Failed In Trying - Waking Up With Leah

Failed In Trying – Waking Up With Leah

Genesis 29:31-35

· This entire story continues the larger context of Jacob’s dream and the story about Jacob’s ladder.

· Genesis tells a wonderful story with God at the top of the ladder and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it

· But then afterwards the writer follows up with this sad tale of a messed up family caught in an endless cycle of failure and disappointment

· The question on my mind this morning is how do you tell this story of dismal human failure in this context of Jacobs Ladder?

· Everybody in this family lives a messed up life

· Just look at the story

· The Bible says Jacob loved Rachel but he hated Leah

· But in a very real sense this is also our story

· Jesus says in Matthew 6:24 “No man or woman can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”

· So we can expect Jacob to fail at loving two women because Jesus says you just can’t do it.

· And brothers we’re no different today, we just can’t do it.

· But still Jacob tried to handle two women.

· He had the one he loved and the one who loved him

· How often we try to live apart from God’s plan?

· We try to live apart from God’s will, God’s way, God’s wisdom and God’s presence

· We try to save ourselves by ourselves

· We try to do our own good works and reject His perfect works on our behalf

· We try to excel academically without arduous study and discipline

· We want good children without good parents

· We want the good life without good work

· We want long life without good health

· We want great men without great women

· and great women without great men

· We want much power without much prayer and little power with no prayer

· We want good sex without real intimacy; and intimacy without true love; and true love without marital commitment; and marriage without God’s blessing; and God’s blessing without His abiding presence; and His presence in our lives without His transformation and transformation without obedience to God’s will

· And then when we suffer the emptiness of failure we look for something to satisfy

· Every human being carries a hole in their soul and an emptiness in the heart

· But nothing can satisfy the emptiness and the void within

· It makes no difference what you try

· Your fine bank account won't satisfy, your fine house won't get it, your fine car won't fix it, your fine woman can’t mend it and your fine husband won't heal it.

· Jacob tried to love two women (pause) but he failed in trying

· His cup of life was never full and neither woman could fill the hole in his soul

· As I read this early this morning I felt so sadfor Jacob and I wished I could help him.

· But he’s been dead for 3000 years so I figured I’d just stop by and help somebody here this morning.

· Honey child, brotherman, sistergirl, ain't nothing can satisfy the hole in your sole

· Just go on and turn to your neighbor and tell’em ain’t nothing gonna satisfy you

· The evidence of Jacob’s failure lives on in the story, It says

· “He loved Rachel but he hated Leah.”

· He was living with Leah, but loving Rachel yawl,

· Now that’s messed up

· Anybody here going through this story… If you’re not then

· Please don’t try this at home

· But how do you deal with failure to satisfy your heart’s longings

· This was Jacob’s problem

· He, like every mother’s child had a hole in his soul and a deep longing in his heart.

· He had a craving for acceptance, value and appreciation

· He had a deep longing for something to make life worth it

· At the end of all his tricks and shenanigans he was empty

· At the end of all his lies he's deeply broken and helpless

· And nobody could fix it.

· But don’t you look down your noses at Jacob

· Because this is everybody’s story

· Every single child of God lives with a void and carries a brokenness

· But here is the real problem…we all do what Jacob did.

· We go out looking for our Rachel and when we find her we work long and hard for her because we believe she will satisfy the void.

· In every aspect of our lives we do this

· We look for this beautiful perfection called Rachel

· We want this

· Rachelistic satisfaction in our work,

· Rachelistic fulfillment in our relationships

· Rachelistic perfection in our spouse

· Rachelistic best leadership from our government, Good luck

· Rachelistic products and services that overdeliver on their promises

· But long after we fall in love with our dream cars

· And move into our dream homes

· And lay down – after marriage now, with our dream lover

· We find out the disappointing news that it does not satisfy

· I don't know who I'm talking to, but I'm just telling somebody

· One day, like Jacob, we all meet our Rachel and fall in love

· We say if only I can have this beautiful Rachel of the perfect job, home, car, bank account, spouse or academic degree I would be happy.

· But it just doesn't work (Yawl looking confused and perplexed)

· You do know Rachel don’t you, skin kissed by the noon day sun

· Rachel, who was honey dipped and sugared and bedecked with outer beauty

· Rachel, with a shapely figure of high speed curves and irresistible charms

· Rachel, who can walk like the wind and talk like an angel

· Rachel, who is elegant and eligible, sensual and seductive

· Rachel, who is cute in the face and small in the waist all done up in lace

· Rachel, with her fine lips, hips and fingertips

· Rachel, so sweet like God put honey under her tongue

· Rachel, with her eyes that shone like starlight and her smile lit up the room.

