such a sad commentary for our modern ears. Her hope is that in providing her husband children, she will be loved by her husband...but she isn’t.
Look at what happens next.
Then she conceived again and bore a son and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” So she named him Simeon.
The name Simeon sounds similar to the Hebrew word for heard, referencing how God heard her.
She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi.
The name Levi sounds like the Hebrew word for attached.
And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.
The name Judah sounds similar to the Hebrew word for praise.
What I want you to pick up on here is what Leah wants. What does she want more than anything? She wants the affections of her husband, and she believes the ticket to gaining his affections, to feel loved, is by providing him children. The thought is, “If I can have children, my husband will find me valuable, and that will make him love me.” The problem is it didn’t work. And then she stopped conceiving.
Rachel, the one who has her husband’s favor, but doesn’t have children, is envious of her sister. She grabs Jacob at the beginning of chapter 31 and says, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” She’s a bit overdramatic, but she too is conditioned to thinking that her value is connected to childbearing. The problem is Jacob is not really in charge of that. God is. So she comes up with the same plan Sarah did in chapter 16. She gives her servant Bilhah to him and says, “Here, take my servant and have a kid by her. That kid will be mine.” Now, remember, in this ancient context this was completely normal and legal...but it doesn’t make it right. So Bilhah gives birth to Dan and Naphtali.
Back to Leah, she gets a little jealous, so she employs the same tactic. She gives Jacob her servant Zilpah, who gives birth to Gad and Asher. Afterward, the two sisters get in a fight over some mandrakes Reuben had picked. The resolution Rachel came up with was, “Well, if you give me some of your mandrakes, you can have Jacob tonight.” So, Leah then has Zebulun, and the only daughter who is named Dinah.
Then after all that, Rachel herself gets pregnant, and gives birth to Joseph.
There is an intense sibling rivalry going on here where two maidservants get caught in the middle and so do all the kids they produce. But what I want you to see is that both sisters are looking for one thing: value. The problem is they are looking for it in the wrong place.
When it comes to our values, I want you to know two things.
Our value is not defined by what we produce.
Our value is not defined by what we produce.
Leah was unloved by her husband. He never wanted her. He wanted her sister. She was the one Jacob was stuck with. But in their society, the hope of a wife came through childbearing. Having children is a blessing. But if a woman couldn’t have children, there was a tendency for them to be discarded so the husband could find a wife who could produce an heir. Their entire legacy depended on it and it shaped the way the world worked for thousands of years.
Leah was unloved by her husband, but she believed that having children would change his affections toward her. Did it work? Not really. Did he love his sons? Sure, but that didn’t mean that he ever loved Leah the same way he loved Rachel. That’s what she was truly after. All she really wanted was for him to look at her the same way he looked at Rachel. That’s heartbreaking!
But our value is not defined by what we produce. The gospel of Jesus Christ says that God our Father loved us so much that he sent his Son on a rescue mission for us! We were dead in our trespasses and sins. See what Ephesians 2 says:
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands—
remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
There is no amount of value we could produce to make us worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus. I need you to hear this today. There was no amount of good you could do that made Jesus want to sacrifice himself. And there is no amount of good you can do that will make God love you any more than he already does. There is also no amount of wrongdoing that will make him love you any less. He loves you with a love that is perfect and good and it is not defined by your own performance. You were valuable enough in his eyes that he came after you millennia before you were even born!
The second thing is this:
Our value is not defined by what others can give us.
Our value is not defined by what others can give us.
Rachel had the affections of her husband, but she lacked children. She lacked the thing that in her eyes, was going to bring her value and worth: children. She demanded that her husband give her children. She was mad at the wrong person. While it is true a woman can’t have a child without a man, it is ultimately God who is in control. She had what her sister craved. She had the affection of her husband. Shouldn’t that have been enough?
Jacob wasn’t in control of giving his beloved wife the children she longed for. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. We can fall into a trap of measuring our value based on what others can give to us. For some it might be wealth or fame. Some people live for amassing a ton of followers. But if you never reached the pinnacle of fame but had the love of an eternally perfect Father, would that be enough?
Marci and I celebrated 15 years of marriage on Thursday. I’m as in love with her as the day we said I do. Now, she knows this, but the secret to the love we have is not us. It is fully embracing our identity as beloved children of God before our identities as husband or wife. She knows she comes second in the list of most important relationships in my life. Christ comes first and Marci comes second. I know that I come in second place in her life. Jesus comes first and I come second. Because the relationship is a Christ-centered relationship, it has withstood 15 years of imperfection. We both know that what we receive from one another is not where we derive our value. We are valued in the eyes of our Father, and our love for one another is the overflow of the love we have received from him.
Your value will never be defined by what others can give you. If you try to find your value in it, you will always be left wanting. Our value is defined by a relationship with our Creator, who loved us so much that he sent his Son on a rescue mission to rescue us from death and bring us into eternal life.
So I want you to walk away with this. Write this down:
Since your value is not defined by human efforts, rest in the grace of God, who calls you his own.
Since your value is not defined by human efforts, rest in the grace of God, who calls you his own.
I don’t know where you find yourself today. I don’t know if you have been trying to define your value based on your own ability to produce. I don’t know if you are trying to prove your worth in working as much as you do, or trying to be the perfect husband, wife, mother, or father, or friend. But there is no amount of production you can muster that will change how much God loves you right now. Other people might define your value based on your ability to produce, but God does not. Rest in the fact that all your efforts don’t go unnoticed by a God who sees, who hears, who knows, and who cares.
Maybe you are here today and you are more of a Rachel. Maybe you are defining your value based on what others can give to you. It leads you to look for significance and worth based on the attention others will give to you. Maybe you have tried the social media influencer thing and nobody cares. Maybe you had dreams and ambitions of being a star but you are invisible. Maybe all you want is the one thing nobody can give you. The only place you will ever find lasting significance and worth is in the arms of your Father. You are worth more than any other human being’s opinion of you. Rest in the fact that God loves you with a love that is unwavering.
I want to say one thing before we close. If you are here or watching online today and you are in a loveless marriage, my heart breaks for you. But know this. You are worth more than the lack of affection you are receiving from your spouse. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be seen. You deserve to be the object of someone’s affection. The good news is you are the object of God’s affections. Nothing you ever say or do will ever change that.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
If you are here today and you are looking for lasting significance and value, I can tell you it is only found in Jesus Christ, and you can begin a relationship with him today. If that is you, all you need to do is simply acknowledge you have sinned against God, that you have broken his commandments. Then acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God who gave his life on a cross to save you from your sins, was buried in a tomb, and rose three days later to give you an eternal life that will begin today if you are willing to turn from your sins and make him the Lord of your life.
For those of us who are already followers, may we ask ourselves if we have been trying to define our value by wither what we can produce or what others can give to us. May we recognize and rest in the grace of God who calls us his own.
