Genesis 30 | “The Problem Underneath Our Problems”

Sunday morning sermon audio from Preston Highlands Baptist Church.

The Worst Misery

Our lives are filled with daily annoyances.  Slow drivers drive in the fast lane.  Fast food is not prepared fast enough.  High-speed internet acts more like dial-up internet.  We put ten socks in the washer and only nine come out.  Spreadsheets and children don’t always do what we ask them to do.  Emails and texts aren’t responded to promptly.

Our lives are filled with regrets.  We regret early educational decisions that locked us into particular careers.  We regret the rebellion of our youth.  We regret not talking more with our friends or family members.  We regret decisions we made in good faith that didn’t go as planned.

Our lives are filled with affliction.  Aging reminds us of the one-way flow of time and that youthful abilities will not come again.  Loneliness makes our hearts ache because we feel separated from home or friends or family or even those who live in the same house as us.

Our lives are filled with fear.  We fear cancer, the IRS, job loss, failure, and what people will think of us.  We fear that we’re not making a difference in the world.  We have daily anxieties, or free-floating fears in what we’re not exactually sure.

But none of these miseries are the worst.  There’s a problem underneath all these problems.  As one theologian says, “The whole range of human miseries, from restlessness to estrangement through shame and guilt to the agonies of daytime television – all of them tell us that things in human life are not as they ought to be…None of these troubles matter as much as sin.”[1]

The World’s Greatest Problem

The Bible teaches that sin is the problem underneath all the world’s problems.  Sin broke the order and harmony and shalom of God’s world, meaning that every pain, affliction, misery, fear, regret, and annoyance is the result of living in a sin-drenched world.

The Bible talks about sin using lots of concepts and images.  Sin is breaking God’s law, failing to trust and give thanks to God, missing a target, wandering from a path, straying from a fold.  It’s a hard heart and a stiff neck.  It’s spiritual blindness and deafness.  It’s overstepping and neglecting, both transgression and shortcoming.  It’s doing things we should not do and not doing things we should do.  Sin is like a beast crouching at our doors.

Sin is found in our desires and our acts.  It’s found in our thoughts, emotions, words, and deeds.  It’s anything that displeases God and therefore deserves blame.  Cornelius Plantinga, in his book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, says, “Sin is a culpable and personal affront to a personal God.”[2]  Sin breaks things God made, thus offending God.

Sin Wrecks Things, But Grace Overcome

Sin wrecks things.  But the Bible teaches us that it doesn’t wreck God’s promises.  The Bible teaches us that grace can overcome sin.  This is the theme of Genesis 30.  Jacob and his family were chosen to be God’s means of blessing a cursed world.  But Jacob and those around him were a dreadfully sinful people.  In Genesis 30 alone, we’re going to see polygamy, envy, superstition, deception, and theft.  But we’re also going to see grace continue to triumph in Jacob’s life.

Sin wrecked things in Jacob’s life, but God’s grace overcame sin.  This is the main point of this chapter and sermon.  In verses 1-24, we’ll see sin at home.  In verses 25-43, we’ll see sin at work.  This chapter shows us that sin doesn’t have the last word in God’s program.

Sin at Home

In verses 1-24, we see sin at home.  In this passage, Jacob gains two more wives and eight more children (2 from Bilhah, 2 from Zilpah, 3 more from Leah, and 1 from Rachel).  When God met him in his dream in chapter 28, he told Jacob, “Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south” (v. 14).  God promised Jacob that he would have a great family, so great that through his family “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (v. 14).

When he went to Haran looking for a wife, he had no idea how this would happen.  Little did he know that he would have twelve sons by four different women, that God would use sin to expand his family.

Polygamy Not the Way

Last week, we saw in chapter 29 how Jacob’s father-in-law Laban tricked him into marrying both his daughters in return for fourteen years of work.  Polygamy was not what Jacob wanted.  He knew it wasn’t what God wanted.  But his desire for Rachel was greater than his desire to obey God.  So he bargained with Laban so that he could have her as a second wife.