· Jacob saw Rachel and longed for her emotionally and sexually

· Rachel was so fine the Bible says in Genesis 29:11 when Jacob saw her he kissed her and lifted up his voice and wept

· I like how one preacher puts it,

· He says, when I get to heaven after I see Jesus the very next person I want to see is Rachel

· I just got to see this woman who’s so fine and beautiful that she could make a grown man weep

· Jacob said If I can only have Rachel my life would be complete

· Jacob went all out to get Rachel

· Scholars tell us the average man made about 1.5 shekels monthly

· Most suiters paid 30 to 40 shekels as a dowry for a wife

· The text says Jacob didn’t even negotiate he just blurted it out

· Rachel had him so whipped he said I’ll work 7 years for her

· Add it up…that’s equal to 126 shekels

· Laban didn’t ask for that Laban would have taken 40 shekels

· He said if I can just have her that’ll fix my messed-up life

· If I can just have her that would fix all my disappointments and my failures and restore my value

· So, on the wedding day the bride stood fully veiled before him and after the ceremony and celebration Jacob got busy

· They had no electricity back then so in the cloak and cover of darkness Jacob did the work of the Lord

· But in the morning, there was Leah with her weak, tender eyes

· The translators don’t describe her well so let me help you.

· This text simply means she was just plain old ugly

· She fell down the ugly tree and hit every branch coming down

· And she had to grow up in the shadow of her younger sister

· Can you imagine this tragedy…Nobody noticed her

· She always got picked last…and never felt loved

· She was rejected and despised

· Jacob said but last night when it got so good I reached for you, and I called out Rachel and you answered

· How come you answered when you knew you were not Rachel

· And Leah said just like your Father Isaac called out to Esau and you answered

· How come you answered when you knew you were not Esau?

· Now Jacob finds himself living with Leah but loving Rachel

· Dr. Timothy Keller calls this “the great ground note of cosmic disappointment"

· And you’ll never lead a powerful life until you know that

· Jacob goes to bed with the one.

· He said I finally got the one who will make my life okay.

· But the Hebrew says in the morning behold it was Leah

· Now I like Leah and I won't bad talk her but let me say this

· Every time you get started in a new relationship or get married or start a new job or career, or pursue a new endeavor and you feel like this is finally what I need to make my life complete and satisfy my heart’s deep longings and fill the hole in my soul, in the morning there will always be Leah

· We’re forever going to bed with Rachel but we’re waking up with Leah

· CS Lewis said it best.

· Most people if they really look into the depths of their heart will discover they acutely want something this world will never give them

· There are all sorts of things that offer to give it to you but they never keep their promise.

· The longings that arise when we first fall in love, the new job, the new house, the new car never satisfy the heart’s longings.

· Even if the marriage turned out to be the very best and you love your job and the house shelters you and the car moves you.

· It makes no difference... deep satisfaction always eludes you

· In the morning, it’s always Leah because there is something you want that nothing in the world can satisfy.

· And you end up as one who has perpetually failed in trying

· Because nothing turns out to be exactly the way you pictured it

· Everybody has a picture in your mind of how life would be

· But life never fits your picture

· You’ve got a picture of how your parents should be,

· how your spouse should be,

· how your children should be,

· how your boss should be,

· how your teacher should be,

· how your pastor should be,

· how your friends and relatives should be.

· But life never fits the picture, and most just people give up on life and cling to their picture

· Rarely do we give up on the picture of how life should be and cling to how life really is

· No no no brothers we give up on the girl we have and cling to the picture of the fantasy girl we want

· And Ladies give up on the man they have and cling to the picture of the fantasy man they want

· The ladies I counsel these days all want the same thing

· They're into the dating and the mating game and they've become absorbed with physical structures, shapes, sizes and body parts

· Some of yawl sisters know what I'm talking about

· You know what kind of man is in style and in vogue and GQ

· You want somebody who is a holy child and yet possesses extraordinary physical strength; you want a golden giant, and passionate playboy, and superstar, strongman stud all rolled up in a package of mesmerizing masculinity, sprayed with your choice of Bleu de Chanel, Aqua De Gio Proformo, Molecule 01, Jean Paul Gaultier Ultramale, Versache Pour Homme Dylan Bleu, Docle and Gabbana, La Nuit De L’homme, and soaked in tawdry testosterone.

