Yahweh: The God Who Hears
Text: Gen. 29:31-30:24
Introduction
1. Read Gen. 29:31-35
2. "Prayer Changes Things"
Skies seemed dark to me one morning,
And my thoughts were tinged with gloom;
But my eye fell on a motto
That was hanging in the room.
Silvery letters on blue background,
Heavenly thought on shining wings,
Brought me hope in one brief message.
It was this, "Prayer Changes Things."
Things surround like iron mountains,
Things that make a thorny way,
Things that curtain clouds with doubting,
Things that make it hard to pray.
Dreadful things that never happen
Dog our steps, but faith still sings
In our ears this golden message,
Don’t forget: "Prayer Changes Things."
We have seen some things prayer changes;
Greater things we yet may see.
When the Hebrews came from Egypt,
Prayer made pathways through the sea.
In the hot and dusty desert
Moses prayed, and cooling springs
Gushed out from their rocky prisons,
Just because "Prayer Changes Things."
We should be so very careful
Lest some things should change our prayers.
Pleasing things, like lotus perfumes,
Steal in on us unawares,
’Til we loiter in a dreamland—
Slaves, but thinking we are kings.
There’s a golden key to freedom;
It is this, "Prayer Changes Things."
3. One of the great truths of the Christian life is that "prayer changes things." The reason that prayer changes things is that God listens.
4. 1 Jn. 5:14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Propostion: We believe that prayer changes things because we know that God hears us.
I. God Hears Us When We Call (29:31-35)
A. He Hears
1. This is a story of two sister who were married to the same man. One was loved and the other was not.
2. It is also a story where the meaning of names plays a huge role.
3. In this story, the sister that was not loved by her husband was Leah.
a. She was the sister that was substituted on the wedding night.
b. She had a husband, but not his affection.
4. Verse 31 says "And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren."
a. God looked upon her affliction and responded to her need.
b. It was not her father earthly father who saw she was unloved, but her Heavenly Father (Hamilton, Genesis 18-50, 265).
c. God saw that she was unloved by her husband, and He responded by "opening her womb."
5. She conceived and gave birth to a son and named him Reuben.
a. Now this is where the name significance comes in.
b. The name Reuben means "Yahweh has seen my distress" (Hamilton, 266).
c. This naming showed her hope but also her consolation and faith. Jacob never saw her affliction, but God did —Bible Knowledge Commentary
6. Then she has a second son and names him Simeon.
a. The name Simeon means "Yahweh hears."
b. Simeon was so named because the LORD heard (šāma‘) that Leah was not loved.
c. “God heard” was her testimony in faith to His provision —Bible Knowledge Commentary
7. She then continues to conceive, and has a third son and then a fourth son whom she named Judah.
a. It is with this fourth son that we learn a very important aspect to prayer: thanksgiving.
b. The name Judah means “let Him be praised.”
c. With every succeeding son she recognizes that it was God that provided these sons with the hope that now Jacob would love her.
B. God Hears Our Prayers
1. Illustration: There was a pastor who had a parrot. All the parrot would say was, “Let’s pray, let’s pray.” The pastor tried to teach him to say other things but to no avail. He learned that one of his deacons had a parrot. Thet parrot would only say, “Let’s kiss. Let’s kiss.” So the pastor decided to invite the deacon and his parrot over to his house. When the deacon arrived they put the parrots into the same cage to see what would happen. The deacon’s parrot said, “Let’s kiss, let’s kiss.” The pastor’s parrot said, “Thank you, Lord. My prayers have been answered.” There’s great power in prayer.
2. There is great power in prayer because God always hears us when we call on HIm
3. There is great power in prayer because:
a. His line is never busy
b. His service is never disrupted
c. His modem always works
d. His server is never down
4. You’ve heard of email, well we have knee mail.
a. Email only takes milliseconds, but knee mail doesn’t take that long.
b. The moment that you pray, God hears.
c. It doesn’t matter where you are, and it doesn’t require any computer knowledge
5. We have a God who hears us when we pray.
a. People pray to Allah, but nobody answers.
b. People pray to Buddha, but nobody responds.
c. People pray to Hare Krishna, but nobody’s home.
d. But when we pray to Jesus, He is always there to say "How can I help you!"
Transition: Another important aspect about prayer is...
II. God Hears Us Even When We Make Mistakes (30:1-21)
A. Rachel Envied Her Sister
1. Read Gen. 30:1-21
2. Now Rachel sees her sister having all of her husbands children, and it ate her alive. She too was in need of prayer, but she went about it in all the wrong ways.
3. First, the text tells us "And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister..."
a. To envy means "to look with ill-will," etc., toward another, is an evil strongly condemned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
b. It is to be distinguished from jealousy. "We are jealous of our own; we are envious of another man’s possessions. Jealousy fears to lose what it has; envy is pained at seeing another have" —International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
c. She wanted what she couldn’t have: Jacob’s children.
d. Leah never envied Rachel’s good looks, but she envied Leah’s womb (Hamilton, 270).
