The School of Hard Knocks

“The School of Hard Knocks”

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Some of us know what it’s like to be enrolled in the school of hard knocks.

My dad used to say, a hardhead totes a sore behind.

Some of us have learned our lessons the hard way! When we were children our mom said don’t touch that or you’ll get burned. What did we do? We touched it; and got burned.

When we became teenagers, dad would say don’t speed or you’ll get a ticket. What do we do? We sped and got a ticket.

We become adults God speaks to us and tells us what to do and what not to do, and when we don’t listen and obey? We learn the hard way that God knows what He is talking about!!

Today were going to see a man who had to learn some lessons the hard way. He was enrolled in the school of hard knocks.

Background; in Jacob spends the night in a place called Bethel; he meets God for the first time in his life.

Then in -“Jacob lifted up his feet on his journey”. He is a man that has met God; God has promise to be with him, and to bless him with a big family and the land of Canaan.

At his moment Jacob is as light as a feather; his burden is gone, he has the promises of God ringing in his ears. He lifts up his feet and off he goes headed to Haran to his uncle Laban’s house. He has no idea what is ahead for him or that Laban’s house is going to become the school of hard knocks. Jacob has met God, but he is still a long way from being the man God wants him to be. Jacob is still prone toward deceit and manipulation. There are some lessons the Jacob must learn the hard way. God loves Jacob, and has a plan for his life; so in love God enrolls Jacob in the school of hard knocks to prepare him to be the man he wants him to be. The things we go through in life are meant to develop us, grow us into the person that God wants us to be.

I want to share with you three lessons we learn in the school of hard knocks. Lesson #1:

1. You Reap What You Sow.

-Read.

Jacob has traveled 500 miles to Haran, he meets Rachel and its love at first sight.V:11-“and Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept”

Rachel is the prettiest thing that Jacob has ever seen; he sees her and kisses her, and if so happy he starts crying. Somebody said if Jacob had known what all the future held for him; he would have cried a lot more.

Jacob told Rachel who he was, that her father and his mother were brother and sister. Jacob is welcomed into Laban’s home, Jacob is offered a job by Laban. Laban asked Jacob; what do you want for pay? Jacob tells Laban I’ll work for you for seven years if you let me marry your youngest daughter Rachel. Laban agrees. So Jacob works for seven long years to have Rachel as his wife. V:20-“and Jacob served 7 years for Rachel; and they seem to him but a few days, for the love he had for her”.

Laban had two daughters in V:16- Leah was the oldest order; and Rachel was the youngest order” Leah had weak eyesight; or it could mean she had no fire, sparkle our glow in her eyes. Whatever it means Jacob didn't love Leah. Jacob loved Rachel and told Laban I will work for 7 years to marry Rachel.

Jacob worked for 7 long years for Rachel, the years flew by because he was so in love with her.

When the seven years were up, V:21-“Jacob said unto Laban give me my wife, I want to get married.

Laban sets everything in order for the marriage and the weeklong marriage celebration. The wedding was at night, the bride was heavily veiled; the feast was served, the bride was delivered to her husband and he cared her to his tent.

What Jacob doesn't know is, V:23-“and it came to pass in the evening, that Laban took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in under her.

Laban has pulled a fast one on Jacob, the deceiver has been deceived; the trickster is getting tricked.

Jacob thinks he is marrying Rachel, but he is really marrying Leah. I read this and I say to myself how could this happened? How does a guy make a mistake like this? We have to remember marriage customs in that day; the bride was heavily veiled, it was nighttime, and Jacob was not expecting anything like this to happen. And Leah’s going along with this, because she loves Jacob even though Jacob loves Rachel. We look at Jacob and we say how dumb to marry the wrong woman. But I want to tell you; it still happens today! Be sure that you know the person you’re going to marry before you marry them. Be sure they're the person that God has for you!!! Don’t marry someone just because of the way they look, or how much money they have, be sure they love Jesus and love you!

I heard about a young lady who was wearing her wedding ring on the wrong finger; her friend said why are you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger? She said, because I married the wrong man.

Be sure you don’t married the wrong man or woman!! What was it like when Jacob woke up the next morning? Imagine the sun shining through the tent flap, he looks over expecting to see Rachel; and it's Leah! He jumps straight up in bed and says, what are doing here; she says we got married last night, don’t you remember. This was soap-opera ugly.