· As I observe the women in the world today I can't help but notice what they are going for. They want the appearance of Godliness only

· They want someone who is tall and strong and stately

· His body must stand upright like the root of a tree

· They want rippling muscles that are like steel wrapped around iron

· They want erect shoulders and broad backs and V-shaped trunks

· They want good looks and distinctive features

· They want somebody who is the heartthrob of every woman and the envy of every man

· They Denzel Washington's good looks

· Bill Gates Wallet

· Barry Whites voice

· And the men of the world are no different

· Every young man seems to be looking for a fine Delilah

· They want someone who will talk to a spiritual man but not be too spiritual with the man

· They want the Holy virgin Mary in public and the uncoverted Mary Magdelene behind closed closed doors

· And they're singing "Give me one more night and I'll be good to you."

· But all too often and all too late they found out that

· That what they thought they had was not what they have

· And what they thought they have is not what they want

· And what they thought they want is not what they really need

· And what they thought they needed doesn't satisfy their souls

· And they're walking through life clinging to this fantasy picture

· With a cry that says, "Have you seen him?" Have you seen her?

· This was Jacob's problem.

· He had a picture in his head of Rachel but life gave him Leah

· What do you do when life doesn’t fit your picture and you have failed in trying to make it work? And it doesn’t fit the hole in your soul

· What do you do when you’ve done the best you know how and still somehow, you come up short, you come up empty, Langston Hughes asks the question.

· What happens to a dream differed

· Does it dry up like a raison in the sun

· Does it fester like a sore then run

· Does it stink like rotten meat

· Or crust and sugar like a syrupy sweet

· Or maybe sag like a heavy load and then explode

· What do you do when you’re beaten and battered and broken and bruised and then life gives you another blow.

· What do you do with loneliness, despair and deep longings?

· What do you do when the sun of your hope sinks beneath the western hill of your nothingness and the moon refuses to shine not even from the borrowed light of that inferno called the sun.

· What do you do when you go home and there’s nobody there to love you, hug you or even talk to you.

· What do you do when you wait by your bedside for the phone to ring but somehow Love doesn’t call you, and Hope forgets your address.

· Friends turn to critics, enemies to cynics, church folks don’t know how to treat you not even in God’s house.

· What do you do when your children love others more than they love you and your husband says he loves you but he proves it to four and five other women

· What do you do young ladies when the man of your dreams takes you over beyond yonder hill and there promises you the world, the moon and the stars and nine months later you end up with the sun and he’s nowhere to be found.

· What do you do when you go to bed with Rachel but wake up with Leah

Everybody Has A Problem

Is there anybody here who can testify?

I went to bed with Rachel but I woke up with Leah

Everybody has a problem. Everybody has something. You aught not point fingers at anybody else because of their problem. Because you have one of your own. Someone said there is enough bad in the best of us and enough good in the worst of us to keep all of us from pointing fingers at any of us.

Everybody goes to bed with Rachel but wakes up with Leah

Everybody has a problem that’s haunting their business somewhere. And to be sure I believe everybody aught to have a business of their own. And if you have no business you ought to make it your business to leave other people’s business alone.

Because everybody has a problem of their own

Everybody goes to bed with Rachel but wakes up with Leah

Everybody must cry sometime

I don’t care if you wipe your tears with a silken hanky, or dry your tears with a paper napkin.

Everybody has to cry sometime

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

Everybody has to pace the floor sometime

I don’t care if you walk on marble tiles with leather shoes or walk on wooden floors with your tattered, callous, bare feet

Everybody has to pace the floor sometime

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

Everybody has to go through something

Either it’s a fire or a flood or a storm

I don’t care if you ride out your storm in an ocean liner

Or if you barely make it in a rubber dingy

Everybody has to go through something

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

Everybody has a dark midnight

I don’t care if you light your path with

A stadium style mega watt flood light

Or if you pick your way with a paraffin wax candle

Everybody has a dark midnight

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

Everybody has a problem

Either it’s a burden you can’t bear

Or a cross you can’t carry

Or a death you can’t deal with

Or an evil you can’t end

Or it’s a mountain you can’t move

Or a problem you can’t solve

Or a question you can’t answer

Or a sickness you can’t cure

Or a girl you can’t get

Or a man who doesn’t love you

Or a child who won’t obey.

