The Girl Nobody Wanted Jr High Camp

Sermon

In Youth Group on Wednesday nights we have been looking through the book of Book of Genesis. Several weeks ago, Jeremey Kamberger, our intern from the camp through the Ministry Bridge, taught on Genesis 29, the story of Jacob marrying Leah and Rachel.

Well, ever since we went through that story, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. You know when a song gets stuck in your head, the best way to get it out is to listen to it. Well, when a passage gets stuck in my head, the best way for me to get it out is to teach on it.

So Jeremy, thanks for getting this passage stuck in my head. It’s been a great encouragement to me, and I’m excited to share it with you.

You know, it’s interesting the way we idolize marriage in the church, while the culture is degrading it and forsaking it. The church has the opposite approach. We tend to idolize it.

We tend to think of marriage as the ultimate goal for a person. Get married and have kids, then you can be happy, then your life can be fulfilled. Now, we may never actually come out and say that, but ask any single adult in the room, and trust me, they feel that pressure.

They feel the pressure either from outside of them in the church, or from their parents, or from inside—they have a longing to be married.

Why is that? Because marriage is awesome! Because God created marriage as a gift to His children.

“But the problem, as it is with all of God’s gifts, is when we take the gift from God and make it the god we look to for identity, security, satisfaction, and ultimate joy.

Because the church believes in the traditional values taught from Scripture, we often fall into the same traps as the people in Scripture.

In Genesis 29 we see a picture of this trap. We see a man, Jacob, striving and working to marry a beautiful woman. He thinks that this woman will satisfy his desires, and then we see Leah hoping that one day her husband will actually love her, because if her husband would actually love her or even notice her, then she could be happy.

So let’s open our Bibles and turn to Genesis 29:1: “Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.”

Now let’s stop here, because we must ask the question: Why is Jacob on this journey?

Well, in the previous chapters we read of Jacob’s deception that backfired and forced him to leave his family and home.

You see, God came to Jacob’s grandpa, Abraham, one day and made him a promise. He told Abraham that through his line God would bless the world, that God would make Abraham’s name great, and through his family the whole world would be blessed.

It was an incredible promise. The only problem, of course, was that Abraham was an old man with no kids.

But God was faithful, and when Abraham was 100 years old, his wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac. The hope, of course, was that this was the son that would bring blessing to the world.

But instead Isaac was just as sinful and screwed up as his father Abraham. But nonetheless, God came to Isaac and gave him that same promise: through his line the whole world would be blessed.

After many years of waiting, Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, was finally pregnant—and pregnant with twins: Esau and Jacob.

Esau was born first, then Jacob, which meant that Esau would be the child of promise. He would be the one to carry on the family line, and it would be through his line that the world would be blessed.

But there was a problem. As God normally does, He overthrew the social order and came to Rebekah and told her that the older would serve the younger, that Jacob was to be the son of promise.

As you can imagine, this did not go over well with Esau or Issac the Father, who loved Esau more than Jacob, and Isaac actually refused to pass the blessing or the birthright to Jacob.

So, as foolish men typically do, Jacob took matters into his own hands. He manipulated Esau into giving him the birthright, and he deceived his blind and dying father, Isaac, to give him the blessing.

Jacob got what he wanted, and he got what he had been promised.

But Esau was outraged and promised to kill Jacob for what he had done. So Jacob is forced to be on the run.

You see, when we try to help God by taking matters into our own hands, it always blows up in our face, doesn’t it? And Jacob was no different. Jacob deceived his blind father and was forced to leave everyone he loved and cared for behind. He was forced to leave his homeland and he was all alone.

That’s where we find him in verse 2. Let’s continue reading.

Genesis 29:2–12 “2 As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was large, 3 and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. 4 Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where do you come from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” 5 He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” They said, “We know him.” 6 He said to them, “Is it well with him?” They said, “It is well; and see, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep!” 7 He said, “Behold, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go, pasture them.” 8 But they said, “We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.” 9 While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. 10 Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. 12 And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.”

This is a classic part of the story. Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun, and this story proves that to be true.