He puts on his clothes and goes marching to Laban's tent, V:25-“what is this you have done to me? Didn’t I serve you for Rachel? Why have you beguiled me?

Jacob is standing there asking Laban, why have you tricked him. Laban answers him, V:26-“it must not be done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn”.

Jacob is learning his first lesson in the school of hard knocks; you reap what you sow!

Jacob, who had deceived his old blind father pretending to be Esau, has now been deceived by Laban. He thinks he is marrying Rachel, when is really marrying Leah. Laban didn't care about Jacob's feelings for Rachel, he didn't care that it broke Jacob's heart. Rewind seven years in Jacob's life, picture him standing before his old, blind father pretending to be Esau.

Jacob had passed himself off to his father as Esau. And now he is reaping what he sowed.

Laban is passing Leah off as Rachel.

Jacob was upset and argued but to no avail, now he knows how Esau felt. Laban says your married to Leah, there's nothing you can do about it. Stay with her the rest of the week of her marriage celebration.

After the week is over I'll let you marry Rachel if you work another 7 years for her. That's exactly what Jacob does. He's learning in the school of hard knocks; what goes around comes around.

What’s true of Jacob; is true of every one of us!

-“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.

The law of sowing and reaping is true in every area of life.

To get a return, you must make a deposit, and the return you get, depends on the deposit you make.

To draw money from the ATM, you must have deposited some money in the bank earlier; no deposit, no return.

-“For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

The return you get, depends upon the deposit you make.

If you want a spiritual harvest, a blessed life, a happy marriage, a fruitful ministry, then you must sow spiritual seed.

But the Bible says if you sow to the flesh, sow the seeds of sin, selfishness, lying, lust, greed, anger that is the harvest that you’re going to reap in your life. Billy Graham didn’t say this; God Almighty said that!! This is the law of the harvest and it does not change! Some people don’t believe this law; but that does not change it!

We have no trouble accepting the physical laws of God that are unchanging; we must also accept the spiritual laws of God that are unchanging.

The law of gravity saystendertendertender , if you step off the top of this building you will fall to your death. Suppose someone says, well I don’t believe that, I’m going to break the law of gravity and they jump off the top of this building. They don’t break the law of gravity; the law of gravity breaks them. And it doesn’t matter if that person is saved or lost, if they have brown eyes or blue eyes, the law of gravity says, what goes up must come down. We accept that law; and we ride the elevator.

There are spiritual laws that are just as real, and as sure as the law of gravity. One of those laws is the law of sowing and reaping.

You get out what you put in.

This truth is both negative and positive; don’t think I’m just saying that if you sow to the flesh you will reap corruption; that is true. But it is equally true if you sow to the spirit, you will reap life everlasting.

Jesus said, and . Whatever you plant you will reap. If you plant corn – you expect to reap corn. If you plant wheat – you expect to reap wheat.

God tells us in -“Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. This is God’s law of the harvest, you reap what you sow. “After its kind”; that never changes.

You never get wheat – planning corn.

You don’t get a fig tree – planting Apple seeds.

You’re going to reap the same thing you sow.

If you sow hypocrisy – you’ll never reap holiness.

If you sow lies – you’ll never reap honesty.

If you sow lust – you never reap purity of mind.

If you sow anger, cursing – you’ll never reap a peaceful home.

If you sow to the flesh, you’ll never reap of the spirit. This law works in every area of life. It works in marriage, family, job, friendships, and church.

Take the family for example – you reap what you sow, in your children:

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to criticize.

If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.

If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.

If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident.

If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.

If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith. If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.

We reap in our children what we sow.

Jacob is reaping what he sowed; he had sowed deceit and now is reaping deceit.

The law of harvest is not only negative, it is also positive.

If you need love – sow love.

If you need friendship – give friendship.

If you need respect – give respect.

If you want a marriage of love, trust, honesty, communication, laughter, excitement and passion; you must sow those seeds. You get out, what you put in.

One more principle about sowing and reaping that I must point out before we move on. You reap later than you sow. Jacob has been working for Laban for seven years, before he is deceived by him. Don’t think for one moment that just because you haven’t reaped yet, that you’re not going to reap! You are going to reap!