By the end of chapter 29, both of Jacob’s wives are desperate: one is desperate for love, the other is desperate for children.  Verse 1 of chapter 30 tells us exactly how Rachel felt about Leah having four kids and her having none.  Rachel was embarrassed and humiliated as she watched her sister bring four children into the world while she remained barren.  Her envy didn’t allow her to enjoy the blessings she did have, like Jacob’s love.  In her envy, she’d forgotten that her barrenness was God’s doing, that he alone is the giver of life.  Her envy was blinding her heart.

What is Envy?

What exactly is envy?  Envy is the desire for that which is not ours and the begrudging of the person who actually possesses it.  Envy is not primarily wanting what someone else has.  It’s having a grudge that they have it.  It’s not wanting them to be happy.  It’s wanting them to be miserable.  Envy is when our joy increases when someone else suffers of fails.

Envy puts us in God’s place, where we decide who deserves what.  Envy is like murder in that it wishes to harm someone.  Envy is like covetousness in that it wants what it doesn’t have.  So envy is a deadly concoction of breaking the first, sixth, and tenth commandments.

Envy is all over the Bible.  It’s why Cain killed Abel (Gen. 4).  Jesus says envy is an evil thing that comes out of our hearts and defiles us (Mk. 7:20-23).  Paul lists envy alongside sexual immorality and sorcery as “works of the flesh” that mark those who “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21).  Envy is a deadly sin, worthy of the punishment of hell.

What creates an envious heart?  Envy can be caused by someone else’s wealth (Ps. 73:3), political and military strength (as when Saul heard the women singing for joy over David’s rise to power), fertility (as we see here in Genesis 30), favoritism in the family (as when Joseph’s brother’s sold him into slavery, Acts 7:9), or when we see the Spirit’s work in other people or churches (as when the religious leaders envied the apostles, Acts 5; or when they envied Jesus for his teaching and healing power).  Isn’t it interesting how often envy led to murderous rage?  Envy left unchecked creates murderous desires.

Envy is something we feel that influences what we do.  Envy may be why we use cutting and sarcastic humor, tearing people down in order to build ourselves up.  Envy is why we’re upset instead of excited when something good happens to someone else.  Instead of rejoicing with them, we think that they don’t deserve that, didn’t earn it, or perhaps even came by it shamefully.  Envy is why we’re secretly happy when something bad happens to someone else.  Solomon says, “He who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished” (Pro. 17:5).  Envy is there when tranquility and peace escape our hearts.  Again Solomon says, “A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot” (Pro. 14:30).  Envy is there when our work ethic is driven by a desire to prove ourselves, rather than a desire to glorify God and bless others.  Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that “all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor” (4:4).  One reason work can start to feel futile is when it’s driven by envy.  Working to be better than others rather than bless others is exhausting.

One of the main ways our envy is revealed is in our struggle to honor and encourage the gifts and talents we see in others.  John Calvin talks about this in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.  He talks about how we hide our own vices, sometimes even pretending they’re virtues, but when we think of others we respond very differently.  He says, “If others manifest the same (good) endowments we admire in ourselves, or even superior ones, we spitefully belittle and revile these gifts in order to avoid yielding place to such persons.”[3]  In other words, we love to downplay people’s strengths and exaggerate their shortcomings.

This is a very different approach than the one advocated by the apostle Paul when he said, “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom. 12:10).  And, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).  Or Peter when he said, “Honor everyone” (1 Pet. 2:17).

Envy hinders us from obeying these commands.  We don’t just want what others have, we begrudge them for having it, making it impossible to honor and love them.

Envy is why we focus on someone’s weaknesses rather than their strengths, why we find it so hard to speak encouraging words to one another.  When was the last time you encouraged another member of the church?

