Holding onto hurt delays Gods blessings -study on Genesis
Lyrics
Sermon Notes:
Holding onto hurt will delay the Blessings!
E Gals no 27
In Genesis 29 - we see Leah being fruitful because the Lord blessed her.
In Genesis 30 - Rachael is desperate to be fruitful but she is a hurt and disappointed women who has become envious of her sister. Satan loves hurt because he knows he can use it against us.
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Rachael shows us the way NOT to react!
Rachael was “envious” of the Lords blessing on her sister Leah.
(In the Hebrew this means she had strong inner feelings of rage!)
Compare the way Sarah had felt towards Hagar. Genesis 16:6. Had Rachael become bitter, holding onto resentment and unforgiveness against Leah. These feelings will stop us moving on. Matthew 18:21-35 Romans 12:21. Rachael said to Jacob “give me children or I die” She has spoken out dangerous words of self pity over her life and she was asking the wrong person! Cp Proverbs 18:21. Jacob became angry and asked “am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” However although Jacob recognises that it is God who opens the womb - he doesn’t seem to have prayed for Rachael!! Compare Genesis 25:21
Rachael takes matters into her own hands. Like her ancestor Sarah she decides that her maid will be a surrogate mother - in those days this arrangement meant that Rachael would be legally the real mother.
Rachael tries to justify her actions.
As a result of giving her maid to Jacob, Rachael gets two sons - Dan meaning “judge” and Naphtali meaning “wrestling.” Did Rachael feel that God had been her judge and had given her a son or was she “judging her sister“? We are not to “judge each other” Matthew 7:1. Whatever was going on she does not use the very personal name “Yahweh” but uses the more general name for God Elohim.
Have you ever tried to convince yourself that you were right when all the time you felt far from God?
Rachael speaks out her real feelings towards her sister.
The name of her second son says it all. She and her Leah are rivals and Rachael feels she has got one up on her sister - she has wrestled and won!
She was fighting with the wrong enemy “we wrestle not with flesh and blood…..Ephesians 6:12. Rachael may have started out the innocent party but now she is going about things in the wrong way. Cp. Proverbs 18:19(b) This is a repeat of the earlier struggles between Jacob and Esau. Gen 27.
Leah copies Rachel by having surrogate children.
The result - Gad and Asher. The names tell us how she was feeling ! Gad has a number of meanings “fortune, troop or triumph” but the word here is better translated “fortune” and Asher means “happy.” Note Leah doesn’t mention God here.
Rachael must have found Leah’s success difficult!
How difficult for us when someone is getting what we desperately want! This can be something material or it might be a relationship or it might even be ministry!
Mandrakes or no mandrakes.
One of Leah’s sons brings home mandrakes and gives them to his mother - mandrakes were considered to be an aphrodisiac! Can you imagine Rachael’s face!! She is thinking if I could just get a hold of those!! So instead of trusting God Rachael acts out of superstition and makes a deal with Leah for the mandrakes - big mistake - Leah is just happy to get Jacob into her tent and trust God for the outcome - Rachael can have the mandrakes so long as she can sleep with Jacob that night!
(It would seem that Jacob was living with Rachael and only spending occasional nights with Leah) but guess what - Leah got pregnant without the mandrakes and Rachael is still barren with the mandrakes!
Are YOU trusting in God - or in some sort of “mandrake”??
Now Leah has two more sons one called Issachar meaning “there is a wage” and Zebulen meaning “dwelling or honour” she was in effect saying I have been rewarded (got my due wages) and she is hoping her husband will now dwell with her and honour her. She also had a daughter called Dinah meaning “judgment”. Does she wants God to judge her case or is she now judging Rachael? Instead of being “content” she is back in the contest!!
The Lord remembered (had compassion on) Rachael.
When we go about things using our own resources instead of trusting God it usually results in complete failure and despair! I think at this point Rachael may have reached an all time low - she was no longer able to come up with any more bright ideas. - and the Bible says the Lord remembered her and took away her reproach. To miss out on Gods plans and substitute our own plans usually ends up with reproach! But God sees where we are and loves to lift us up just when we think there is no hope!
God is full of compassion. Lamentations 3:22-24,32 Psalm 78:38 & Psalm 86:15 James 5:11 Matt:14:14 (He is “moved” for you!!!)
So finally Rachael gets pregnant and Joseph is born. His name means “remove” but it also means “he will add”. This was a prophetic name referring to the fact that God had removed the reproach of the past - and He was going to add more blessings in the future.
God wants to add blessings to our lives. He wants us to seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be “added” unto you.
Matthew 6:33.
Lesson for life.
It’s possible to start out the innocent victim and through hurt to get stuck -
so that we don’t receive the blessings of God.
Satan will try to keep us stuck in feelings of disappointment, resentment,
unforgiveness and grief.
Our words have powerful consequences for good or for evil.
Lets look to God for ALL our needs.
Rivalry and strife does NOT produce fruitfulness! Intimacy with God produces fruit. Read John 15.
God is full of compassion - and He loves and wants to remove the pain of the past and ADD blessings to our lives - the secret is to seek HIM FIRST.