On the positive side: Don’t get discouraged because you have sown the seeds of prayer, love, tears, and have not reaped yet. It takes some time for the seeds to come up. Don’t quit sowing; those seeds will come up one day! We live in the day of instant gratification; but the law of sowing and reaping doesn’t work that way. You can be sure that when you sow you will reap! Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man so with that shall he also reap. You sow to the flesh you shall of the flesh reap corruption; but if you sow to the spirit you shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.

You cannot sow your wild Oaks six days a week and then come to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure; it doesn’t work that way.

Learn this lesson today; you reap what you sow, because that is true, sow the seed of God’s word in your life, sow love, forgiveness, grace, words of kindness. Sow the kind of seeds that you want to come up; because they will.

The first lesson we learn in the school of hard knocks is; you reap what you sow.

The second lesson we learn in the school of hard knocks is:

2. Your Difficulties Help You Grow.

Jacob’s life is going to be filled with all kinds of difficulties. Most of the difficulties he created himself; many of my difficulties I create myself. Jacob is going to find himself with marital difficulties, and vocational difficulties.

29:31-30:24, you find some serious domestic problems, Jacob’s life is filled with one difficulty after another; yet in the middle of the difficulties God is shaping and growing Jacob.

Jacob has two wives, he is living in polygamy. It was not God’s will for Jacob to have two wives.

God’s plan for man has always been one man for one woman for life. But many men in the Bible, disregarded God’s word and married more than one wife. And it caused them heartache and difficulties; and Jacob is no exception.

Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah; so God allowed Leah to be the wife who bore Jacob most of his sons.

Leah thinks that having the sons will cause Jacob to love her; Rachel sees Leah having all these sons and she is jealous of Leah.

And Jacob is caught in the middle; he lives in a home that is divided, filled with hate and competition. Jacob is experiences some serious difficulties!

I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for Jacob.

Leah is the mother of 6 sons-Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun.

Rachel is so jealous of Leah, she says to Jacob give me children or I die. Jacob becomes very angry with Rachel and says my God that I can give you children? So Rachel gives Jacob her handmaiden

Bilhah, to be his third wife, so she can bear children for her. Bilhah has 2 sons – Dan, Naphtali.

Leah decides to give her handmaiden Zilpah to Jacob as his fourth wife. Zilpah bears Jacob 2 sons, Gad and Asher.

God heard Rachel’s prayer and allowed her to have a son and his name was Joseph.

Later own Rachel would have another son and named him Benjamin. Those are the 12 sons of Jacob; and they become the 12 tribes of Israel.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I am thinking how could God take such a sinful man, and messed up family and make them the foundation for the nation of Israel his chosen people?

How could God give people like this the promise of the land of Canaan, to grow them into a great nation, and from them would come the Messiah of the world.

God doesn’t use perfect people; do you know why? Because there are no perfect people! God works through sinful, fallen people just like you and me. God is such a great and powerful God that he can take our sins mistakes and difficulties and accomplishes His sovereign will.

God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick!

We’re told that God did not love Israel because they were great, good are perfect people; but because he loved them. -“The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you…

God working through Jacob to accomplish his will reminds us of how long-suffering God is.

-“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed; his compassions fail not. They are new every morning Great is thy faithfulness”.

Throughout all of Jacob’s struggles, difficulties in his family and with his employer Laban God was growing, growing, and growing Jacob!

None of us likes difficulties, struggles, conflict, hard- times, sickness, death in our family, job-loss, or marriage problems. But it is through these difficulties that God grows us.

If we lived pampered lives, getting everything we want, living on easy street, with no struggles are difficulties we’d be so spoiled-rotten nobody could live with us.

It is our difficulties that humble us and drive us to God in prayer. It is our difficulties that show us how weak we are, and how much we need God.

When you look at the lives of the men and women that God used in the Bible and church history you discover they are people who experienced great difficulties in their life. God must break us, humble us before he can trust us and use us. David said, -“You have enlarged me when I was in distress”.

What’s true of David, is true of you and I, God grows us during difficult times.

God was not responsible for all the sin, marriages, battles and conflicts in Jacob’s life. But God used all of those things to grow Jacob.