Envy kills our ability to love each other.  If we’re always comparing and competing with others in our hearts, we won’t be able to love them.  We can’t love people we envy.  And we can’t walk in joy if we’re walking in envy.  According to researchers, envy is one of the leading causes of unhappiness.  Teddy Roosevelt is credited with saying that “comparison is the thief of joy.”[4]  Paul tells us to “rejoice with those who rejoice” (Rom. 12:15).  But we’ll never be happy for people we’re secretly competing against.  Envy kills Christian community.

I wanted to spend some time on this because envy is the sinful impulse behind all the dysfunction that follows in this chapter.  If Rachel rejoiced with her sister instead of despising her, the pain and polygamy and superstition that follows could’ve been avoided.

Birth Wars

In verses 3-21, the birth wars commence as a result of Rachel’s envy.  Rachel thinks that she can catch up with Leah through her servant Bilhah (v. 3).  And her plan appears to start working, as Bilhah has Dan and Naphtali (vv. 4-8).

But Leah, not wanting to be outdone, gives her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife (v. 9).  Her plan works and Zilpah has Gad and Asher (vv. 10-13).

And then we come to this strange episode with the mandrakes in verses 14-16.  In the ancient world, mandrakes were believed to be a love-potion, an aphrodisiac or fertility drug (Song. 7:13).

The power of mandrakes was superstitious, not scientific.  But Rachel and Leah believed the mandrake myth and used them to trade for something that should bever be traded (v. 15b).  It seems that Rachel controls which of Jacob’s four wives get to sleep with him and when.  Leah has been kept away from her husband for some time and resorts to bargaining to be with him.

Both women are desperate: Leah for love and Rachel for children. As envy rises all sorts of dysfunction and weird superstition and sin result.

The text then makes it clear that the mandrake’s don’t work because Leah, the one who gave them up, has two more sons and a daughter, while Rachel, who has the mandrakes, remains childless (vv. 17-21).

Then in verses 22-24, Rachel finally has her first child.  “God listened to her” in verse 22 means that she was praying for a child.  The beautiful, favored wife had finally come to the end of herself.  Her scheming and superstition weren’t working.  She finally realized that surrogates or mandrakes weren’t going to help her.  So, in her sin and distress, she turns to God for help.

And God heard her and answered her and “opened her womb” and she has Joseph.  Verse 22 reminds us of 29:31, where the Lord “opened Leah’s womb.”  Both sisters had children only because God did it.  God saw each of them and visited them in their pain and affliction.  This was all grace.  Neither deserved it nor earned it.  But God moved toward them with blessing anyway.  God’s grace was bigger than their shame and their sin.  Envy didn’t stop God’s grace.

Sin at Work

In verses 25-43, we move to another episode in Jacob’s life that shows us sin’s presence in his workplace.  Jacob’s family has multiplied greatly, but he still isn’t prosperous or in the place that God said would be his.  So he asks Laban to send him away and all he asks for are his wives and children (vv. 25-26).

But Laban, ever the dealmaker, asks Jacob to name his price to stay (vv. 27-28).  He says that he’s been blessed because of Jacob and Jacob basically says, “I could’ve told you that!” (vv. 29-30)  Laban’s concern is always money.  His only desire was for the prosperity that would come through association with Jacob.  Jacob had only asked for his family, but Laban responds by talking about money.  As one commentator says, “Laban knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.”[5]

Jacob wants to be able to provide for his family on his own, so he asks, “But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” (v. 30) Laban says, “What shall I give you?” (v. 31) And Jacob says he’ll keep shepherding Laban’s flock if he can keep all the spotted and black sheep and goats (vv. 31-2).  Jacob is trying to prevent Laban from being able to cheat him again (v. 33).

Laban agrees to the deal (v. 34), but then removes all the spotted and black goats and sheep that were supposed to be Jacobs and sends them away with his sons (vv. 35-36).  Laban has deceived Jacob again, this time stealing what was Jacob’s.

