The document discusses the biblical story of Leah, who was the older, less attractive daughter of Laban. Jacob fell in love with Leah's younger sister Rachel and worked 7 years to marry her. However, on the wedding night, Laban deceived Jacob into marrying Leah instead in the dark. Leah spent her life facing rejection from her husband Jacob, who loved Rachel more, and trying unsuccessfully to gain his love through bearing him sons. The document draws parallels between Leah's rejection and hurt and how people still experience rejection today, emphasizing that only God can truly satisfy and fill the void in one's life.

1. Have you ever seen the movie back to the future? In the movie, Marty McFly goes back in time to the year 1955, to make sure that his mom falls in love with his dad. And there is a scene where Marty tries to get his dad to ask her out. And his dad says, “you mean on a date?” And Marty says, “yeah.” And the dad says, “gee i don’t know, Marty. I mean, what if she says no? What if she laughs at me? I just don’t think i can take that kind of rejection. You know what I mean?”And Marty looked down and said, “yes, yes I know what you mean.”<br />Do you know what he means? I think we can all resonate with that, I mean as humans we hate being rejected, in any form. Why? Because rejection hurts. Whether it is on the playground at recess, at school growing up, asking a date to the prom, asking for a hand in marriage, or maybe it is on the job, or maybe it’s from your spouse or a child.Wherever it comes from we can all agree it hurts, it damages, it bruises our ego, and I would be willing to bet that it is an emotion that we can all agree we would like to do without.d. But in our sinful nature, we understand that hurts for us to be rejected, but it is not so bad when that rejection happens to somebody else. Because it makes us feel a little better, and it allows us to compare our situations and ourselves with someone else.I think that is why millions of Americans tune in every week to shows like “American Idol” or “The Bachelor or Bachelorette.” Yeah the show is entertaining, but for the most part we love the rejection part of it. The best part of the Bachelor is the last 10 minutes when they have the rose ceremony and the interviews of the contestants who got rejected, and just to see their humiliation and how they handle it.Simon the British guy on American Idol has made millions of dollars and quite a name for himself simply by belittling and demoralizing potential candidates.As human beings we seems to enjoy this rejection when viewing it safely from the comforts of our living rooms, but when we experience it firsthand that is a whole different story.It makes our stomach turns, it leaves us with feeling and emotions and thoughts that we never thought we were capable of having we say things we wouldn’t normally say, we think thoughts we would not normally think, all because we feel like we have been trashed inside and deemed worthless by another human being.Today we are going to take a look at an uncommon character in the Bible who felt this rejection on a daily basis. I want us to draw some parallels with her situation and see how maybe we can gain strength from it.Now this is a story that you are probably not aware that you know.It is found nestled in the Genesis account about Jacob the son of Isaac.Now remember Jacob is considered a trickster, when his father is old and nearly blind, Jacob dresses up as his older twin brother Esau, and get his father to bless him with the birthrightWell this of course infuriates Esau and so Jacob hits the road and is on the run from his older brother because of the swindling.So Jacob begins to travel and he decides to go far away to his mom’s brother’s home, his uncle Laban. Let’s pick up the story there in verse 16.SCRIP: Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful. Now what the text says right there is basically a polite way of saying Leah was ugly. And this is not something that is news to her, she is fully aware, and was aware all the more because all her life people saw her with her younger sister, Rachel, who happened to be absolutely beautiful, and in contrast Leah looked all the more ugly. Leah was severely handicapped by her looks. I use the word handicap to show you how drastic looks were in this time period.NOTE: It is important for you to understand that historically, women back then, their worth and self image came from the surface and not from within. Because when a woman was born no one paid too much attention, yes Leah was the oldest daughter, but all that birth order entitled her to was head servant in her father’s household. And since being born a woman was not necessarily a good thing she came out of the womb with one strike against her, all a woman could hope for was that she would grow up to be beautiful, this would alleviate some of the difficulty from an already hard life, well this turned out to be strike two for Leah, because as we have just understood, beautiful was about the farthest thing from the truth in Leah’s case. And because her worth was derived from appearance This just serves to illustrate what a loving God we have, because he makes it clear throughout Scripture that man looks out the outward appearance but God looks at the heart, he searches much deeper within. But because man looks and judges by the outward appearance this is not good news for Leah.And we can assume that Leah has felt hurt, pain, and rejection all her life, so it should come to no surprise to us when we read on in verse 18 that:SCRIP: Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, quot;
