Turn with me to Genesis chapter 29. Genesis 29, and we'll start reading in verse 31, and we'll go through chapter 30, verse 24. I invite you to stand out of respect of the reading. God's Word, page 23 is where this reading is from in your pew Bibles. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben. For she said, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me. She conceived again and bore a son and said, because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon. Again, she conceived and bore a son and said, now this time my husband will be attached to me because I have born him three sons. Therefore, his name was called Levi. And she conceived again, and bore a son, and said, This time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, Give me children, or I shall die. Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Then she said, Here is my servant Bilhah. Go into her, so that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her. So she gave her Him her servant Bilhah as a wife. And Jacob went into her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan. Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, good fortune has come. So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, happy am I, for women have called me happy. So she called his name Asher. In the days of the wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But she said to her, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you also take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came home from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night. And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterward, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph saying, may the Lord add to me another son. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Amen. You may be seated. You've heard of the world wars and you've heard of the cold war, but this morning you're going to hear about the womb war. Our text tells us about a sad battle, a battle between two sisters over how many babies they could have. And like any war, this conflict shows us the very worst of what's in the heart of man, despair, Jealousy, strife, idolatry. But the good news is that God's faithfulness is the solution to our worst sin and the worst of our sin. We're going to see that this morning as we see this womb war unfold, the great baby war between Rachel and Leah, and the casualties that are meted out between them. And what we're going to see is we're going to start by looking at lonely Leah, and then we need to look at jealous Rachel, and then our faithful God. And I want you to understand that this war has just as much to do with you And it does, has to do with these two women. God is giving us this and he's fashioned this text in such a way that when we read it, we need to see ourselves in it. And we certainly see ourselves or a shadow of ourselves in lonely Leah. I gave her a little bit of a hard time last week, didn't I? Some of you came up to me and said, don't you feel bad for her calling her ordinary old Leah? Of course I do. You read this text. She is the third wheel, always living in the shadow of her prettier sister, always yearning for her husband's affection, but finding none. Why? Because Jacob loved Rachel more. In comparison to his favorite wife, Jacob had little love to spare for Leah. And right away, I need to just jump in here and say, this is scripture's way. This passage is scripture's way of showing you how wrong polygamy is. I've had people say to me before, the Bible never outright condemns polygamy, does it? Well, it certainly does not put it forward as the pattern, as the good design of one husband and one wife for life in Genesis chapter one and two. And the Bible does something amazing. It shows us how wrong and how distorted any aberration from that is by giving us texts like this, where you see polygamy and what is it? Is it some happy marriage? No, it is the worst. It's a mess, a mess. Sister wives fighting and duking it out. And you have Leah living in the shadows, all of the love that a wife should have taken from her, robbed from her and directed only towards her sister. Jacob doesn't see her or think much about her. She lives in the shadow of her sister, but God sees her. God sees her. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, verse 31. And I want you to see right away this lonely woman living with her husband in the shadow of her sister, and the kind of love and affection that God places upon her when no one else does, right away, what this shows us is the gracious heart of God. And it shows us his special concern for people whose lives are particularly difficult. He sees the lonely and the unloved. Psalm 34, 18 says this, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit. This is our God. He doesn't look upon men as men do. He looks upon us and sees our heart. Good news for Leah. Finally, someone notices her. The king of the universe sees her. It's good news for us. Because there are times in life when we are miserably alone. Living in the shadow of others, kicked to the curb. And you wonder, does anyone love me? Does anyone want to know me? Hello, I'm here. Does anyone see me? Does anyone hear? And if this is you this morning, Longing for the affection of someone, anyone, to see you for who you are and not to turn away for someone else, but to see you and to keep looking and to love you for who