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

If it’s not separatism its secularism

If it’s not secularism it’s racism

If it’s not racism it’s prejudice

If it’s not prejudice it’s segregation

If it’s not segregation it’s defamation

If it’s not defamation it’s degradation

If it’s not degradation it’s incrimination

If it’s not Incrimination it’s investigation

If it’s not Investigation it’s intimidation

If it’s not Intimidation it’s incarceration

If it’s not Incarceration it’s probation

If it’s not probation it’s masturbation

If it’s not masturbation it’s abomination

If it’s not abomination it’s damnation

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

If it’s not disaster it’s disease

If it’s not Colitis it’s arthritis

If it’s not arthritis it’s dermatitis

If it’s not dermatitis it’s hepatitis

If it’s not hepatitis it’s gingivitis

If it’s not gingivitis it’s flobitis

If it’s not flobitis it’s your health

If it’s not health it’s your wealth

If it’s not wealth it’s your job

If it’s not your job it’s your unemployment

If it’s not unemployment it’s underemployment

If it’s not underemployment it’s hell on the job

If it’s not hell on the job it’s bad credit

If it’s not bad credit it’s slow credit

If it’s not slow credit it’s no credit

If it’s not no credit then you still don’t get it

Because everybody’s got a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

In your community

If it’s not street gang wars, it’s street girl whores

If it’s not whores, it’s baby daddy drama

If it’s not drama, it’s cocaine

If it’s not cocaine, it’s somebody raising cain

If it’s not somebody raising cain, then it’s crack

If it’s not crack then it’s Jack – Jack and Jill going up that hill

If it’s not jack it’s heroin

If It’s not heroin, it’s marijuana

If it’s not marijuana, it’s alcohol

If it’s not alcohol it’s nicotine

If it’s not nicotine, its caffeine

If it’s not caffeine, it’s Josephine

Because everybody has a problem and you’re waking up with Leah

· But I like Leah and I’m thankful for her because God works miracles for her and through her.

· So I just came to ask Leah’s question this morning and share how God worked in her life

· This great Matriarch in Israel grew up as the ugly duckling and she also lived with an emptiness and a deep void in her heart

· All she wanted was for Jacob to love her

· Her heart’s cry and longing was please don’t look past me

· All my life people have been look past me to gaze at my sister

· Won’t you just acknowledge me and cherish me and love me, and value me and accept me

· She tried to get Jacob’s but she failed in trying

· How do you handle your heart’s deep longings?

· I gotta quit now, but there’s a message in Leah’s story

· You know failure is not fatal, it’s a finding place.

· When you’ve failed in trying don’t quit, don’t give up, Just stay right there and make your failure a finding situation but that’s not the message

· You can find the hope, find the victory, find the joy and find the blessing in it but that still won’t get it.

· You can be faithful in trusting God’s gonna work it out and if you just trust then God’s gonna fix it

· And he who has begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it in you but that’s not it either

· There’s a message that shows how God satisfies empty hearts

· Leah had to Find God’s providence…

· What’s God doing in her life?

· What’s God up to in her life?

· What’s God doing in her affairs?

· Looking back to chapter 28 you see God standing at the top of Jacobs ladder

· And the angels of God were ascending and descending

· Pagan gods always sat up high so humans must rise to meet them

· In Genesis 11 when they were building the tower of Babel

· They were building a religion where humans go up to God

· We say the word Babel means confusion because God confounded their language

· But Babel is made of two words

· Bab which means Gate

· El which means God

· They were building a gate to God

· They said we will find our way back to God by ourselves.

· We don’t need God because we can go to God on our own

· We can fix our own problem and satisfy our own needs

· But in Jacob’s dream God doesn’t stay at the top of the ladder

· Verse 15 records God saying, “behold I am with you and will keep you in all places wherever you go and will bring you again into this land for I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken to thee

· And Jacob awaked out of his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God and this is the gate of heaven

· Jacob is saying, in my dream God didn’t stay at the top of the ladder and wait for me to improve myself and fix myself and become successful so I can get up to God

· In my dream God came down the ladder

· All through scripture the Yahweh God is always the God who comes down to meet with man

· We sing, “we are climbing Jacob’s ladder,” It should be…

· “Our God comes down Jacobs ladder”

· And in this story that’s exactly what God does

· Usually it was the man who named the child.