I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.quot;
Here was a man of prominence pledging his life away for seven years just to be able to marry her little sister. This just intensified the hurt and made the pain go all the deeper, she knew that no man, would want to marry her let alone say that he would work 7 years of his life away just to have her hand in marriage. She thought the only way I will ever get married is if my father pays some poor man a handsome dowry to take me off his hands. Now Leah at this point has got to be hurting all the more, after all this was the way she was made, it’s not like she chose the way she looked, and if given the choice she would have chosen to be beautiful any day over the way she looked, she would have even chosen to be just plain and mediocre in comparison to the way she looked. And you know what it doesn’t seem like to much has changed in this day and age. A lot of women in Leah’s position today feel rejected and hurt, because they don’t look a certain way, or they don’t fit the scrupulous profile of the way a woman should look.I read a survey asking women in America if they had the choice what would they prefer between being incredibly beautiful or being incredibly smart. And the overwhelming majority said they would prefer to be beautiful.A husband who was ticked off at his wife, and in his anger he lashed out and asked her, “How can you be so pretty, and yet so dumb?” His wife quickly replied, “I am pretty so that you will love me. I am dumb so that I can love you!”QUOTE: The average woman would prefer to have beauty over brains because most men can see better than they can think.d. One lesson we can take away from this is that as Christians we need to be sensitive to people’s pain and hurt, and we need to remind them that there is more to this life than simply the way one looks.II. Whatever the case, Jacob worked his seven years. a. I am sure he counted down the days, seven years of waiting eventually turned into just 7 months and then two months and finally the day came.and Jacob goes to Laban and says, all right I kept my end of the deal, now its time you held up yours now give me my wife.SCRIP: So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her. 25 When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, quot;
What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?quot;
Laban replied, quot;
It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.quot;
Now in those days, it was customary when a couple got married that the woman be veiled completely, from head to toe. And we aren’t sure but we can assume that when the feast and festivities were over and it was time for the couple to consummate their marriage it was well into the night, and so inside the tent it was probably very dark. So Jacob did not realize it was Leah, until the light of the early morning woke him and he rolled over to a big surprise.c. This is a tough passage for Leah. Can you imagine the embarrassment and humiliation she must have felt? This just reemphasized in her mind, her thoughts and feeling of worthlessness, because the only way she got married in the first place was in deceit and in one big scam.I found it interesting that Jacob the ultimate trickster had just been tricked in the worst way. You see God does separates the weeds....we need to let justice stay in his hands.She found Her worth in what her husband thought of her. And I just want to use this as an opportunity to speak to the ladies in this room for a second.b. It is imperative for you to get to a place in your spiritual life where your self-image is not predicated by commercials, or models, movie stars, or fashion fads; but on what God thinks about you.The Bible says that beauty is fleeing and charm is deceptive but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (Prov 31:30)QUOTE: Ian Pitman Watson said, “There are some thing’s that are loved because they are valuable; there are other things that are valuable because they are loved.”And ladies it doesn’t matter if you are a beauty or not, you are valuable because who you are loved by. Not your husband’s love, your parent’s love, your children’s love, your grandchildren’s love, but because the God of the universe was so head over heels in love with you that He came Himself to tell you about it and then show you by dying on the cross for you, and he would have done that if you were the only person on this earth.SCRIP: This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)III. Jacob’s ReluctanceA. Well after hours of arguing Jacob reluctantly agreed to finish out the honeymoon week with Leah, and then he would get his prize, Rachel for a wife.a. But it was going to cost him, but at this point, Jacob did not care, so he worked hard for another 7 years, but these 7 years came a little harder because he had already gotten what he wanted. NOTE: It is kind of like credit card debt. It is whole lot easier and more fun to work for something for a long time and then pay for it in cash, than to buy it now on credit and work 7 years to pay off.b. But Jacob wasn’t unwise he had just been cheated and as a result he was sort of paying off his wife by working another 7 years. This had to rob him a little of the joy that should come with marriage. He woke up every day probably resenting Rachel a little while just absolutely despising Leah.In verse 30 we read that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, and I am sure that Leah felt that hostility and resentment every single day as the torment of her rejection set in even further, in her lifetime she never felt the love that Rachel felt.A preacher friend of mine suggested that one of the reason’s why Jacob never loved Leah, was because she was a constant reminder of him being duped by his uncle, and then a reminder of his past and how he was a deceiver himself.And we should be aware that sometimes when we face rejection it may not be personal against us, but it is being taken out on us because of unresolved problems in the life of the person doing the rejecting, and we should be sensitive to that as well. But whatever the case with Jacob one thing we know for sure is that he simply did not love Leah.SCRIP: vs 31 When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. 