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Bible Verse
[Normally] Prayer for Church
*******
I see many of you men didn’t heed my warning, I really am preaching
And because in seminary they told me not to manuscript
I saw this, this is me this morning
Some of you women got to hear the better Keen speak
Some of you don't like the self-effacing comments
Stabbed myself
Wheat Thins Kung Fu Fighting
I know my brand
Excited, fun, weird passage
Jerry springer type family dynamics, weird animal breeding practices, stolen idols, calling death down upon own one family members, and bursting bubbles for friendship bracelets, this passage has it all
It’s so quirky, and long, Gen 30:25-31:55, 68 verses, no second service/open up grub now
Originally I wasn’t going to read it, but we’re going to read quite a bit
More than me the text has the power for you to see what’s happening
In this passage God is clearly working in the background
All sorts of human sideshows in the foreground
Lot of rabbits in this passage
People going every which direction
God stays steady
Passage will open with Jacob away from the Promised Land and nothing to his name
Both of these are problems in the divine plan that God will work through all the sideshows, all the human gyrations, attempts at manipulation, and missteps to fix.
The people will be doing all sorts of whatever, they’re not going to fix it
At times it seems they’re actively trying to make things worse
God’s going to fix it
For Patriarchs this a period to be wealthy & live in the land, a foreshadowing of what should come for Israel after the time in Egypt
Jacob has neither, God’s working in the background to fix that.
Read 30:25-31
OK, look, Laban practicing divination, wrong
God still leads him to the right answer
I’m being blessed by Yahweh because Jacob is working for me.
Totally natural that he wants him to stay
Jacob wants payment for his work, again totally natural
Regular workplace scenario
They work out a payment structure.
Jacob will take care of Laban’s flocks
The usual sheep and goat are solid colors
Jacob’s going to get all the funny looking ones.
Read 30:32-36
Don’t get lost, Solid Laban, striped, speckled, polka dotted, stone washed, whatever’s not solid, Jacob
Can tell right away if Jacob has stolen
Great.
From here Laban who knows he’s doing well because God is looking after Jacob, he should treat Jacob well
Jacob, who now gets paid because Laban likes his work, should do well by his boss.
But you’ve got two shady characters in an agreement together, and the whole thing breaks down
What your going to see next are Jacob’s breeding practices to try and tilt all the sheep and goats away from Laban to him.
Again there’s rabbits all over here.
Two things, this is supertsious nonsense, it doesn’t actually work
Also, more importantly, he’s totally scamming his boss
Read 30:37-43
Again, here it might sound like it worked, but ignore that. We’ll circle back to that.
It’s totally unethical
It jepordizes Jacob
Read 31:1-5
So Jacob’s been poking the bear
Now he has to get out of Dodge
He’s cooked the golden goose
Keep reading
31:6
Wrong. You’ve been actively bilking him for 6 years
But watch
Two things
Remember two shady characters
God’s working through it anyways
Read 31:7-12
Laban has been acting against his interests, He has been acting against God
God keeps having to intervene and protect Jacob against him
He should be appealing to the God who has been blessing him through Jacob, instead he’s attacking the vessel through which God had been blessing him.
God’s using all of this to make Jacob wealthy
What does that mean?
The sticks weren’t doing anything
It was God
So God has used all this human manipulation, deceit, backstabbing, awfulness for His purposes.
He’s fixed the Jacob has nothing problem
And as you might guess, he’s fixing the Jacob doesn’t live in the Promised Land problem
Read 31:13-16
Not only do we see they’re going to return to the Promised Land
Confirmation
Laban has been acting badly
God is transferring the wealth
Even these sisters are united
Read 31:17-28
I’ll give it to Laban
How would you feel if your kids just up and left
God has been protecting Jacob
But
Would Laban have thrown them this big party, let them go on their merry way, and take away all of his the livestock Jacob had acquired from him?
Get real, of course not
Read 31:29
Laban pretty much admits it.
Interlude
I get why you want to go home
You know me your friendly Californian here
I been sojourning in the land of Idaho, nigh 11 trips around the sun
I get why Jacob wants to go home
We just visited Sacramento last month, it’s home
I get why you want to go home
Why’d you steal my gods?
Rebecca has stolen them
We don’t know why
She’s not alone
Ch.35 Enough idols throughout entire family Jacob makes them turn them all over and buries them
Echoes of Israelite history
Coming out of Egypt
Ezekiel 20:7-8
And I said to them, ‘Throw away, each of you, the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.’ 8 But they rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me; they did not throw away, each of them, the detestable things of their eyes, nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt.
As God was leading them to the Promised Land, they had idols with them
Amos 5:25-26
]Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, house of Israel? 26 You also carried along [r]Sikkuth your king and [s]Kiyyun, your images, [t]the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.
