Sermon Summary: The School of Hard Knocks

Sermon Text: Genesis 29

Sermon Summary:

In today’s sermon, Nick delves into the challenging narrative of Jacob’s journey in Genesis 29. He explores the themes of deception, blessing, and the unexpected twists and turns life can take.

The sermon begins by recounting Jacob’s deceitful act of stealing his brother Esau’s blessing. This deception leads to Jacob’s flight from his home and his subsequent journey to Paddan Aram.

As Jacob arrives at Paddan Aram, he encounters Rachel, Laban’s daughter, and falls in love with her. He agrees to work for Laban for seven years in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage. However, on his wedding night, Jacob is tricked by Laban and married to Leah, Rachel’s older sister.

Despite this setback, Jacob continues to work for Laban, eventually marrying Rachel as well. The sermon highlights the contrast between Jacob’s love for Rachel and his indifference towards Leah.

Nick then shifts the focus to the concept of “the school of hard knocks.” He suggests that Jacob’s experiences, filled with challenges and disappointments, are a form of spiritual training. The blessing that Jacob received from his father, while significant, did not guarantee a smooth and easy life. Instead, it set him on a path of discovery and growth.

The sermon emphasizes that the blessings in our lives may not always manifest in the ways we expect. It’s through the challenges and hardships we face that we truly learn and grow as individuals. Nick encourages the congregation to view their own struggles as opportunities for spiritual development, rather than as setbacks.

The sermon also highlights the importance of perseverance and trust in God. Even in the face of adversity, Jacob’s faith in God remained steadfast. His story serves as a reminder that God’s plans for our lives are often greater than our own.

Bible References:

• Genesis 29

Key Themes:

• Deception and its consequences
• The nature of blessings and their unexpected manifestations
• The concept of “the school of hard knocks”
• Perseverance and trust in God
• The importance of spiritual growth through challenges
• The unseen blessings and purposes within life’s hardships

Conclusion:

The sermon concludes by encouraging the congregation to embrace their own “school of hard knocks” as a path towards spiritual growth and a deeper relationship with God. It reminds them that even in the midst of challenges, God’s love and faithfulness remain steadfast.

