We come now to the preaching of the words. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to open them and turn with me to Genesis chapter 29. Genesis chapter 29. If you've not been with us before, we're in the process of going chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the book of Genesis. And we come today to the 29th chapter. And we'll be looking at the first 30 verses. You'll find this printed before you in your order of service. Genesis chapter 29 beginning at the first verse. Give your attention now to the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving word. Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it. For out of the well, the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was 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. Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from? They said, They are from Haran. He said to them, Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. He said to them, Is it well with him? And they said, It is well, and see, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep. He said, behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go pasture them. But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman and that he was Rebekah's son. And she ran and told her father. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things and Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh. And he stayed with him a month. Then Laban said to Jacob, because you are my kinsman, you should not therefore serve me for nothing. Tell me, what shall your wages be? Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel and he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love that he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife that I may go into her, for my time is completed. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went into her. Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, what is this that you have done to me? Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? Laban said, it is not done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give to you the other in return for serving me another seven years. Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter, Rachel, to be his wife. Laban gave his female servant, Bilhah, to his daughter, Rachel, to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of our God abides forever. To the praise of his glorious name, let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you for every syllable of your inerrant word. We pray now that as we look at your care for Jacob, that Jesus Christ would show us many wonderful things from your word. We pray for these things in Jesus' name. Amen. In the canon of Western literature, some of the most endearing stories come from Aesop's fables, as they are interesting stories, but also have a moral or a lesson that you can draw from them. One of Aesop's fables is a story of a cobbler who had a rough go and didn't seem to be a very good cobbler and couldn't make enough money. And so he decides that he's going to switch professions. And instead of being a cobbler, he will become a doctor. Now back then I'm assuming they didn't have the American Medical Association and all the schooling that you have to go through, so this was a fairly quick thing for him to do. He claims to come up with this elixir that will cure any ailment and despite the fact that it has no curing measure to it whatsoever, he grows somewhat famous as people buy into his charlatanry. Well, the king takes notice of this and one day when the cobbler turned doctor then becomes ill, the king comes to him and says, oh, why don't you try some of your own medicine? And in fact, in one version of the story, the king puts a little poison in his medicine and gives it to him saying, well, if this medicine is as good as you say, not only will the poison not harm you, but you will get better. Eventually, the king chides his people saying, you took a man who you wouldn't trust to cobble your shoe and you made him the doctor for your bodies. How foolish have you been? Well, from that story, we get a saying, a dose of your own medicine. It's when the way that you treat people then comes back around to you and you are treated as you treat others. Well, as we look at Genesis chapter 29 this morning, we're going to see Jacob the trickster get a dose of his own medicine, as God in his sovereign providence uses the events of this chapter both to bless Jacob and fulfill all the promises of God, but also to teach Jacob some very valuable and sanctifying lessons. Now as we look at Genesis chapter 29, the first 30 verses, the theme that's gonna run through this is the providence of God, and that's really the theme. As God is saying to Jacob, I will always be with you, I will be present, I will bless you, and I will draw you to myself. I say that because in modern America in the 21st century, when we read chapter 29, perhaps the first thing that stands out to us is the love story. But almost all commentators say that really is incidental to the main point of the passage. So I just wanted to kind of set the table and set everybody's expectations. If you thought this was going to be kind of the Francine Rivers sermon or, you know, the notebook or Sweet Home Alabama sermon, that's not what this is going to be. I just want to go ahead and say up front, don't be expecting that as we go through it. Now, what we see in this text is many things, but I want to just look at two things briefly. First, God's providence in meeting Rachel. And second, God's providence in Jacob meeting Laban. As we look at the providence of God in him meeting Rachel, we see the context of this as this story is a continuation of what we see in chapter 28. Look with me at verse one. Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. And as he looked, he saw a well in the field. And behold, there were three flocks of sheep lying behind it. And out of that well, the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was 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 here we see Jacob is continuing in his journey. He continues east and he comes to a place and sees a well and sees some herds and he goes into this situation. Now, as we look at this, we have to keep in mind that this is a continuation of the previous chapter. In that, Jacob had made an oath to God with these words, if God will be with me and will keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God's house. and all of that you give me, I will give a full tenth to you." And we talked about how problematic their portions of that vow were, but that Jacob vowed this. And that before that, God had promised to be with him and to bless him. Well, when we come into this chapter, what we principally see is God doing everything that he has promised to Jacob. And through the events of this chapter and the one that follows, God will totally transform the life of Jacob. What is the estate that Jacob is in, in verse one? Well, he is alone. He doesn't have a retinue with him. He doesn't have servants. He doesn't have any great possessions. He is unmarried. He has no children. And, in our terms, he is flat broke. Jacob's position reminds me of a number of songs, but of Leonard Skinner's song, Mr. Banker. Mr. Banker, Mr. Please, how much does money mean? Won't you reconsider me, mister? Won't you do this thing for me? Ain't got no house, ain't got no car, and oh Lord, all I got is my guitar." Well, Jacob didn't even have a guitar. And so being broke, he comes to this circumstance where he sees some people. And through this, God is going to totally transform his life. At the end of this brief interaction, he's going to be in a circumstance where he will have Not one, but two wives, and we'll get to that in a moment. A multitude of children, and his children will actually, from these wives, become the foundation for the people of Israel, and more money and possessions than he knows what to do with. And notice that in God's providence, there are ways in which God has arranged the details to show us that what's going on is continued covenant faithfulness of God to Jacob, just like to his fathers. Remember the story of Abraham sending his servant to go out and find a wife for his son, Isaac. He sends him off to the far country to Haran, to the people that he's related to, to find a son for Isaac, not from the Canaanites, but from his own people. As he goes, he meets the future bride for Isaac at a well. And it's through watering that the servant knows this is the woman that the Lord has provided. And through this, there's then a meeting with the family in exchange, and then God provides a bride for Isaac. Well, many of those same themes emerge here as Jacob goes to the far country, meets his kin's people. There's a large stone and that's an echo of the fact that Jacob had set up a stone in the previous chapter to God at Bethel. So here there's also a large stone and through this time him watering livestock that are not his, he will come into meeting the love of his life, Rachel, and being greatly materially blessed. The hand of God is providentially here. Now look with me at some of the details in verse four. Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from? And they said, we are from Haran. And he said to them, do you know Laban the son of Nahor? They said to him, we know him. He said to them, is it well with him? They said, it is well, and see Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep. And he said, behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go pasture them. But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. So here in God's providence, Jacob shows up at this well at just the time before Rachel comes and he notices three flocks of sheep and he goes and speaks to the shepherds. And he says to them, it is still the way the ESV renders it, it is still high day, that is it's still early on in the day. And Jacob says, why do you not water your sheep and send them out to pasture? This is something that if you're not involved with agriculture in this culture, it might not seem significant, but what's going on here is we can see a quality in Jacob. And that is he's a hustler. He's hungry. He wants to get things done and is efficient. And when he sees these shepherds being what appears to be lazy, he tries to get them to do the right thing. What they should have done, because it's still early on in the day, is bring the sheep in, water them, and immediately send them back out to pasture so that they have more of the time to graze, the sheep will be better. However, if you did it that way, which Jacob's suggestion is textbook, that would be a lot more work. And so these shepherds say, oh, we can't possibly do that until all the sheep are here and they're all watered. And by the time we get done with that, well, it's probably going to be too late to bring them out to pasture. This is the equivalent of if you're driving by a construction project and there's one guy with a shovel and four standing around watching him, Jacob shows up and says, don't y'all want to work, like get to it. And that's probably why Laban was so eager to keep Jacob because he was a man who through his work ethic brought much wealth to the family and he was a good dependable man so Laban will want to keep Jacob around for as long as he can. And then we see the meeting with Rachel in verse 9. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well of the mouth and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's kinsman and that he was Rebekah's son. And she ran and told her father." Now here, this strikes us as very unusual. if someone walks up to someone's daughter and kisses them and cries, odds are when the father comes into the scene, it's not going to be with a kiss and happiness that he's going to respond. But this is a different culture and there are things that are going on here. Notice the text tells us that there are these sheep coming, but Jacob doesn't notice the sheep first. He's a shepherd, so he does notice them, but the first thing he notices is Rachel. She catches his eye, and as we're told in the text, she is very beautiful, so she is the one that he sees first. Then we're told that he moves himself this heavy stone from the well. Now it could be that he's just doing this to be kind and he sees, oh, this is, I'm meeting someone from my family. I wanna make a good