Jacob comes across this well with a stone covering the opening. Standing around this well are shepherds with their flocks waiting. They’re waiting for all of the other shepherds and flocks to gather around the well so together all of the shepherds can move the stone.

But then a pretty girl shows up, and what do all guys do when they see a pretty girl? They have this insatiable desire to impress the girl. In thousands of years of history, dudes are still dudes, and Jacob is no different.

So, like a scene from a movie, he sees Rachel, and it’s love at first sight, and a surge of adrenaline overtakes him, and by himself he moves the stone away, and then he grabs Rachel and kisses her.

But then we see that he weeps aloud, which is to say that he has the big dramatic moment of crying.

That seems a little different. But we can come back to that in a second.

Lets continue with the story in verse 13

Genesis 29:13–20 (ESV)

13 As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things, 14 and Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” And he stayed with him a month. 

15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” 16 Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. 18 Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” 19 Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

Laban has two daughters, Leah the oldest and Rachel the youngest.

The text says Leah had weak eyes. Translators have no idea what to do with that word weak. Some even translate it as kind. But the story is obviously comparing the two sisters. Rachel is beautiful in form and appearance, but Leah has weak eyes. The text is essentially saying Leah is nothing special to look at, especially compared to her younger sister Rachel.

Now do you think this is the first time Leah had been described that way in her life? No, I doubt it. All her life she knew that Rachel, the younger sister, was the pretty one. All her life she had to hear how pretty her younger sister was.

But not Leah. She had weak eyes. She was the girl nobody wanted, the girl nobody noticed.

It was the same with Jacob. He barely even noticed her. It was Rachel that he loved. It was Rachel that he wanted.

So he makes a deal with Laban. He will work seven years in order for the right to marry Rachel.

And it says in verse 20, “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.”

Jacob was so in love with Rachel the seven years felt like a few days. They were nothing to him.

After the seven years are up Jacob comes to Laban in verse 12

Genesis 29:21 “21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.””

I’ll try to be be careful here but it’s important to understand this from the text. The narrator of this story is describing a man utterly driven by and overwhelmed with emotional and sexual longing for one woman.

What is going on here? Jacob’s life was empty. He never had his father’s love. Now he didn’t even have his mother’s love, and he certainly had no sense of God’s love.

He had lost everything—no family, no inheritance, no nothing. And then he saw Rachel, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the most beautiful woman for miles around, and he said to himself, “If I had her, finally, something would be right in my lousy life. If I had her, life would have meaning. If I had her, it would fix things in my life that are broken” If he found his one true love, life would finally be okay.

All the longings of the human heart for significance, for security, and for meaning—he had no other object for them—they were all fixed on Rachel. [Tim Keller]

This is what we do today. The secular world thinks sex and romance will satisfy. The church thinks marriage will satisfy. All of which are wonderful gifts from God. But none of them were given to us to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.

Jacob is looking to Rachel to meet his every need, but then irony strikes.

Laban throws Jacob a wedding feast, and through a mix of alcohol and cultural wedding practices, Jacob wakes up the next morning not with Rachel by his side but Leah.

Jacob the deceiver is deceived.

Jacob, understandably, is infuriated with his father-in-law Laban. He comes to Laban and yells, “Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”

The irony is dripping off his words. He was the one who in darkness deceived his father, and now his father-in-law has deceived him.

Laban explains it’s not right to give the younger daughter in marriage first. Leah must first be given away before Rachel can be his wife.

So Laban makes another deal with Jacob: Serve me another seven years, and then I will give you my youngest daughter Rachel.

Jacob, so in love with Rachel, agrees to this plan and serves Laban another seven years for the chance to marry his daughter.

Lets pick up the story in verse 28.

Genesis 29:28–30 (ESV)

28 Jacob did so, and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. 29 (Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant.) 30 So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years.

Now I want you to put yourself in the place of Leah.

Why did Laban bother tricking Jacob? Im sure there would have been other suitors for Leah. Other people to marry her.

Except there wasn’t. She was ugly. She was unattractive. Nobody wanted her.