Transcript

We’re on Genesis 29, by the way, racing through. We are in the middle of coming into a collection
of passages that are challenging, to say the least. I knew someone some years ago who,
they went to prison, actually, and while they were in prison, they didn’t have anything
to read, so they decided to read the Bible. It was the first time that they’d really engaged
with the Bible, and so they read it over and over and over again. And he got really fascinated
by these passages in Genesis, and he said, well, and his honest assessment of it was,
it’s like Coronation Street. So much going on, and so many things that you think, well,
what’s going on there? You couldn’t write this stuff, do you know what I mean? But obviously
somebody has. But my title this morning is The School of Hard Knocks, and we’re dealing
with Jacob, who has stolen the blessing, if you like, or taken an opportunity to get a
blessing that wasn’t actually rightfully his, and yet he conspired with his mother to get
that blessing from his father, and then as a result, as we’ve heard over the weeks, has
had to flee away from his brother, who wants to kill him for what he’s done. And so he’s
on this long, hard journey that has been reflected many times, doesn’t actually look
like the blessing he was expecting. This is challenging stuff. And so, in Genesis 29,
we’ve got Jacob arriving at Paddan Aram, and I’m going to read it, we’ve got a little bit
of time, I’m going to read it, because I know we can do a synopsis and we can, but unless
we actually read it in the Scripture, we don’t always grasp what we’re talking about. I could
start talking about something and think, where did he get that from? So it’s good that we
root what we say in the actual passage.
So then Jacob hurried on, finally arriving in the land of the east. He saw a well in
the distance. Three flocks of sheep and goats lay in an open field beside it, waiting to
be watered, but a heavy stone covered the mouth of the well. It was the custom there
to wait for all the flocks to arrive before removing the stone and watering the animals.
Afterward, the stone would be placed back over the mouth of the well. Jacob went over
to the shepherds and asked, where are you from, my friends? We are from Haran, they
answered. Do you know a man there named Laban, the grandson of Nahor, he asked. Yes, we do,
they replied. Is he doing well, Jacob asked. Yes, he’s well, they answered. It’s fascinating,
isn’t it? Look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the flock now. Jacob said, look, it’s
still broad daylight, too early to round up the animals. Why don’t you water the sheep
and goats so they can get back out to pasture? Lots of detail. We can’t water the animals
until all the flocks have arrived, they replied. Then the shepherds move the stone from the
mouth of the well and we water all the sheep and the goats. You get the gist. Jacob was
still, beginning to choke on it, Jacob was still talking with them when Rachel arrived
with her father’s flock, for she was a shepherd. And because Rachel was his cousin, the daughter
of Laban, his mother’s brother, and because the sheep and goats belonged to his uncle
Laban, Jacob went over to the well and moved the stone from its mouth and watered his uncle’s
flock. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and he wept aloud. No comment about what Rachel did. He
explained to Rachel that he was her cousin on her father’s side, the son of her aunt
Rebecca, so Rachel quickly ran and told her father Laban. As soon as Laban heard that
his nephew Jacob had arrived, he ran out to meet him. He embraced and kissed him and brought
him home. When Jacob had told him his story, Laban explained, you really are my own flesh
and blood. After Jacob had stayed with Laban for about a month, Laban said to him, you
couldn’t work for me without pay just because we are relatives. Tell me how much your wages
should be. Now Laban had two daughters. The older daughter was named Leah, and the younger
one was Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah’s eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and
a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, I’ll work for
you for seven years if you’ll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife. Agreed,
Laban replied. I’d rather give her to you than to anyone else. Stay and work with me.
So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel, but his love for her was so strong that it
seemed to him but a few days. Finally, the time came for him to marry her. I have fulfilled
my agreement, Jacob said to Laban. Now give me my wife so I can sleep with her. So Laban
invited everyone in the neighbourhood and prepared a wedding feast. But that night,
when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob, thank you, and he slept with her. Laban had
given Leah a servant, Zilpa, to be her maid. But when Jacob woke up in the morning, it
was Leah. What have you done to me, Jacob raised at Laban? I worked seven years for
Rachel. Why have you tricked me? It’s not our custom here to marry off a younger daughter
ahead of the firstborn, Laban replied. But wait until the bridal week is over, then we’ll
give you Rachel, too. Provided you promise to work for another seven years. Laban’s onto
something here, isn’t he? So Jacob agreed to work seven more years. A week after Jacob
had married Leah, Laban gave him Rachel, too. Laban gave Rachel a servant, Bilhar,
to be her maid. So Jacob slept with Rachel, too, and he loved her much more than Leah.
He then stayed and worked for Laban the additional seven years. When the Lord saw that Leah was
unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive. So Leah became
pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said the Lord has noticed
my misery and now my husband will love me. She soon became pregnant again and gave birth
to another son. She named him Simeon, for she said the Lord heard that I was unloved
and has given me another son. Then she became pregnant a third time and gave birth to another
son. He was named Levi, for she said surely this time my husband will feel affection for
me since I have given him three sons. Once again Leah became pregnant and gave birth
to another son. She named him Judah, for she said, now I will praise the Lord. And then
she stopped having children. Amen? You can see why they say, when we’ve got the rotor
going forward about who’s going to speak on a Sunday morning, of all the series, this
is the one that gets people flicking through the Bible reading. Where’s my passage? What’s
it going to be about? I know Andy’s already researching for the next one. The school of
hard knocks, focused on Jacob. I mean, Jacob, I mean the mind boggles. I’m not sure what
was in his mind or what he thought the blessing would mean, but clearly things weren’t working
out as he planned. Here was Jacob the trickster, the one who had conspired to get the blessing,
and suddenly he finds what goes around comes around, and he’s in the middle of a situation
where somebody else has double-crossed him. He’s thinking, this isn’t fair. This isn’t
the way it’s supposed to be. This isn’t what happens to blessed people. This is something,
you know, I’m Jacob. I’m the big man. I carry the blessing of my father, and yet things
weren’t working out as he planned. They do say, be careful what you wish for, and if
Jacob thought that the blessing he received meant a passport to an easy and trouble-free
life, then he was mistaken, sadly mistaken. For him, I suppose, at the outset, the blessing,
that moment where he said to his father, give me the, or he sort of put himself in the place
of his brother to receive that blessing, he thought that would be it. That would be all
his problems solved. That would be all he needed in life, that moment of blessing, laying
on of hands, you are blessed, go forward. But in actual fact, from God’s perspective,
he was only signing on for a lifetime of training. He was signing on for a lifetime of discovering
what it means to carry the blessing of God on your life. He was signing on for training
through the school of hard knocks. And we do need that perspective on our lives as we
go forward. It’s so difficult sometimes to come to terms with the challenges of life,
and yet if we can understand that actually we carry the blessing. Jacob didn’t lose the
blessing. The blessing didn’t slip from him, and he had to keep going back to find it and
look for it again. He carried the blessing permanently, but yet the lifestyle that he
led him into was challenging and frustrating and disappointing. It made him angry. It made
him upset. It cost him. It was painful. There was all of that that he had to go through
in order to discover what it means to be somebody who carries the blessing of God on his life.
And if we can have that perspective, we are blessed. Ephesians says you have been blessed
with every spiritual blessing in Christ. You have been blessed. We carry it all. And yet
when we look at our lives, we think, well, this actually looks a little bit less like
a lifetime of blessing and a little bit more like the school of hard knocks.
Jacob’s blessing was assured. No one was going to take it away from him, but it went way
beyond just receiving it in that moment on that day. He had to discover what it was to
be a child of God. And God has goals for our lives that are way higher than anything we
can think of for ourselves. Probably our aim is to have as little challenge as possible
and to go through life avoiding challenges and obstacles. That would be natural. Take
the path of least resistance. Nobody wants trouble and difficulty, do they? And so when
they come, it’s easy to get frustrated, it’s easy to get angry, it’s easy to even become
bitter. But it was actually the school of hard knocks that was shaping and guiding Jacob
in the direction God wanted him to go. He was becoming the father of the nation of Israel.
There was a promise given to Abraham, but Jacob was the one who was beginning to see
it come into reality. His children were the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. The whole
of world history was unfolding from this man’s life. And yet, things weren’t working
out from his perspective, they weren’t working out as he hoped and as he expected. What does
your life look like from the inside out? As I stand here and look out on you, I can see
that you’re all, you’ve all got it. You’re all just serenely moving on in the life of
faith. There’s no trouble here, is there? There’s no challenge. There’s no difficulty.
Nothing makes you anxious or worries you. There’s nothing that makes you scratch your
head and you think, what on earth is going on here? None of that for us, is there, at
MCF? No, no, no. So, but maybe from the inside out, you think actually, if only you knew
the half of it. If only you knew what I wake up with and what I go to bed at night thinking
about, then you’d know that actually life is challenging and life is difficult for me.
Things haven’t worked out as you thought they might. You might be worried or anxious, disappointed,
angry, confused. You thought, well, maybe for somebody that is blessed like me, maybe
things would have been easier for me. Maybe I could have expected to have a few more answers
when I pray. Maybe some of the situations that I pray for, maybe some of them would