impression. I'm wandering, maybe I can find a place to stay. And so this is a good thing to be doing. It could also be that Jacob here is trying to either impress Rachel or get the watering done so that he can talk to her and get these other shepherds out of his way. It's kind of like if you read the Babylon Bee, a Christian satire site, one of the things they note is that oftentimes in youth groups, young men will try to stack as many chairs as possible and carry them in order to impress the young ladies in the youth group. As someone who was part of a Christian youth group as a child, I don't know anything about what that means. So it could be that he's trying to impress her. Now when we see in verse 11, then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud, again, This does not mean necessarily what it means in our culture. Notice that when Laban comes, he kisses Jacob and there's obviously no romantic sentiment between Jacob and Laban. This could be that Jacob kisses Rachel greeting her and weeps aloud because he's finally found kinsmen and thinks he's found a way out of his kind of homeless estate. But it's hard, as one commentator said, to read this text and not see that she has probably already caught his eye. And then she goes and tells her father, and that is the occasion for Laban coming and meeting Jacob. Now, as we see this, we need to keep in mind that the hand of God's providence is invisibly behind all of these details. God is often doing things in providence that you least expect. There's no sign that God gave a supernatural vision to Jacob saying, hey, stop and go over there near that well. He was likely just traveling and he sees a well, there's water beside it, there's people, and hey, I should go over here and see what's going on. It's ordinary for someone to be traveling and to come into this sort of circumstance. But behind it is God making sure that while Jacob is wandering, he comes to this well at this time to meet these shepherds so that he will meet Rachel. And oftentimes, we need to look at our own life in that same lens and see that for us, there are many coincidences in life. But oftentimes, God has superintended things that you and I could not have imagined. When my wife and I were married, We were married and graduated in 2011, and so we were right in the middle of the Great Recession from the housing crash, and there were just no jobs at that time. In fact, when we got married, we both went on our honeymoon having no jobs between the two of us. And by God's providence, when we came back, we both had jobs. They weren't great, but it provided. And we had a friend at our college, Michael, who had done very well at college and was praying for him and he just couldn't find a job. And as Christina and I were going, she was clothes shopping for this very good interview that would eventually become a great job for her. I was standing beside a man who was there for his daughter getting clothes or something, and we started talking, and he said, hey, I'm looking for somebody to be an administrator for me. Would you or your wife be interested? I said, oh, I'm sorry, I have a job, and my wife is about to probably get one, but I know somebody who's looking, and I took his card, gave it to Michael, and lo and behold, we've been praying for him, and he ended up getting a job through that. There are providences that God superintends for us and for those that we know that to us seem completely coincidental, but are not coincidental in the mind of God. And you can see that here. But it also shows us that God sometimes brings blessing in the most ordinary of circumstances, but also some of the most difficult of circumstances. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if you asked Jacob when he was a young man, would you prefer to be alienated from your family, estranged from your brother, and pennilessly wandering around and just happen to walk into your family far from home? The answer to that is probably no. Jacob was so poor that he had to use a stone to lie his head on at night. I don't think he would have liked to have gone through the wilderness in this way. But God superintended it so that he would go through all that he's been through, so that at the exact time he would meet the woman who would become the love of his life, and the father-in-law who would hopelessly complicate his life, but through whom all the blessings of the Old Testament flow. And the same is true for you and me. There are circumstances in our life that we perhaps would not want, that we would not choose, but it is often through those that God brings his blessings to us. And so as Christians, we should see all of providence and all that we go through as an expression of the loving hand of our Father. Even though we do not know the future, we know that he does, and we know that just as through Jacob, All the covenant promises are being answered in these seemingly incidental and trivial circumstances. So the same is true for you and me. As God has promised to Jacob, I will provide for you according to my riches and glory. So God has made the same promise to you and to me in Christ. And through his providence, we can now see him meeting his soon to be father-in-law, Laban. Look with me at verse 13. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things and Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh and he stayed with him a month. Now here, we see what appears to be a chance encounter being a moment for Jacob to meet a kinsman and to find a place to stay and eventually to be employed and to find his own family. But what we're gonna see is that God's providence, particularly in Jacob meeting Laban, is that Jacob is gonna meet somebody through whom God's going to teach Jacob some very important lessons. I'm reminded of that Mel Gibson movie, Maverick, where he's a poker player in the Wild West. And the line is that his dad would say to him, there's no more deeply moving experience than cheating on a cheater. Well, Jacob is about to find out that he has met his match with Laban, and just as Jacob is the trickster, so he's going to have a very cruel trick played on him that will teach him some hard lessons and also be an