Israel always had idols on the side
Here’s some more
Israel had idols on the side. Ezekiel is shown all of Judah’s leaders serving other gods in secret. Jeremiah, the people left after the Babylonian conquest blame it on them stopping their worship of a goddess
Why did she do it?
Don’t know, but seeing it crop up here, with the first generations, it’s chilling
Then Jacob and Laban set up a covenant to not harm each other and Jacob not take any more wives
Famous quote
Read 31: 49
Given the context:
Not a nice thing for a friendship braclet
But if you’re looking for an I don’t trust you, so may God smite you if you do me wrong bracelet, it’s perfect
What do we learn from this?
Stop gyrating, and let God cook
We see God moving in the background
Everyone knows he’s moving, but they’re all still doing they’re thing, as if it depends on them
I’m so like that always got an angle, or agenda, fearful to say that, works against my plans
If you’re like me, when you look in the rearview mirror you see God working, weaving together a complex, but skillful plan, taking obedience, disobedience, mistakes, missteps, pain, joy, heartache, using it all to His purposes. Do I like it all? No. I do not. Can I see some logic to it. Sometimes. But God is working through awful humanity, and awful me
Me I go along with my sister on a trip to look at colleges
I fall in love with Biola in LA
I enter the same dorm and majors at Nathan Steiner, we become fast friends, I move to Idaho, I’m about to leave, I meet Rachel, now you’re stuck with me. History since Fall of 1999 in one paragraph
Didn’t see it until it happened
Don’t understand what’s happening now
But looking backwards I can see that God works.
So I can stop gyrating, trying to manipulate, always having an angle and just let God cook.
Let God cook.
Let someone cook: To allow a person [God] to do their thing, pursue a creative idea, or continue a complex task without interruption, frustrating the result, trusting that the result will be impressive, entertaining, or successful.
You may understand it better the way Brian said it.
God is pursuing a complex plan, that also involves you, mindblowing, I know, but God take care of it and trust Him. We don’t have to do our little things to help Him along. Now we do have responsibility and get to partner with him, but not at odds with His will and the clear direction He is taking
I’ve talked about me, same applies for you
How can you, how can we together stop gyrating and let God cook through all the circumstances in our lives
Baby steps
Prayer
Make a list
Short-circuit
Come up with a plan
Observe the results
Pray again
Can I mess things up?
I believe you have agency. But other people do too
So I‘m going to lay everyone’s action at their own feet
Ebeneezar Scrooge and his understanding at the end of his visions, at least in The Muppets Christmas Carol, why am I seeing this if it’s not too late
You might have to buy out the whole Christmas store
Jesus says if you and your neighbor are on the way to the judge, quickly make any deal you can with them, because it can always get worse
Look who God worked through
Vying for Jacob’s affection
Giving him their servants as slave wives
Jacob is pretty pathetic in all this
Most of the men in Genesis are
This is normally where I make some self-effacing remark
But I haven’t ever tricked my father
Blurted out “she’s my sister” about Rachel out of a mistaken fear of death
Not polygamist, or polyamorous
No blatant favoritism amongst my own children
We called this section of our sermon series in Genesis: God Chose Him (referring to Jacob)?
Original title I had suggested to Brian was:
These people? Really?
It’s a very low bar
Don’t forget the interludes coming up where Jacob’s sons trick all the men in a whole town to get circumcised and then kill them when they’re in too much pain to fight back
Or Judah, who sleeps with his daughter-in-law thinking she’s a prostitute, then when she gets pregnant wants to put her to death, until oops, she’s laid a trap where she proves he’s the father
Having said all that, God works through all these people’s mess. He can work through mine, He can work through yours
Should I do nothing?
Do we do nothing and let God take care of it all?
The passage I hear most connected to this is Isaac and Rebecca
True Isaac does nothing, because Abraham does all the work, hey servant, go here, find these specific people, give them these extravagant gifts, go buy a wife for my son
Is blessing guaranteed if I have faith
Does faith mean everything will go well for us?
Hebrews 11:32-40
And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their [w]release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others [x]experienced mocking and flogging, and further, chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, [y]they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented 38 (people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, on mountains, and sheltering in caves and holes [z]in the ground.
39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive [aa]what was promised, 40 because God had [ab]provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
If these aren’t the most overlooked verses of the Bible
Some shut the mouths of lions, some were sawn in two, none received the promise
So I’m not up here to promise health and wealth
Our role is to trust, to stop gyrating, and let God cook
I’m going to struggle with that, not only this week, but the rest of my life. You might too.
