Messes To Messages - Genesis 29-30 Series

Life can get messy. There's a hundred shopping carts, but I pick the one that has the broken wheel that thumps every time it goes around and has a mind of its own and it turns itself into unsuspecting customers. You know messy is probably an easier word than some people would say. When I talk to people some people don’t like the word messy. They like to say, “My life is more like a horrific disaster, but being messy is part of life.”

I think there’s something we learn in the messiness of life. In fact I think we have to prepare for the messiness of life when things aren’t so messy so that when things get messier we’re ready for them. We don’t always know what the messiness is going to look like. When things get messy and you’re surprised by the messiness, you need to say to yourself, “God’s not surprised by this. He knew this was coming. He knows what’s going on. God has a bigger plan than I know of.” Sometimes that plan is just to get to know Him better in the midst of the messiness.

In our passage today we’re going to see messy. In the midst of our passage as we see messy we’re going to see that God takes messes and turns them into messages. When we remember that we recognize that life doesn’t always have to go well for the message of Christ to shine through. Messes often produce these messages. I’m here to take you into the passage today because we’re going to see that in Jacob’s life. We’re going to see that sometimes things go well for him, but other times it’s quite a challenge that things get messy. So let’s dig into the messiness here. Let’s get messy ourselves as we’re getting into the story. Because we’re going to see some very practical applications that we can apply to our lives. Look with me at Genesis 29.

It says there in verse 1 – Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. Let me remind you Jacob is on a journey. As we saw in our last study, Jacob had left home under duress. His brother is about to kill him because Jacob stole the birthright, stole the blessing. His family was quite dysfunctional and so he’s now moving on.

As he moves on, we made the application that a lot of young people move out of their home. They move out of their home and they go to college or they get their own place. Sometimes young people make the mistake when they move out to say to themselves, “Oh I can cast off restraint now. I’m not under my parents’ rules anymore. I can engage in anything I want to do.” Sometimes people pursue pleasure. Pleasure in itself isn’t bad. It is a byproduct of life, not a goal. But some people use it as a goal. When you pursue it as a goal all kinds of bad things can end up coming into your life.

So we talked about how Jacob when he came out of his home he made this other choice. He says, “I’m going to now serve the Lord.” He goes to sleep and he sees this stairway to heaven and he sees this is an opportunity for him to connect with God on his own. What a great opportunity. If you’re moving out of your home, you’re starting over, that you have this relationship with God and you go, “I’m going to start my own adventure with the Lord.” I think this time in Jacob’s life was his commitment time to God. Where he connects with God on his own outside of his father and his grandfather (the patriarchs), and now he’s on his own and he’s watching God work. So that’s the journey that’s being talked about here.

His dad and his mom said, “Go to Haran and get a wife. And when you’re in Haran you’re going to see Laban.” He’s the brother of his mom. In other words you’re going to see Uncle Laban there. “And from there you’re going to find a wife”. So that’s what he’s on. He’s on this mission to go do that. Doesn’t have a GPS, doesn’t have road-signs; he’s just on his way to get over into that area. That’s where we pick up the story in verse 2.

It says – As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large (that’s going to be important in the story that the stone is large), and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. So the point is made there's a stone there. It's big. Multiple shepherds move it, put it back. That’s what he’s saying.