· But Leah names each child according to her search for God’s providence

· Reuben – God Sees – He sits high but He’s looking low and He’s peered His eyes through the telescope of His Divinity and He’s seen my affliction and now God’s gonna fix it for me and give me Jacob’s love.

· But bless your heart she failed in trying

· Simeon – God Hears – She says not only did He see my affliction but He has cocked His ear in my direction and He has heard my cry, my weeping and my wailing. And now God’s gonna fix it for me and give me Jacob’s love

· But bless your heart saints of God she failed in trying

· Levi – God has joined us together – She is saying not only has God seen my affliction. And not only has God heard my cry, but now, finally, He has reached down very near and nigh and He has intimately joined Jacob and me together

· But bless your heart brothers and sisters she failed in trying

· Judah – My Praise – She is saying, “Well if I can’t get Jacob’s love. If God won’t give me Jacobs love….

· Though… even though He has seen my affliction and heard my cry and joined us together

· But He still won’t make Jacob love me

· I’m gonna praise God anyhow – And that’s God’s providence

· God wanted Leah to learn how to praise him.

· Our God comes down in the praises of his people

· You’ve got to praise him in the good times

· Praise him in the bad times

· Then praise him all the times in between

· Praise him in your failures and through your reject

· Praise him in your setbacks and your get backs

· Praise him in your downs and your let downs

· Is there anybody here who knows how to praise?

· Somebody said when praises go up then the blessings come down.

· Leah’s created to praise, born to praise, named to praise

· Leah’s very name means weary, offended and grieved

· And through her praise she shouts a message that ricochets down through the corridors of time resounds in the halls of humanity

· That message is

· You don’t need sunshine and good times to praise Him

· You don’t need candy and nuts and chocolate heresy kisses to praise Him

· And you don’t love and money, success and honey to praise Him

· And you don’t need houses and lands and fine cars to praise Him

· True praise is the expression of joy in surrender to the will of God

· And it doesn’t matter that I’m weary and grieved and offended because I’ve failed in trying to get Jacob’s love.

· She says I finally found what will satisfy my heart’s longings

· I’ve found what will fill my emptiness and my void

· I’ve found one who can quench my thirst and feed my hunger

· I’ve found the one who can deal with the hole in my soul

· It’s not what God can give me…It is God and God alone

· Not the pagan Gods that ask you to come up and rise and do better and fix yourself before they’ll accept you

· But the God Yahweh who says I’m coming down to man

· And Sister Leah doesn’t even know it but I did a little research and I found out something

· You see Judah is the great great great great great great granddaddy of Jesus

· God says I’m not gonna make Jacob love you But because you’ve been rejected I’ll give you Jesus through your praise.

· And 2000 years ago he stepped down through 42 generations

· Wrapped himself in Mary’s belly where he picked up just enough flesh and blood to die on a cross

· But early Sunday morning he arose from the tomb

· With all power in his hands

· He put on foot on death and the other foot on the grave and looked the devil in the eye and said “I got the keys to hell death and the grave”

· I hear Him say Father gave me a little dark night in Bethlehem but I turned it into an eternal day

· You gave me a tiny stable with a manger, some cattle and some hay, but I consecrated it as a shrine forever

· You gave me the dust of the Earth but I turned it into a pharmaceutical plant and made salve that could open up blind eyes

· You gave me His Word and I forged it into a weapon that made demons tremble, made the lame walk and made the dead rise again

· You gave me some unpromising fisherman but I made them penmen of the New Testament, I made the foundation stones of a new church

· You gave me a cruel Roman cross upon which they hung me high and stretched me wide, I rolled my eyes and swung my head in the locks of my shoulders and there I died. But still in death I opened up a fountain filled with blood so that sinners plunged beneath that flow lose all their guilty stains

· You gave me a borrowed tomb but I opened up a gateway to eternity

· And now I can satisfy any empty hearts and fill the hole in the human soul and transform anybody

· Halleleujah for Jesus Christ the lamb of God

· If you find that you’ve failed in trying and you’ve been rejected and unappreciated and not valued God has come down to you in the person of Jesus Christ

· He wants to satisfy your heart. He wants to fill your soul

· He wants to heal your brokenness

· He says behold I stand at the door and knock and if anybody hears my voice and opens the door I will come in

· Does some body wanna let Jesus in today.