GOD MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS
Text: Gen. 29:1-30
Introduction
1. Read Gen. 29:1-15
2. There is a story about West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska. Normally all of the good choir people came to church on Wednesday night to practice, and they tended to be early, well before the 7:30 starting time. But one night, March 1, 1950, one by one, two by two, they all had excuses for being late. Marilyn, the church pianist overslept on her after-dinner nap, so she and her mother were late. One girl, a high school sophomore, was having trouble with her homework. That delayed her, so she was late. One couple couldn’t get their car started. They, and those they were to pick up, were subsequently late. All eighteen choir members, including the pastor and his wife, were late. All had good excuses. At 7:30, the time the choir rehearsal was to begin, not one soul was in the choir loft. This had never happened before. But that night, the only night in the history of the church that the choir wasn’t starting to practice at 7:30, was the night that there was a gas leak in the basement of the West Side Baptist Church. At precisely the time at which the choir would have been singing, the gas leak was ignited by the church furnace and the whole church blew up. The furnace room was right below the choir loft!
3. God moves in mysterious ways! This is what people say when circumstances happen in their lives that they cannot explain through reason.
4. However, there is another way of describing this phenomenon: God is in control! The sooner we figure this out the happier and less stressed out we will be.
Proposition: It may sound like a cliché, but we need to let go and let God.
Transition: This story about Jacob tells us two things about the sovereign leading of God. First...
I. God Sovereignly Leads His People (1-14)
A. Do You Know Laban?
1. This narrative begins "Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east."
a. The area that he traveled to is what came to be know Mesopotamia, a land that stretched east of the Persian Gulf (Horton, Complete Biblical Library, 261).
b. Jacob went there for two reasons: 1) His brother wanted to kill him, and 2) He needed to find a wife.
2. What is so striking about this text is the way that Biblical History repeats itself.
a. Back in Genesis 24, Abraham had sent his servant to his people to find a wife for Isaac.
b. In that story, Abraham’s servant came to a well, in fact it may be the same well that Jacob finds himself at now.
c. The fact that the meeting took place at a well is significant because a well was often associated with God’s blessing —Bible Knowledge Commentary
3. This story shows that "coincidence" is for those with either no faith or no sense to see the sovereign hand of God.
a. He “happened” onto a spot where a well was located;
b. it “happened” to be near Haran, where Laban lived (29:5),
c. and Laban’s daughter Rachel just “happened” to be coming to the well (v. 6).
d. This timing was the work of the loving sovereign God who was leading all the way —Bible Knowledge Commentary
4. Jacob was a man on a mission, and God was leading the way.
a. At Bethel God had promised his land, descendants, blessing, and protection.
b. This meeting at the well was the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise (Ross, Creation and Blessing, 501).
5. While Jacob was still speaking to the men at the well, along came the first fulfillment of the promise, Rachel, the daughter of Laban.
a. The well had a large stone that covered it. This stone kept people or animals from falling into it, and protected against contamination (Walton, NIV Application Commentary, 585).
b. Therefore, Jacob moved the stone for Rachel to water her sheep.
c. This shows the transformation in his life. Before his encounter with Yahweh, he thought only of himself. However, now Jacob was generous, zealous, and industrious.
6. Then Jacob "kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept."
a. Now the kissing of relatives (vv. 11, 13) was a proper greeting.—Bible Knowledge Commentary
b. But I believe that Jacob wept because he knew that God was already fulfilling his promise.
7. When Rachel found out who Jacob was she ran and got her father, and when he got their "Laban said to him, "Surely you are my bone and my flesh."
a. God was now returning to Jacob some of the things he had forfeited because of his impatience and greed.
b. He had lost his home, but God gave him a new one.
c. God was providing for him every step of the way.
B. God Is In Control
1. Illustration: Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence. — Augustine
2. I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in coincidence.
a. When good things happen to me I know it is because God is blessing me.
b. When unfortunate things happen to me I know it is because God is trying to teach me.
3. I believe the word of God that...
a. God will never leave me or forsake
b. God will provide for all my needs according to His riches in glory
c. God cures all my illness and heals all my diseases
d. God will cause all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
4. I don’t believe in coincidence and I don’t believe in chance, but I do believe in a sovereign God who loves me and cares for me.
5. Don’t wish me good luck and good fortune, just wish me the blessing of my Father that owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
6. Don’t tell me to take care of myself, but tell me to trust my God that never sleeps or slumbers.
Transition: The second thing that we learn from this story is...
II. Sometimes There Are Roadblocks Along the Way (15-30)
A. Now Laban Had Two Daughters
1. Obviously, Jacob was a hard worker because Laban comes to him and says, "Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what should your wages be?"
2. Now Jacob fallen in love with Rachel from the moment he laid eyes on her. Like any young man in love, there was only one thing on his mind: RACHEL.
3. So when it came to answering Laban’s question his only answer was “I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter."
a. This agreement was customary at this time and was called a "bride price."
b. This was a price that was paid by the groom or his family to the bride’s family incase the groom should divorce her or die (Walton, 586).
4. Jacob worked for seven long years, but "they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her."
5. When the time came for the wedding feast, hearts were merry and spirits high. But in the night Leah, Rachel’s older sister, was substituted.
a. She was probably about the same size as Rachel and wore the wedding veil that covered the whole body (Horton, 267).
b. In the darkness Jacob didn’t realize that he was being tricked.
6. However, when he woke up in the morning he knew something was wrong. He was with the wrong sister.
a. Some people assume that Leah was ugly because it says she had "weak" eyes. However, some scholars believe that her eyes were merely blue instead of the rich, dark brown eyes of the people of that area (Horton, 265).
b. It wasn’t because she was ugly, but she just wasn’t Rachel.
7. Jacob’s anger was to no avail. Now, as the object of trickery, he would understand how Esau felt.
a. Laban offered a technicality of local custom: it is not right to marry the younger... before the older.
b. Those words must have pierced Jacob!
c. Jacob’s own sins were coming back to haunt him.
8. Now a deeper look shows us that God was still at work.
a. God was chastising Jacob for his former deception.
b. He was also fulfilling the promise He made to Jacob.
c. Instead of one wife, he had two.
d. In addition, he had two handmaidens who also would later give him children.
e. God had quadrupled the prospects of Jacob having descendents.
B. God Is Still In Control
1. Illustration: Happinessce Jones is a renowned concert organist and teacher at Baylor University. Several years ago she played the first full concert on the new pipe organ at the Crystal Cathedral in California, which cost over $1 million. At the age of sixteen she was a piano major at the University of Texas. A sprained wrist interrupted her promising career as a pianist. For six weeks she could not touch a keyboard. Not wanting to waste the time, she decided to learn to play organ pedals with her feet, and a new career was born. ’God has a way,’ she relates, ’to get your attention and say, ’Hey, I have something better for you to do.’’
2. Sometimes there are roadblocks that are thrown our way, but that doesn’t mean that God isn’t at work.
3. There is an old saying that says "when God closes a door he opens a window."
4. Just because things may not be going the way you want them does not mean that God has abandoned you. It just means he is taking you down a different path.
5. Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
Transition: Roadblocks are not reason for discouragement, but they are reasons for faith that God has a plan.
Conclusion
1. God moves in mysterious ways! This is what people say when circumstances happen in their lives that they cannot explain through reason.
2. However, there is another way of describing this phenomenon: God is in control! The sooner we figure this out the happier and less stressed out we will be.
3. What are you going to do? Are you going to worry and fret, or are you going to let go and let God?