4. Second, she lacked her sister’s faith. She says to Jacob "Give me children, or else I die."
a. Her biological clock was ticking, and she wanted children now!
b. However, instead of trusting God to give her children the way Leah did, she nagged her husband for them.
c. She failed to recognize where children come from.
d. James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
e. Even Jacob rebukes her and says "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"
5. The third thing she did wrong is she didn’t trust God and tried to accomplish things on her own. She said to Jacob "Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her."
a. She couldn’t have children, and instead of trusting God she forced Jacob to sleep with her servant and have children through her.
b. The phrase "on my knees" is an indication that Rachel will claim the child via adoption, since servants had no legal rights (Hamilton, 270).
c. Rachel’s sons through Bilhah do not reflect the faith Leah had. Rachel felt wronged over her barrenness.
d. Her effort to have children through her maidservant reflects Sarah’s similar attempt with Hagar (16:1-4).
6. A fourth thing that she did wrong was the way she treated Jacob. She traded an evening with Jacob to her sister for some of her sons mandrakes.
a. Mandrakes are a common plant all over Palestine, flourishing particularly in the spring and ripening about the time of the wheat harvest (Genesis 30:14). The plant has a rosette of handsome dark leaves, dark purple flowers and orange, tomato-like fruit. —International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
b. This fruit is supposedly an aphrodisiac and is sometimes called "love apples" (Hamilton, 275).
c. She treated her husband like a male prostitute because she thought these "love apples" would help her conceive.
7. So how does this show us that God hears us in spite of our mistakes? It shows us this in two ways.
a. God was fulfilling His promise to Jacob that he would have many descendants.
b. Eventually, once Rachel repents of her lack of faith, God answers her prayers and gives her a son.
B. Forgiveness
1. Now wait a minute! Doesn’t the Bible say that if we regard sin in our hearts that God won’t hear us?
2. Yes it does, but it also says that when we repent he forgives our sins and forgets they ever happened.
3. Illustration: A pastor’s son and his mom had been to a shopping and the boy had not behaved himself. As they were driving home, he could sense her displeasure and said, “When we ask God to forgive us when we are bad. He does, doesn’t he?” His mother replied, “Definitely, yes.”
The boy continued cautiously, “And when he forgives us. He buries our sins in the deepest sea, doesn’t he?” The mom replied, “Definitely, yes.”
The boy was silent for a while and then said, “I’ve asked God to forgive me, but I bet when we get home, you’re going fishing for those sins aren’t you?” The mother replied, “Definitely, yes!”
4. We serve a loving and forgiving God. He loves us and hears us in spite of our mistakes.
5. He is full of compassion, loving-kindness, and His mercies are new every morning.
6. Even when we make mistakes God hears us.
Transition: Another thing we learn about prayer is...
III. God Hears Us When We Are Persistent (22-24)
A. God Remembered Rachel
1. Read Gen. 30:22-24
2. Finally, Rachel’s prayers are answered. The text says "Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb."
a. Finally, Rachel gave birth to Joseph (yôsēp) but not by the mandrakes.
b. This shows that births are given by God, not manipulated by people. —Bible Knowledge Commentary
3. Finally, she started doing things God’s ways. She said "God has taken away my reproach."
a. She began trusting instead of scheming.
b. She began believing instead of envying.
c. She persevered and God answered.
4. Rachel’s firstborn, Joseph (24), would be the most powerful of all, and the father of both Ephraim and Manasseh. - New International Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM
5. We must also notice the change in Rachel. Verse 24 says "So she called his name Joseph, and said, "The LORD shall add to me another son."
a. She learned through perseverance that the way to receive the blessings of God was to have faith.
b. We can see her faith, because she says "The LORD shall add to me another son."
B. Never Give Up
1. We should be like the 3-year-old boy (that Paul Harvey told about) who went to the grocery store with his mother. Before they entered the grocery store she said to him, "Now you’re not going to get any chocolate chip cookies, so don’t even ask."
She put him up in the cart & he sat in the little child’s seat while she wheeled down the aisles. He was doing just fine until they came to the cookie section. He saw the chocolate chip cookies & he stood up in the seat & said, “Mom, can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you not even to ask. You’re not going to get any at all.” So he sat back down.
They continued down the aisles, but in their search for certain items they ended up back in the cookie aisle. “Mom, can I please have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “I told you that you can’t have any. Now sit down & be quiet.”
Finally, they were approaching the checkout lane. The little boy sensed that this may be his last chance. So just before they got to the line, he stood up on the seat of the cart & shouted in his loudest voice, “In the name of Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies?”
And everybody round about just laughed. Some even applauded. And, due to the generosity of the other shoppers, the little boy & his mother left with 23 boxes of chocolate chip cookies.
2. Just like the little boy in the store and Rachel in her desire for children, we should be persistent in prayer and never give up.
3. Matt. 7:7-8 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
a. Jesus’ followers can keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking, indicating the importance of persistent, consistent prayer in their lives.
b. God will answer believers who persistently ask, look, and knock.
4. God always hears us, but sometimes he delays in answering in order to produce character in us. In doing so He teaches us to:
a. Trust
b. Believe
c. Cling to His promises
Transition: We must trust in God and never give up because we know God hears us.
Conclusion
1. Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
2. Heb. 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
3. How confident are you today that God hears you?
4. Trust and believe, because prayer changes things.