Laban knew no one was ever going to marry her or offer any money for her. He wondered how he was going to get rid of her, how was he going to unload her. And then he saw his chance, he saw an opening and he did it. And now the girl that Laban, her father, did not want has been given to a husband who doesn’t want her either. She is the girl nobody wants. 

These next verses are some of the saddest verse in all of scripture follow along as I read verses 32–34 (ESV)

32 And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, “Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me.” 33 She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon. 34 Again she conceived and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi.

Can you feel the heartache in these words?

Because the Lord has heard that I was hated, He gave me these three sons. Maybe now my husband will love me, maybe now he will be attached to me.

Can you put yourself in her shoes for a minute? Can you feel what she feels?

All her life she had to grow up in the shadow not of her older sister but her younger sister. Everywhere they went, Rachel was praised for her beauty. But not Leah.

Leah’s own father had to trick a man into marrying her, and even then she was hated. She was forgotten. She was unwanted.

She thinks maybe if I can get pregnant and give my husband a son, then he will love me. There was nothing more a wife could do for her husband in this day than to give birth to a son.

And guess what? Her beautiful younger sister is barren. Imagine the sick joy that must have brought Leah. All her life she had been jealous of Rachel, but guess what? Now she was barren, unable to give Jacob a son.

She thinks maybe if I can have a son, then my husband will love me. And by God’s grace she’s able. Three times she gives birth to a son, hoping, praying, pleading, that maybe now she would be loved. That her husband would look at her with more than just disdain.

It’s amazing how your heart can break for someone who lived thousands of years ago. But when I read this story, that’s what happens. My heart breaks for Leah.

But my heart breaks for many of you here this morning as well.

The details may be different, but the feelings are the same.

You feel neglected, forgotten, and unloved.

You feel passed over, hated, and despised.

All you want is to feel seen, noticed, and loved.

If just somebody would care about you.

If your husband could just look at you without anger in his eyes. If he would just look at you at all…

If your wife would just hold your hand… If she would just speak to you with warmth instead of constant annoyance and frustration.

If your spouse would pursue you instead of merely living beside you.

If you could just have parents who didn’t seem so annoyed and disappointed with you all of the time.

If they would just notice something good before pointing out what is wrong.

If your children would want to be near you instead of always pulling away.

If just one friend would call without you always being the one to initiate it.

If only you had someone to talk to, someone to take the loneliness away.

If you could sit at church and not wonder whether anyone would notice if you were gone.

If your efforts at home were noticed instead of assumed.

If you did not always feel like the extra person, the overlooked one, the one nobody quite chooses.

If someone would sit long enough to understand what hurts.

If the people who should love you most did not make you feel hardest to love.

If only you could have that, then you could be happy. That would be enough.

This is why the story of Leah still reaches us today. Because while the cultural norms change, while the centuries pass, the human heart remains the same.

Whether we are male or female, rich or poor, young or old, we all have a desire to be seen, to be cared for, and loved.

Can I tell you a story about Jacob’s great-grandson?

Thousands of years after Jacob and Leah and Rachel had died, Jesus Christ was traveling in Samaria.

The Bible tells us that Jesus, weary from traveling, stopped at Jacob—his great grandpa’s—well. And as He was sitting there, a Samaritan woman came to draw water.

And just like Leah, she carried a heart full of broken longings.

Jesus tells us she had been married five times, and the man she was living with now was not her husband. Which means this woman had spent years looking for love, looking for security, looking for someone who would finally make life feel whole.

One husband after another, one broken relationship after another, one disappointment after another—and still she’s empty and broken.

Different century. Different woman. Same human heart.

Because that is what we do. We keep saying, maybe this will finally satisfy me. Maybe this relationship. Maybe this person. Maybe this marriage. Maybe if somebody finally chooses me.

But sitting at Jacob’s well was the only man who did not use her, reject her, or shame her.

He saw everything about her and stayed.

He knew every failure. He knew every wound. He knew every wrong decision, every broken promise He knew the reason she came to the well at noon when nobody else wanted to be around her.