avenue through which God will bless him. Now, as Jacob goes to Laban, this might strike us as odd. Usually in our society, if we have a distant relative that we've never met, and these two would have never met, if they show up at our door penniless, we don't go, ah, please come in and stay with us for a month. At least that's not your typical American response to somebody showing up that you've never met before. But in this culture, you have to remember that family is absolutely everything, and hospitality is absolutely everything. So Laban, meeting a relative, absolutely come in, stay with me, work with me, enjoy food, have a place to stay. And in God's providence, This provides him a home through which God will give great blessings to Jacob. And in this context, we see what seems to be sparks beginning between Jacob and Rachel blossom into full-blown love. Look with me at verse 15. Then Laban said to Jacob, because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be? Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel, and he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than I should give her to any other man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love that he had for her. Now, here we see a contrast between Rachel and Leah. Leah was the older. Attention in this culture should have rightly been given to her before the younger. But Leah's eyes were weak, soft, whereas Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. We're not exactly sure what that metaphor that she had soft eyes meant, but it meant that there was something about her that was not nearly as attractive as Rachel. That's the parallel there. They likely looked very much similar to one another because they were sisters, but Rachel was the one who was absolutely beautiful and captivated Jacob's mind and heart. And so he approaches Laban with this deal when Laban says, it's not right for you as my kinsman to work for me for free. How shall I repay you for your hard labor you're putting in? Well, what happens then is Jacob says, let me work seven years for your youngest daughter. That's probably not a contract that anybody in our culture has ever entered into. This is very strange for us. Usually you just ask for a woman's hand in marriage and you don't have to work for seven years for your future father-in-law for that to happen. We have to remember this is a culture where even within a distant family relationship like this, a marriage was also a financial transaction in which the families would have to be compensated for the exchange of children. And here, Jacob has no house, he has no money, he is broke, And so he has to have something to offer to Laban in order for this to be rightly considered. And so he says, I will work seven years for you if you will give me your youngest daughter. And Laban responds saying, well, it's better that she marry you than I marry her off to some stranger. Of course, I will do this. But what we're going to see is that the trickster, Jacob, is going to have a trick played on him, a rather cruel one. Look with me at verse 21. Then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife that I may go into her for my time is completed. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob and he went into her. Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to be his daughter Leah to her servant. And in the morning, behold, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, What is this that you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me? Laban said, It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years. Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. Now, as we read this portion of the text, the first question is, how can you marry the wrong person? How does this happen? In the Presbyterian form of marriage that I follow when I do a wedding ceremony, one of the first things that the couple does is a declaration of intent, where in ye olde language you say, are you here to marry this person? And you get the affirmation. Then to the other you say, are you here to marry this person? And you get the affirmation. Maybe that comes from this text so that we don't have any accidental mismarriages. Well, the fact of the matter is, this is a bit different for how things are done in our culture, but it's actually not totally implausible. It's completely realistic to think in this culture that this might have happened. In this time, you would have a massive party. There would be great wine, great feasting. And then after it is dark, the couple then get to go off and begin their honeymoon. Well, you have to remember a couple of things. Number one, that it is dark. They don't have electricity. All they have are oil lamps. And so it is very dark. Number two, according to the custom of this time, Leah, who he thinks is Rachel, would have been veiled. So her face would have been covered when she came to meet her now husband. And finally, there's a great party. So that implies at least the possibility that Jacob was not entirely sober when he got to his tent at night. Now, it is possible that there is a family resemblance between Rachel and Leah so that the two might be confused with one another. I remember, I have a friend of mine, Josh Sparkman, who knew him in seminary and we served at interns at Second Prez together and we would always refer to one another as the brother from another mother. because our body shapes and our bald spots at that time were almost identical, so that if the two of us were standing back-to-back and you couldn't see our face, it was really hard to tell us apart. One of the first times I was in the church, the pastor of the church came up and tapped me on my back and said, hey, Josh. And I turned around and he said, oh, you're not Josh. Wow, you look like him, though. And he walked off. And then I met Josh later and went, oh. That's what he was talking about. In fact, even our wives had confused both of us at different points. His wife coming up to me, tapping me on the shoulder and vice versa. So it's plausible that while facially there is difference, there might have been some family similarity here so that in all of these circumstances, Laban realizes I have an