If you find yourself in the school of hard knocks today, and you feel like your difficulties are just bad luck, a waste of time, ain’t nobody got time for this.

Learn today difficulties help you Grow. They are a necessary part of God developing you into the person he wants us to be.

-“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

You will come through this trial a stronger, wiser, more compassionate person. You will be better equipped to glorify God and help others. Your difficulties help you grow.

Job went through many difficulties and he said,

-“when he hath tried me, I will come forth as gold.

The trials of life burn out the impurities, and the junk that doesn’t belong in us!

God is growing Jacob in the middle of all the difficulties he is experiencing. Jacob grows, his family grows, and his finances grows.

God is preparing Jacob for the next phase of his life. Someone said when you’re going through difficulties, don’t just pray, God get me out of this, pray, God what do I need to get out of this.

You can wind, complain and make everyone around you miserable, or you can say God teach me and grow me through this difficult.

There’s a third lesson we learn in the school of hard knocks.

3. God is With You Wherever You Go.

Rachel gives birth to Joseph; Jacob goes to Laban and says, 30:25-“send me a way that I might go to my own country. Jacob says, I have served you all these years I am ready to go back to the land of Canaan.

But Laban does not want him to go so he says to Jacob 30:27-“Laban said, I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake”.

Laban knows that God has been with Jacob, and has blessed Jacob.

Jacob knows that God is the one who has blessed Laban because of him.

Jacob says to Laban, 30:30-“you didn’t have very much before I came, the Lord has blessed you since I came here.

Jacob is beginning to learn to give God the glory for the good things that have happened to him. He is acknowledging that God has been with him!

Jacob had lived his life, grabbing what he could grab, accomplishing what he could accomplish, and getting what he could get by deception, lies and manipulation.

But in the school of hard knocks, he has learned that it is God that has sustained him, protected him and blessed him.

God comes to Jacob in 31:3-“return to the land of your father’s; and I’ll be with you.

God comes to Jacob the second time and says:

31:13-“I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar, and where you vowed a vow unto me: arise, get out of this land, and returned to the land of your kindred.”

In the school of hard knocks, Jacob is learning that God is with him, God was teaching him, and protecting him; God had not abandoned him!

And it is the same with you!! God is with you in the difficult place you find yourself. Trust Him, turn to Him, cry out to Him.

The God of Bethel is the God of GRACE!! The God that showed up when Jacob was on the run. The God of Bethel is the God that promise never to leave Jacob. The God of Bethel is a God of Angels. The God of Bethel is a God who promised his presence and protection. The God of Bethel is a God that promise to bring Jacob back to the land of Canaan. Do you know the God of Bethel today; do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior?

Just because you can’t see, feel, or sense God doesn’t mean he isn’t there, God is there!!

God promised to be with Jacob, and He was.

God has promised to never leave you nor forsake you, and He never will!

Difficulties, heartaches, sorrow, and loss can causing us to think that God doesn’t see and God doesn’t care. But that is not true!

Jacob knows that Laban is not going to let him just walk off the ranch with his family and livestock. So while Laban is away feeding his flocks; Jacob packs up his family, and all his stuff and takes off toward the land of Canaan.

Laban finds out about it, and chases Jacob down; and Laban and Jacob have a confrontation. Listen to what Jacob says to Laban:

-“I have been 20 years in your house; I served you 14 years for your two daughters, and 6 years for your cattle: and you have changed my wages ten times. Except the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely you would sent me away empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you.

Jacob knows that it is not his smarts or abilities that have protected and blessed him. It is Almighty God that has been with him, and protected him, and blessed him!

Jacob is finally acknowledging that God is the one that he must depend on! He is looking back and saying; God has been with me every step of the way. If you look back, and look around you can see that God has been guiding you, protecting you, growing you every step of the way. God has not abandoned you!!

Are you in the school of hard knocks today? Learn these three lessons:

1. You reap what you Sow.

2. Your difficulties help you Grow.

3. God is with you wherever you Go.

The life of Jacob is a reminder that God uses messed up people like us.

Right here in this place this morning, God wants to save you, forgive you, deliver you, and strengthen you.

God is speaking to your heart, he loves you, please respond to him today!