When Jacob realizes what happened, he resorts to superstition to get back at Laban.  He thinks that sticks with some bark peeled off will cause spotted lambs to be born to the animals that mate in front of the sticks.  Jacob is believing what the superstitious and pagan culture around him believed, that there was some hidden force in creation that could be manipulated if you just get the forms and the timing right.

Solely God’s Work

When we zoom out from this chapter, we see that Jacob and Rachel are both walking by sight, not by faith.  They each resort to superstition rather than prayer.  Rachel’s mandrakes don’t produce fertility (v. 22) and Jacob’s sticks don’t produced spotted lambs, as he acknowledges in 31:9.

God is the one who moved to bless them.  Jacob has now become a rich man (v. 43).  The Lord is starting to fulfill his promises he made at Bethel.  Despite the polygamy and envy and birth wars, Jacob was starting to become a people, and in a way that was clearly the work of God.  The rapid expansion of his family was not Jacob’s idea, but the movement of the hand of God.  Likewise, his prosperity is solely the result of God’s work.  Laban knew it, Jacob knew it, and one day all the nations would know it.  Soon Jacob would head home and journey to the land God promised him.  But God will have to work that out too, as we’ll see.

This chapter is full of scheming, manipulation, envy, surrogate competition, love potions, selling of sex, gloating, humiliation, and superstition.  Sin continues to disrupt the harmony God intended for Jacob’s family.  This chapter is full of sin!

This Sermon is for You

One of the temptations we face when we hear a preacher talk about sin and is to assume he’s talking about everyone else.  But friends, the Bible says we’re all like Rachel and Jacob.  On some level, we’re all envious rather than encouraging, sexually deviant rather than pure, superstitious rather than prayerful, deceptive instead of truthful, thieves instead of generous.  Sin has wrecked your life, both sin you’ve done and sin done to you.

Being around the church a lot is great but it can lead us to think that we’re somehow not contaminated with the poison of sin like everyone “out there.”  But we are.  Our envy and impure thoughts and harsh words and prayerlessness should be all the evidence we need to believe that even people with a religious veneer are sinners.  Self-righteousness is just as worthy of God’s judgment as unrighteousness.  We were all born with the same heart disease as Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler.  “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside…no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12).  Sin isn’t a concept in a book.  It’s a corruption running through our blood, a corruption no one is exempt from.

God’s Grace Seen Most Clearly at the Cross

Sin wrecked things in Jacob’s life, and your life.  But the good news is that God’s grace overcomes human sin.  God’s promises weren’t nullified by all the sin in this chapter.  Why?  Because God’s grace is bigger and stronger and greater than sin.

And the most obvious place to see God’s grace is by looking at his Son hanging on a cross, bloodied, naked, laughed at, in every kind of agony imaginable.  Why did he hang there?  For your sins.  For the ways you’ve hurt people.  For your envious heart.  For your coveting and idolatry.  For your failure to be content in God.  For your thinking that sermons like this are for someone else.  Jesus died for sinners like you and me.

The benefits of his death are for anyone willing to admit that they’ve sinned against the God who made them and confess that Jesus is their only hope.

Sin has wrecked our lives, but God’s grace overcomes our sin.  And the epicenter of his grace, the fountain from which it flows, is the cross of Jesus Christ.  Look to Jesus on the cross dying for your sins and be amazed!  Be honest about your sin and so that you can taste the sweetness of his grace.

What sins do you need to be honest about?  What things are you suppressing and keeping from God and those who love you?  What ways are you breaking God’s law and hurting those made in his image?  What specific sins to you need to confess to God today?

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:8-9).

Free and full forgiveness is available to all who feel their need for it.  Jesus came for sinners, not for righteous people.  He’s the friend of sinners, not pretenders.  And he’s ready to make his home with everyone who feels their need for him.

[1]Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 2.

[2]Ibid., 13.

[3]Calvin, Institutes, 3.7.4, quoted in Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022), 108.

[4]Quoted in Kapic, 108.

[5]R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 383.