opportunity to play a prank, but not really a prank, a very cruel trick on Jacob. Through this, perhaps he thinks he'll get another seven years worth of service out of this and won't be in a situation where his family is dishonored by having an older daughter that he cannot yet marry off as his younger and more attractive daughter is now married off to this strapping young man who has come from the far country. Now the immediate question that we also ask after this is, why would Jacob not refuse to be married to Leah? Almost all pastors and Bible commentators agree, if you accidentally marry the wrong person through no fault of your own, you don't have to stick with the marriage. He could have said, I've been tricked, we had an agreement, we did everything proper, and you have tricked me, I'm not going to take this. Well, likely, because Jacob realizes that he would then have to admit to all of his friends and family, I married the wrong person. And that's a bit embarrassing. Also, it could be that it's a pang in Jacob's conscience that as he has treated other people this way, so now he has been treated this way. I think the most plausible explanation is because even though Laban has lied to him, even though Laban has deceived him, Laban as the head of the household still has the right to say, you can only have Rachel upon my permission. And so for his great love for Rachel, he says, I will marry the older daughter, but you have to give me the younger daughter as well. When Laban says, complete her week, that's a way in that culture of describing the honeymoon. marry her, go through with the marriage, and then also if you give me another seven years of your valuable service, I will let you have Rachel. And it seems that he gets to have Rachel in the beginning of that seven years rather than at the end. And so Jacob went into Rachel also and he loved her more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. And so here, we see God doing things that Jacob was not expecting. But if we look at this, it seems that God is giving Jacob a dose of his own medicine. As Jacob deceived his father when he was old in a compromise mental state, and as Jacob disguised himself as Esau, so now a family member has lied to him and disguised his daughter as Rachel when it was really Leah. The trickster has had a trick played on him. And now instead of one wife that he worked for seven years for, he now has two wives that he has worked 14 years for. Sometimes God will have done to you what you have done to others. If so, you should learn from it and humble yourself under the hand of God. Life is not like karma, where what goes around comes around. Rather, God will sometimes allow your worst traits to come back on you from someone else, to hold up a mirror to you to say, is this really how you want to think? Is this really how you want to speak? Is this really how you want to behave? It's the sanctifying grace of God where he shows his tough love to Jacob, taking the man who is the supplanter, who is the trickster, and letting his family pull a terrible trick on him in order to teach him, you can't be this way. And as God promised, I will always be with you, I will be with you for your good, that includes bringing you away from your sin. And so if God allows this same thing to happen to you, the thing is not to cover over your sinfulness and say, well, I'm gonna be angry at them, but I'm going to excuse myself, but rather to say, Lord, I get the point. I repent of my own sin. And just as this has been done to me, I understand I've done this to others. And so turn from it to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, as we see God's providence clearly at work in all of these details, we can see that Jacob would have preferred to have Rachel and live a quiet life. But God instead insisted that he have Jacob for two wives with Leah and Rachel. And as we'll see next week through these two women and the complicated family mess that comes from it, the people of Israel will be born, and God will begin to constitute that nation that he promised to Abraham so long ago. As we look at this, we can see God's hand of providence at work at everything in Jacob's life and at every turn. The same is true for us. The remarkable thing, though, is that God still sticks with Jacob. It would be easy to say to the Lord, Lord, are you sure you want this guy to be the patriarch? He can't even marry the right woman. How's he going to be the one through whom the blessing on all the families of the earth come through? Seriously. But the fact of the matter is that God loves sinners and God shows grace to sinners through Jesus Christ. And just as Jacob sacrificed so that he could have these two wives, so we see a great picture of his love for Rachel. And it should be a reminder to us that this story is really a great picture of God's love for Jacob. that no matter how many messes he gets himself into, no matter how much his sin complicates his life, God is still with Jacob. And just as Jesus Christ died for sinners to redeem us and to make us a bride for himself, this story really reminds us of the love of God for sinners. No matter who you are here today, if you are someone like Jacob, the love of God stands open and free to you, and Jesus Christ promises, any and all who come to me, I will draw you to myself. I will forgive you of your sins, and I will raise you up on the last day. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, come to Him in faith so that you can see all of your life in light of the God of Jacob, who loves sinners and providentially superintends every facet of their life. And for those of us who do know the Lord Jesus Christ, let us be thankful that we serve the God of Jacob, who is in all the details of our life, working for His glory and our good. Let us pray. Father, we bless you and we praise your holy name and we thank you for your providence in every detail of life. We pray that you would draw those to yourself who do not know you. And for those of us who do know you, help us to see from every small detail to every great detail the love of God for us. And oh, what amazing grace it is that you love sinners like us. We pray in Jesus' name.