Pray
And the peace of God, which surpasses all [f]comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Bible Verse
[Normally] Prayer for Church
*******
I see many of you men didn’t heed my warning, I really am preaching
And because in seminary they told me not to manuscript
I saw this, this is me this morning
Some of you women got to hear the better Keen speak
Some of you don't like the self-effacing comments
Stabbed myself
Wheat Thins Kung Fu Fighting
I know my brand
Excited, fun, weird passage
Jerry springer type family dynamics, weird animal breeding practices, stolen idols, calling death down upon own one family members, and bursting bubbles for friendship bracelets, this passage has it all
It’s so quirky, and long, Gen 30:25-31:55, 68 verses, no second service/open up grub now
Originally I wasn’t going to read it, but we’re going to read quite a bit
More than me the text has the power for you to see what’s happening
In this passage God is clearly working in the background
All sorts of human sideshows in the foreground
Lot of rabbits in this passage
People going every which direction
God stays steady
Passage will open with Jacob away from the Promised Land and nothing to his name
Both of these are problems in the divine plan that God will work through all the sideshows, all the human gyrations, attempts at manipulation, and missteps to fix.
The people will be doing all sorts of whatever, they’re not going to fix it
At times it seems they’re actively trying to make things worse
God’s going to fix it
For Patriarchs this a period to be wealthy & live in the land, a foreshadowing of what should come for Israel after the time in Egypt
Jacob has neither, God’s working in the background to fix that.
Read 30:25-31
OK, look, Laban practicing divination, wrong
God still leads him to the right answer
I’m being blessed by Yahweh because Jacob is working for me.
Totally natural that he wants him to stay
Jacob wants payment for his work, again totally natural
Regular workplace scenario
They work out a payment structure.
Jacob will take care of Laban’s flocks
The usual sheep and goat are solid colors
Jacob’s going to get all the funny looking ones.
Read 30:32-36
Don’t get lost, Solid Laban, striped, speckled, polka dotted, stone washed, whatever’s not solid, Jacob
Can tell right away if Jacob has stolen
Great.
From here Laban who knows he’s doing well because God is looking after Jacob, he should treat Jacob well
Jacob, who now gets paid because Laban likes his work, should do well by his boss.
But you’ve got two shady characters in an agreement together, and the whole thing breaks down
What your going to see next are Jacob’s breeding practices to try and tilt all the sheep and goats away from Laban to him.
Again there’s rabbits all over here.
Two things, this is supertsious nonsense, it doesn’t actually work
Also, more importantly, he’s totally scamming his boss
Read 30:37-43
Again, here it might sound like it worked, but ignore that. We’ll circle back to that.
It’s totally unethical
It jepordizes Jacob
Read 31:1-5
So Jacob’s been poking the bear
Now he has to get out of Dodge
He’s cooked the golden goose
Keep reading
31:6
Wrong. You’ve been actively bilking him for 6 years
But watch
Two things
Remember two shady characters
God’s working through it anyways
Read 31:7-12
Laban has been acting against his interests, He has been acting against God
God keeps having to intervene and protect Jacob against him
He should be appealing to the God who has been blessing him through Jacob, instead he’s attacking the vessel through which God had been blessing him.
God’s using all of this to make Jacob wealthy
What does that mean?
The sticks weren’t doing anything
It was God
So God has used all this human manipulation, deceit, backstabbing, awfulness for His purposes.
He’s fixed the Jacob has nothing problem
And as you might guess, he’s fixing the Jacob doesn’t live in the Promised Land problem
Read 31:13-16
Not only do we see they’re going to return to the Promised Land
Confirmation
Laban has been acting badly
God is transferring the wealth
Even these sisters are united
Read 31:17-28
I’ll give it to Laban
How would you feel if your kids just up and left
God has been protecting Jacob
But
Would Laban have thrown them this big party, let them go on their merry way, and take away all of his the livestock Jacob had acquired from him?
Get real, of course not
Read 31:29
Laban pretty much admits it.
Interlude
I get why you want to go home
You know me your friendly Californian here
I been sojourning in the land of Idaho, nigh 11 trips around the sun
I get why Jacob wants to go home
We just visited Sacramento last month, it’s home
I get why you want to go home
Why’d you steal my gods?
Rebecca has stolen them
We don’t know why
She’s not alone
Ch.35 Enough idols throughout entire family Jacob makes them turn them all over and buries them
Echoes of Israelite history
Coming out of Egypt
Ezekiel 20:7-8
And I said to them, ‘Throw away, each of you, the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.’ 8 But they rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me; they did not throw away, each of them, the detestable things of their eyes, nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt.
As God was leading them to the Promised Land, they had idols with them
Amos 5:25-26
]Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, house of Israel? 26 You also carried along [r]Sikkuth your king and [s]Kiyyun, your images, [t]the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.