have changed a little bit, except they haven’t. And yet the perspective says, actually, we
know that we are blessed people. We know that God hasn’t forgotten us. We know that the
blessing hasn’t slipped from our shoulders. And so maybe our perspective can change and
say, actually, that is, maybe this school of hard knocks that we go through is the very
thing that will shape us, that will squeeze us, that will mould us, that will turn us
into the children of God that God wants us to be. It’s very difficult to give a message
like this because this is the sort of advice that nobody wants to get, is it? You don’t
say, it’s all right, it’s the school of hard knocks, God’s making you a better person.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and all of that stuff. And nobody, yeah, thanks
a lot. I remember reading a book by Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods, and he was discovering
all the things that were to be frightened of on the Appalachian Trail. And one of the
things was bears. And there was advice to hikers saying that if, and he was reading
the guidebook, he said, and so when confronted by a bear, don’t panic, stay calm, and stand
still. And he said, you just know that that was written by somebody sat behind a keyboard
and not stood in front of a bear. And his comment was, thanks a lot, professor. And
that can be the danger when we give this sort of perspective on life. You can look
at me and say, thanks a lot, professor. But you don’t know how hard it is, you don’t know
how difficult it is, and the truth is I don’t. There are many things that people face. I
wouldn’t even pretend to comprehend how challenging and how mountainous the things look like that
are in front of people, even in this room. Things that we’re wrestling with, things that
we go through. But yet, we can’t get away from the perspective of the Word that says
if we take a step back, we can actually see actually we are blessed people, we are secure,
we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we belong to God through faith in Christ. And so therefore,
we can trust God through the school of hard knocks, through the difficulties, through
the challenges that we go through. It’s just a question of what we think blessing looks
like in our lives. At the end of it all, what we know about God will not be downloaded in
a prayer. I’m fully for that moment when somebody says, could you pray for me? Or I’ll receive
prayer and we look to God to do something in our lives in that moment. We trust God
for that. We trust God for miracles and miraculous intervention and all of that. But at the same
time, it’s not just about downloading something in a moment of time and say, now all my problems
are gone. In actual fact, sometimes it’s just the beginning. As we receive that impetus
from God, that touch from God, we then go forward in life and everything happens to
challenge what God has done. I remember somebody saying, when I prayed for patience, God sent
everything that wound me up and made me impatient. Carl Beach is coming in a few weeks’ time.
He’ll tell you his own story, but he’s had his troubles with health and he’s very open
about the fact he’s had young onset Parkinson’s disease. And he told me, one prayer I had,
he said, being a public speaker, one prayer I had was, Lord, don’t let it affect my voice.
And it’s the very thing that has been affected. And yet, as you follow his journey, you see
how God is using that, not only to teach himself about God, but how he’s helping thousands
and thousands of other people through something he’s invented. He’ll probably tell us all
about it. That through the struggle, through the hard knock of God giving him the opposite
of what he prayed for, he’s discovered more about God.
Erica spoke about Jacob meeting God in a certain place, not an obvious place, not an easy place,
but a certain place. And we know that God can be met in every certain place. And you
could say, genuinely and with justification, you don’t know my situation. And I don’t.
And you don’t know mine. But we have that ability to meet God in the certain place.
Nothing is wasted in our lives. Nothing is wasted. Nothing can separate us from the love
of God, trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword,
height nor depth, death nor life, angels or demons. Nothing can separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let it be our prayer. I want to know you Lord. I want
to know you Lord. And many of us, some of us, we had baptism last week, wonderful time.
People embarking out on a life of faith. We pray for people and bless them as they enter
into that. And some of us old timers can sit back and think, oh, you know, this is a long
time since I was baptized. There is a prayer that we need to pray every single day, every
single week. I want to know you Lord, whatever that takes. I want to know you Lord, but our
hearts need to be prepared for what that might be like. It’s an opportunity to know God.
One of the most helpful bits of advice I ever heard was, let’s meet everything with calmness.
I’m not very good at that, meeting everything with calmness, but it’s a good reminder that
actually we can afford to meet everything with calmness because God has got us in the
palm of his hand. There’s a nice little bit of artwork that somebody did once of somebody
hanging from a rope and God sort of holding onto the rope like this and the hand of God
was holding it and they were doing their best to cut through the rope and then obviously
the inference was they were going to drop. And then as you pan out from the picture,
the other hand of God is underneath the catch. There’s safety in the hands of God to the