you are. Even for all your faults and despite your faults, to still love you. Then you have this assurance of the scriptures this morning, that the answer is yes, the Lord is near. Near to the brokenhearted, near to the discarded, near to the overlooked, near to the lonely. He cares for you when others forget about you. He thinks about your situation when others are too caught up in themselves to give a thought about you. And this is what's so astounding about God's mercy and his love. He even extends this care towards sinners who have contributed to their miserable situation. You see, our ugliness in the universe is mostly a result of our sin. It's why people don't want to spend time with us. It's why people would rather move past us. It's because we have, in some role or fashion, contributed to the ugliness of our lives. And yet God looks upon that, He sees our sin, and still, still He chooses to love us in Christ. Isn't that beautiful? And so we need to see in Leah's lonely situation, God's care for suffering sinners like you and I. This is very important. We are all sinners. We are also sufferers. And the gospel comes and it addresses not just one or the other, but both and both together. God sees us for who we are. Is there anyone else in the universe who looks at us and sees us even at our very worst and says, I'm not going to look away. I'm going to keep looking. I'm going to keep loving. I won't leave you. And so God shows his special care and affection for ordinary old Leah. And he finds in her a treasure. Have you found that in the gospel of God's son? Have you found what a treasure you are to Christ? Not because of anything special or stand out awesome about you, but because he loves you. because he doesn't look away when others do. Now, God didn't give Jacob's affection to Leah. That's what she wanted, but he did do something different, something good. He gave her sons. He opened her womb. Four sons and their names point to Leah's gratitude and dependence upon the Lord. Each of their names shows that she recognizes that God is seeing, God is hearing her. God isn't looking away or abandoning her. The first son is Reuben. And it means, look, a son. And she says, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction. She says, maybe Jacob will notice me now. And then look at the second name. Then came Simeon. The Lord has heard that I am hated. And then look at the third name. Then there's little Levi. His name means attached, attachment. Now my husband will be attached to me because I have born him three sons. And then comes the fourth name, Judah. Judah, this time I will praise the Lord. That's what Judah means, praise the Lord. And you'll notice something happening in these four names. Notice what God does not do. He does not change Leah's circumstance. He doesn't give her what she wants more than anything at this point, which is her husband's affections. Instead, he changes Leah. He doesn't change her circumstance, he changes Leah. So that the very first name is her saying, oh good, a son, maybe my husband will love me. But notice what happens as she gets to the fourth son. She's not thinking about her husband anymore. She's not talking about him. She's looking at the Lord. She's looking at the one who hasn't looked away, who hasn't abandoned her. She's looking straight at the one who keeps looking and keeps giving. And she says, I will praise the Lord. And then there's none of this about her husband's affections. She's kind of been molded and submitted to this point where she says, If the Lord loves me, that's enough. The Lord taught Leah to trust him and praise him even in these painful times. We need to learn this lesson too. Many of us will have great sorrow in this life. There will be times of waiting for love, lonely separation from family, distance from spouses, And like Leah, we need to learn to respond with deep dependence upon God and His mercy. We need to learn to praise God in the midst of our pain, just like Leah did with the names of her four sons. All of our life taken over as this process of learning to wean our greatest desires, being that to change our circumstances, and then learning to rest in our circumstances and for ourselves to change to love the Lord even in the midst of them. That's what the Christian life is. Is that happening in your life, Christian? Lonely Leah teaches you this. And then there's jealous Rachel, the beautiful and cherished wife of Jacob's heart. She has exactly what Leah most wants. She has the affection that Leah wants. She has her husband's doting eyes always upon her. But her sister has something she wants that she doesn't have. The one thing she doesn't have that Leah has is what? Children, babies. Look at verse one of chapter 30. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. And you can see the green eyes of jealousy take over Rachel. Leah's first four babies were like four shots fired straight at Rachel's heart. She became obsessed with the only thing her sister had that she didn't have. She became consumed with saying, if I could just have these children, then Jacob would love me, then Jacob would love me more. Jacob already loves her. And yet she always is doubting whether he really does because she doesn't have children for him, doesn't have sons for him. Isn't this disturbing how jealousy works? Let's focus on this for a moment. What do we do when God doesn't give us something we desperately want? How should we respond when others are getting what we want for ourselves? Maybe you're the last of your friends to find a spouse. You've struggled with infertility for years and then your sister makes the big announcement on family vacation. Surprise, I'm expecting a boy. Everyone clapping and celebrating and yet deep in your heart you say, but I wanted that. Why not me? You've been applying for jobs for months and months, and then your friend who already has a job tells you they just got offered a job out of nowhere. And guess what? It's your dream job. It isn't. It's hard to be happy for them in these situations, isn't it? Kids, you know this. You know it's hard when you're at a birthday party and you see your friend get that gift that you wanted, you saw in the store, and now it's theirs. And you say, why can't that be mine? And the temptation is to give ourselves over to jealousy. But do you know what jealousy is? Do you know what envy is? It is a sin against our neighbor. It denies a blessing to our neighbor that we ought to want for them, that we ought to be glad for them to have. It's also a sin against God. Why? Because envy doubts God's goodness upon our life. Envy embraces the lie that God has made some horrible mistake in giving to someone else something that we are convinced we deserve. Envy believes that God has looked upon others and has forgotten us. Deep down, envy says, but no, no, God, you've messed up here, I need that. It never pauses to think that perhaps God's withholding this One thing that we want may somehow in his mysterious providence be for our good. Now that's the hardest thing to do. That's what we ought to do in times of jealousy. To trust the Lord, to submit to his providence over our lives. And I remember times, especially, I struggled a lot with jealousy personally towards the end of high school when I saw one of my best friends just excelling and exceeding in life and getting all these things that I thought were deserved to me. And then there was a sermon preached on the sin of covetousness. And the pastor said, what is it to you what God does with your brother? You need to worry about what he's doing with you. And it's like those words pierced through me. I said, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm doing this comparison game. Trusting the Lord, submitting to his will, even when that will denies us, at least for now, is something that we desperately want. Now you see, Rachel does not turn to prayer or repent of her envy. Instead, she takes matters into her own hands and she weaponizes her maidservant to begin the great baby war. Here it is, the start of the womb war, and it begins with envy and jealousy. Now Bilhah, Rachel's surrogate, and you would think, did she ever pause to think? Okay, I've heard the stories of what happened with Abraham and Sarah, maybe I shouldn't do this, but no, she does this. And Bilhah bears for Rachel a son named Dan, and his name means vindication. And you can hear in there, oh, sweet victory over my sister. Now I have a child. And then the second son is what? Naphtali. I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. You see what she's doing? Shots fired right in her sister's direction with the very naming of these sons. Sadly, Leah stoops to Rachel's level. She has at this time in God's sovereign providence stopped bearing sons. It appears in fact that she stopped bearing sons because her husband is living a distant and separate life from her. But she sends her maidservant Zilpah to be with Jacob, and she bears for Leah two sons. And Leah names the first son Gad, which means I'm so lucky. And then she names the next boy Asher, which means I'm really happy. Do you hear something in these names? Maybe a not so subtle gloating. It's like she's bragging, and one scholar puts it this way. She's saying, try to catch me now, Rachel. I'm leading six to two. Just when you think the jealousy of these sister-wives couldn't get any worse, they start bartering over intimacy with their husband. Little Reuben finds some mandrakes in the field, and these were a rare blue flower, which people of the time, in their superstition, they believed that this flower could increase a woman's fertility. And of course, they don't do anything like that. They don't work. But Rachel is so desperate for a child of her own, the ones through her surrogate didn't work for her enough. And she just still longs for a son of her own. She wonders whether Jacob really loves her. And so she buys this baby-making Mandrake potion off Leah in exchange for what? In exchange for a night with Jacob. But the potion obviously doesn't work for Rachel because Leah is the one who gets pregnant. A judgment of God against all man-made, manufactured, superstitious attempts to control life apart from Him. It's God who opens the womb. It's God who closes it. He places His judgment upon those who try to play games with this sacred of created realities. And so what happens here? All of this, this war, this baby making potion, this bartering over intimacy with Jacob, all of this is just exposing the deep idols of the heart that had found their way into the home. You see, this is what's deeper. This is what's behind and beneath the jealousy and the despair that's punctuating this family's history. Rachel and Leah had both made an idol of their husband's affection. They wanted Jacob's attention so badly that they were willing to turn children into a competition in order to get the recognition they so desperately craved. And so Ishachar is named my wages. I deserved it. I deserve this. And then after that, Leah bore Zebulun. And then Leah finally had a little girl named Dinah. No comment after this little girl's birth. Why? Because Jacob wants sons. So who cares about the little girl? Moving on. Do you see what it is? This is idolatry. This is craving and yearning for affection in all the wrong ways, in all the wrong places. It's placing something above God. Reminds me of the book of James. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you wrongly, ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, you adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? That's what's going on here. Idols of the heart wrecking havoc on the family. We see how easily the idols of our heart rob us of our humanity, pit us against our brothers and sisters and sacrifice our children at the altar of our personal dreams and desires. What are the idols of your heart? What is the deeper source of envy and strife that festers in your life? You can usually trace these idols to the places where you're fighting and fighting often in the home and with your friends. You can also trace these idols with a simple question. What do I think I must have in order to be happy? Or how about this? What do I insist that I need before I can be grateful for the things I already have? A moment in this text for you to identify the idols of your own heart, which threaten to wreak havoc and destroy. and to rob you from the very goodness of what God has already given you. Rachel can't see the goodness of her husband's love because all she sees is that she doesn't have children. Leah can't see the goodness of the sons that God had already given her. Why? Because all she can see is that her husband loves Rachel more than her. And she wants her husband's affection more than anything else. Idols of the heart. The only solution to these idols of the heart is to turn to a faithful God. And so we turn from lonely Leah and jealous Rachel to the faithful God who is in this text. When we turn away from our idols, we return to the God who has always been there, who has never forgotten us. He's never looked away. We already learned this with Leah. He's still looking, even when he sees the worst in what you've done and the worst of what you've become. Listen to verse 22. Her firstborn son was named Joseph, which means may the Lord add to me another son. You see, she's still stuck on her idols. She can't be happy with what God's already given her. God's given her another son. She's already thinking about the next. And yet God has showered his mercy upon this jealous, depraved heart. The word for remember here is a special covenant word. It's not just some, oh, I almost forgot. but it's a word showing to us God's intentional timing in fulfilling the very things he's promised to his people. Jealous Rachel gave up on God, but God never gave up on his promises to her family. God remembered his promises and he turned the 12 sons of this baby war. Yes, these 12 sons whose names we have just heard and have explained. He turned them into the 12 tribes of Israel. And then God remembered his promises again, and he turned the tribe of Judah into a line of kings. And then in the fullness of time, when everyone thought that God had forgotten his promises, the barren woman was with child, the virgin had a son, to a savior from the tribe of Judah, from this jealous, lonely, despairing family tree. Yes, descended from the very son whose lone name in all of this isn't about jealousy or affection, but praise the Lord. And this son, this Jesus, his name means what? God will save his people from their sins. He's not named after our jealousy. He's not named after our loneliness or despair. Jesus is named after God's initiative to enter into this picture and to save us from the worst of ourselves. Christians, the solution to the loneliness and jealousy of our lives is not the idols of our heart. Just like Leah and Rachel, we need to turn from our sin to find the Savior of our souls, who is sent forth by God to die on the cross for our idols, for our rebellion against God, for our refusal to submit our will to his. I can't think of a better place to close than Isaiah 9, verse 6, in which the name of the Son of God is, at the time of His incarnation, is explained. You see, Jesus' name is explained too. Here it is. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Yes, a peace that ends all wars. an end to the great baby war, an end to the womb war, an end to the war in our adulterous hearts. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the end of the war that is within us and amongst us, and that the end to all war comes through Jesus. that peace has finally been made through him. Peace how? Through the blood of the cross. You sent him to save us from our sins, to save us from the worst of ourselves, the worst of what we had become to ourselves and to others and to you. And you did this at great personal cost. We are so thankful, Lord, for this savior, for this son, for this child who was born when we thought you had forgotten us. We thought you had looked away and yet you knew exactly what you were doing and you gave your son to save us from ourselves. Thank you, Lord. May we respond by praising you. In Jesus' name.