Israel always had idols on the side
Here’s some more
Israel had idols on the side. Ezekiel is shown all of Judah’s leaders serving other gods in secret. Jeremiah, the people left after the Babylonian conquest blame it on them stopping their worship of a goddess
Why did she do it?
Don’t know, but seeing it crop up here, with the first generations, it’s chilling
Then Jacob and Laban set up a covenant to not harm each other and Jacob not take any more wives
Famous quote
Read 31: 49
Given the context:
Not a nice thing for a friendship braclet
But if you’re looking for an I don’t trust you, so may God smite you if you do me wrong bracelet, it’s perfect
What do we learn from this?
Stop gyrating, and let God cook
We see God moving in the background
Everyone knows he’s moving, but they’re all still doing they’re thing, as if it depends on them
I’m so like that always got an angle, or agenda, fearful to say that, works against my plans
If you’re like me, when you look in the rearview mirror you see God working, weaving together a complex, but skillful plan, taking obedience, disobedience, mistakes, missteps, pain, joy, heartache, using it all to His purposes. Do I like it all? No. I do not. Can I see some logic to it. Sometimes. But God is working through awful humanity, and awful me
Me I go along with my sister on a trip to look at colleges
I fall in love with Biola in LA
I enter the same dorm and majors at Nathan Steiner, we become fast friends, I move to Idaho, I’m about to leave, I meet Rachel, now you’re stuck with me. History since Fall of 1999 in one paragraph
Didn’t see it until it happened
Don’t understand what’s happening now
But looking backwards I can see that God works.
So I can stop gyrating, trying to manipulate, always having an angle and just let God cook.
Let God cook.
Let someone cook: To allow a person [God] to do their thing, pursue a creative idea, or continue a complex task without interruption, frustrating the result, trusting that the result will be impressive, entertaining, or successful.
You may understand it better the way Brian said it.
God is pursuing a complex plan, that also involves you, mindblowing, I know, but God take care of it and trust Him. We don’t have to do our little things to help Him along. Now we do have responsibility and get to partner with him, but not at odds with His will and the clear direction He is taking
I’ve talked about me, same applies for you
How can you, how can we together stop gyrating and let God cook through all the circumstances in our lives
Baby steps
Prayer
Make a list
Short-circuit
Come up with a plan
Observe the results
Pray again
Can I mess things up?
I believe you have agency. But other people do too
So I‘m going to lay everyone’s action at their own feet
Ebeneezar Scrooge and his understanding at the end of his visions, at least in The Muppets Christmas Carol, why am I seeing this if it’s not too late
You might have to buy out the whole Christmas store
Jesus says if you and your neighbor are on the way to the judge, quickly make any deal you can with them, because it can always get worse
Look who God worked through
Vying for Jacob’s affection
Giving him their servants as slave wives
Jacob is pretty pathetic in all this
Most of the men in Genesis are
This is normally where I make some self-effacing remark
But I haven’t ever tricked my father
Blurted out “she’s my sister” about Rachel out of a mistaken fear of death
Not polygamist, or polyamorous
No blatant favoritism amongst my own children
We called this section of our sermon series in Genesis: God Chose Him (referring to Jacob)?
Original title I had suggested to Brian was:
These people? Really?
It’s a very low bar
Don’t forget the interludes coming up where Jacob’s sons trick all the men in a whole town to get circumcised and then kill them when they’re in too much pain to fight back
Or Judah, who sleeps with his daughter-in-law thinking she’s a prostitute, then when she gets pregnant wants to put her to death, until oops, she’s laid a trap where she proves he’s the father
Having said all that, God works through all these people’s mess. He can work through mine, He can work through yours
Should I do nothing?
Do we do nothing and let God take care of it all?
The passage I hear most connected to this is Isaac and Rebecca
True Isaac does nothing, because Abraham does all the work, hey servant, go here, find these specific people, give them these extravagant gifts, go buy a wife for my son
Is blessing guaranteed if I have faith
Does faith mean everything will go well for us?
Hebrews 11:32-40
And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their [w]release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others [x]experienced mocking and flogging, and further, chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, [y]they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented 38 (people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, on mountains, and sheltering in caves and holes [z]in the ground.
39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive [aa]what was promised, 40 because God had [ab]provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
If these aren’t the most overlooked verses of the Bible
Some shut the mouths of lions, some were sawn in two, none received the promise
So I’m not up here to promise health and wealth
Our role is to trust, to stop gyrating, and let God cook
I’m going to struggle with that, not only this week, but the rest of my life. You might too.
Pray
And the peace of God, which surpasses all [f]comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.