point that we can trust him whatever happens to us. Meet everything with calmness. Because
if we take the long view, then our testimony will be, God, you’ll do all things well. Maybe
you can’t understand something in this moment in time, cannot understand it. What are you
doing, Lord? What is going on? What is happening to me? But that calmness says, just wait.
Just wait. Keep walking. Keep moving. Keep going. Keep embracing. Keep trusting. Because
at the end of it all, we’ll say, God, you do all things well.
The main character of the story is Jacob. Probably, if you were asked to assess the
other, the female lead might be Rachel. And somewhere in the background there’s Leah,
the older sister. What a sad story. Treated and mistreated by her father, by her husband,
by everybody. She’s totally disregarded. She’s just a name. She had no sparkle in her eyes.
Even the Bible says that. Rachel was really beautiful, but it’s Leah. No sparkle. What
a way to be remembered. But like in all things, if we go to the margins, if we go to the excluded,
if we go to the forgotten, that’s often where we find God. And she’s thrown into a situation
that she wouldn’t have chosen for herself. She’s been given to a man to marry who didn’t
want her and didn’t choose her. And what we see is that God’s focus was on her. In fact,
more than anyone else. In verse 31, it says, when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he
enabled her to have children. The Lord saw that she was unloved. There’s no grace in
the description of her life or the value of her life that was given before that, but the
Lord placed value on her life. He enabled her to have children. She was lost in the
system. She was a very small cog in a large machine. Not second choice, but no choice
at all. And God saw her in her distress. One of the most moving things I heard one time
was when we were in Zambia and sat with a family that had been through, they’d had a
really successful business, and they’d gone through such turmoil, and they’d lost everything.
And they were ill, and they were struggling, and they were suffering. And we had some money
had been given, and we went to see them just to help them. And they realized that what
they could do with it was they could pay their telephone bill, because their telephone was
being cut off. And this was a family that had really prospered and done great things.
And then as we sat with them and gave them this gift and prayed with them, the lady said,
Now I know that God sees. And I think, wow, that’s really, really powerful, because God
sees us in our distress. You don’t have to be loud or in the forefront for God to see
you, for God to move on your behalf. You don’t have to be the popular ones, the talented
ones, the noticeable ones, because God blessed Leah through the circumstances she went through,
through her own school of hard knocks. And she started, even in the middle of all of
this, gave birth to four children for Jacob. He wasn’t that bothered about marrying her,
but he still didn’t mind her giving birth to four children for him. And she gave birth
to a son and named him Reuben, for she said, The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my
husband will love me. What a sad prayer. The name Reuben is related to the Hebrew word
for see. I don’t know Hebrew. I’ve looked it up. She poured all of her pain into the
naming of her child. The Lord has noticed, and now my husband will love me, because what
she saw the movement of God in her life as a key to actually her getting what she wanted.
If God blesses me, then he’ll give me what I want. Sadly, it didn’t happen. She thought
if only, like we do, if only we had, if only things were different, if only circumstances
were changed, then if only because of this, maybe now God has seen us, so God will now
do what I want him to do. But there was no breakthrough. Reuben was one of the heads
of the twelve tribes of Israel, but she didn’t know that. She was just thinking about her
situation. She saw the hand of God and wanted him to change her circumstances. Why do we
worship God? Why is it just a means to an end? Lord, if I worship you, if I give to
you, if I pray to you, will you give me what I want? It’s like a, like a, you know, put
our money in the slot and pull the lever and see if we can get what we want from God. But
God didn’t, and God doesn’t mind leaving us, scratching our heads and wondering what is
going on, because he has a higher purpose in mind for our lives. Her second son, Simeon,
she said, the Lord heard I was unloved and has given me another son. She’s working it
out. Oh, I’ve got another son because the Lord has blessed me. In her world, the hand
of God, God was just concerned about her situation, and we can find ourselves in that frame of
mind very easily. Simeon is related to the word here, indicating she was really fixed
on her need for God to hear her pain. She now had proof that God had heard her, and
therefore he was going to do what she wanted and what she needed him to do. Her problems
were going to be solved. She was connected now to God. She knew that God had heard her.
Problem over. No breakthrough. Nothing changed. A third time, she became pregnant and gave
birth to Levi, saying, surely this time my husband will feel affection for me since I
have given him three sons. I deserve something back for this because I have given him three
sons. God will now bless me. My husband will feel affection for me. Levi is related to
the word attach, longing for her husband to be attached to her. She disregarded all that
was going on in her life, focused on her need for God to do something about her pain.