And instead of pushing her away, He offered her living water.

In other words: He said, “What you are thirsting for cannot finally be found in another human being. What your soul really longs for is Me.”

You see, Jesus didn’t come for the Rachels of the world—the admired, the noticed, the people who seem to have everything together. He came for the Leahs of the world.

He came for the forgotten. He came for the unwanted. He came for the people who sit quietly wondering if anyone truly sees them. He came for the people who have spent their whole lives feeling like they were chosen second, noticed second, loved second.

He came for women drawing water at noon because they are ashamed to come when everyone else comes. He came for tax collectors like Zacceaus hiding in trees. He came for fishermen who had nothing impressive about them. He came for sinners, for failures, for people carrying wounds nobody else understands.

That’s why Jesus said, in Gospel of Mark 2:17, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

In other words, He moves toward people who know they are needy. He draws near to people who know they are empty. He comes for people who know they cannot fix what is broken inside them.

Because the truth is, before Jacob ever saw Leah, the Lord saw Leah.

Before anyone else noticed her pain, God had already drawn near to her sorrow.

And that is what our Savior still does today.

He sees what everybody else misses. He hears what nobody else hears. He moves toward the people the world often moves past.

That means if you came here today feeling forgotten, overlooked, unwanted, or hard to love, you are exactly the kind of person Jesus delights to meet.

God saw Leah’s heartache

God knew of the Samaritan woman’s shame

And God loved them both completely

And here’s our big idea this morning. You may feel forgotten, overlooked, unwanted, but God sees you, God knows you, and God loves you.

What this story of Jacob and Leah teaches us is that life in this fallen world is full of disappointments.

If you can’t get your head wrapped around that your going to live the rest of your life confused and frustrated.

Jacob had convinced himself, “If I can just have Rachel, then everything in my life will finally be right.” He built all of his hopes, all of his meaning, all of his longing around one person. But as the text says, “But in the morning, behold, it was Leah.”

Now I want to be careful the way I say this because as I mediated on the text this week I have honestly grown to really love Leah. She may have lived thousands of years ago but she’s still a real person worthy of our respect.

But this is how idolatry always works. We tell ourselves, If I can just have this… if I can just reach that… if I can just be loved by this person… then everything will finally be okay. 

And maybe for a moment we get what we’ve always wanted But behold we wake up in the morning and it’s Leah by our side.

So whether it is marriage, a career, ministry, success, or the approval of other people, we may think we are going to bed with Rachel but in the morning it’s always Leah. It’s always disappointment.

C.S. Lewis says it like this

Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they want something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we have grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The spouse may be a good spouse, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and the job may be a very interesting carrer: but something has evaded us.

He goes on to famously say that “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

You were made for another world. You were not made to be satisfied by this one.

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that anyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But anyone who drinks of the water he gives will never thirst again.

Jacob looked to Rachel to satisfy but when he awoke it was Leah.

Leah thought giving Jacob son’s would cause him to love her. But it never did.

But let’s look back at Genesis 29:35 (ESV)

35 And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing.

By the fourth son she stop looking to earn her husbands affection and started praising the Lord for his.

And it was from the line of Judah that Jesus would be born.

God choose Leah not Rachel to carry on the Messianic line.

So what do we do with this?

First and foremost know that you are loved. If you came this week feeling neglected and overlooked. If you feel like the boy or girl nobody wanted. Know this. God sees you, God knows you, and God loves you.

Then, identify your Rachel. What is the thing you are telling yourself you must have in order to be okay in order to be happy?

Once you’ve found that then repent of asking that thing to be your savior. No person, no relationship, no success can do for you what only Christ can do. If you need it more than you need Christ, it’s become an idol.

Fourth, Praise the Lord even when life disappoints you Leah’s turning point came when she stopped saying, “Maybe now my husband will love me,” and started saying, “This time I will praise the Lord.”

“Maybe it is time for some of you to stop saying, ‘Maybe now they will love me,’ and start saying, ‘Because I know the Lord will always love “This time I will praise the Lord.’”

Let’s pray