And finally, she gave birth to Judah, and something changed in her at that moment. I
don’t know what it was, but something changed, and she said, now I will praise the Lord.
She didn’t mention her husband anymore. She didn’t mention her pain. She didn’t mention
her bitterness. She didn’t mention her need for things to change. She looked at her fourth
child and said, now I will praise the Lord. She acknowledged and praised God. Judah is
related to the word for praise, and she was finally free of her anxious pursuit of her
husband and freely praised the Lord. This was her breakthrough. This was her freedom,
and actually this is our freedom as well. And I hesitate, and I’m nervous to put it
through because I know how difficult it is. When somebody comes and says, actually, put
aside your worries and just praise the Lord, you think, thanks a lot. It doesn’t really
work like that. Sometimes we like worry. Sometimes I can find that worry is a comfort.
If you think, people say, don’t worry about it. You say, well, what am I going to do then
if I don’t worry about it? Jesus himself said, don’t worry about this life, what you’ll eat,
what you’ll wear, all the very things that we worry about, problems that could happen,
catastrophizing situations, going to the end of the line and saying, oh, if this happens
and this happens and this happens, then we’re all going to be destroyed and everything’s
going to be finished and it’s all going to be hopeless, and I don’t even know why we
even bother praising God because it’s just not going to work out all right.
And yet the freedom that Leah found, the freedom that we will find, will be the freedom where
we started this worship service. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Give a sacrifice
of praise to God, unconditional, unattached, no strings attached, whatever. Lord, you have
been good to me. And many of us have prayers that we’ve carried for a long time and God
is leading us to a moment where we can lay them down and lift up empty arms to God. Give
that sacrifice of praise. It’s so hard to do, but so liberating to do it. And you know
what? The reason why we don’t like the advice, the reason why we don’t like the people like
me coming along and saying, well, it’s all right, just praise the Lord, is because it
doesn’t work like that. Like I’ve said, it doesn’t happen in a moment, a moment of blessing,
a moment of revelation, a moment of inspiration. It took Leah four children. How long is that?
Quite long. It’s more than four times nine months, isn’t it? It took her years to get
to that moment. And she didn’t even know the process she was going through. She didn’t
even know she was on a slow transformation. She was being squeezed like that Play-Doh
machines, where you put them in and you squeeze them and something comes out a different shape.
You know what I’m talking about. So she was being transformed and she didn’t even know.
And yet she ended up at this moment when Judah was born and she said, now I will praise the
Lord. And you see what God can do, that the milestones in her painful journey, the children
named after her pain actually took their place in the history of the world. Reuben, Simeon,
Levi, and Judah. Levi and Judah. Levi was the head of the tribe of Levi, which was the
priestly tribe, the whole tribe that would minister to God and would minister on behalf
of the nation and would minister to the world. And Judah is the royal tribe from whom came
Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah. And so Leah in many ways was the mother of the
tribe of Judah. And she had no idea. All she could think about was her pain and her difficulty
and whatever. And yet she got through to the end of the process. She said, now I will praise
the Lord. And yet in the meantime, it doesn’t mean nothing is wasted. All those children
before when she was in bitterness and pain and anxiety and distress, they still took
their place according to the purposes of God. And God will work out his purposes in our
lives, not only what he does in us. All she wanted was her husband to love her. God wanted
more from her. And sometimes all we want is one thing that we’re fixed on, and yet God
wants more from us. And God will produce more from us. And he will establish more in us
if we will go through that process. And in actual fact, he puts us through that process
whether we choose it or not. Leah didn’t, she wouldn’t, she didn’t respond at a conference
and said, now I’m going to go through this transformation. She was just put on the school
of hard knocks. And she got through it, and she ended up in a good place, in a free place,
in a healthy spiritual moment where she said, now I’m going to praise the Lord. And lo and
behold, all her children, and she even had more later on, that’s for somebody else to
deal with, you know, there was all these tribes of Israel. But what a testimony that Judah,
Jesus’ own tribe, she was the mother. She had been squeezed by bitter circumstances
into a woman who learned to praise God and put her faith in him, and in the process God
was not only working his purposes for her life, but for the whole world. Remember, nothing
is wasted. And sometimes we won’t even know until we look back at eternity what it’s all
about. But we’re going to have the stories to tell. It’s not about a moment of blessing
and God did this and that and the other. And sometimes we can be discouraged by victorious
things. You know, we say, oh, it’s all great, everything worked out, because we actually
are all going through the school of hard knocks. But over the long period, the long process,
God does all things well. Amen. Good. Yeah. Let’s praise God.