32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, quot;
It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.quot;
<br /> I think that this is one of the saddest verses in this passage because it is so true human nature. And we look around and see women all the time in this same situation, just desperate to be loved willing to do anything to give anything just to be loved in return. And so reading this verse I find it especially sad because it is just so relatable. Leah thought here I gave him something that Rachel can never give him, a son, but we find that even that was not enough. But like most women in this condition they are not done trying to get this love. So we read on.SCRIP: 33 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, quot;
Because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.quot;
So she named him Simeon.34 Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, quot;
Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.quot;
So he was named Levi.35 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, quot;
This time I will praise the LORD.quot;
So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.Leah was having a difficult time understanding that nothing she could do would ever win her the love of her husband. This was all because she was after the love of the wrong man, she was so dead set and had such tunnel vision about how she could win the love of her husband that we can surmise that she forgot about to whom her first love should be. And this is so true; we see this everywhere we turn today.In every human being’s heart there is a hole that only Jesus Christ can fill. Amen?And people today understand that they have this hole that is no mystery you hear this concept talked about all the time, they are just left clueless as to what is supposed to fill this hole.So they try working 12-hour days thinking there might be fulfillment in the form of a perk or bonus or promotion or position, or they fill their hole with pills and anti-depressants or by drinking heavily every evening, or by relationships, or with drugs and sometimes with a lethal combination of everything.We are reminded of this again Jesus encountered a woman like this in John 4. Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem and he cut through Samaria where he got tired and decided to stop and rest. Well while there He stopped at a well and as He was sitting there a woman came to draw water. So Jesus struck up a conversation with this woman, and He amazed her by telling her all about herself, and He said that she had been married five times and was now living with a man who was not her husband. And the conversation went on and Jesus said, you see you have tried all these different things to satisfy you, you have tried relationships and marriage, 5 times marriage and you are living with a man right now who is not even your husband, you see nothing is satisfying you because it is not meant to, you see I am the man you are looking for, I am what you have been searching for I am the only one who was ever meant to satisfy you.And so many people wander through this life facing rejection on every front nearly every day, never realizing that they are the ones rejecting the one who can truly satisfy them.My Friends… only Jesus Christ can fill that void in your life.Everything on this earth that is said to be awesome and great can only being you pleasure and happiness for a short time, and pretty soon the new wears off and you toss it aside, only Christ can satisfy eternally.Well not much more happens to Leah. Just this cycle of trying to please Jacob and facing rejection and giving him more things and children and being turned down at every turn. This is really a sad story as she disappears from the pages not much can be said about her, other than she was dealt a bad hand in life, she tried her best to do and give as was expected of her, but in the end it proved not to be enough because she never gained the love she so desperately sought after.Conclusion: Some lessons I hope we have learned from today are:* As Christians we need to be sensitive to the pain of others and we should be instruments that God uses to let others know that they have eternal worth in the eyes of God.* That when people reject us a lot of times it stems from personal pain they have experienced in their life* We should expect rejection in life, but we should look at it as a test that God gives us to see how well we handle the rejection of people in light of our acceptance we get unconditionally from Him.Well I said Leah disappeared from the pages of the Bible with nothing but a sad pitiful story of rejection. But that is not entirely true because there is one more mention of Leah found in Chapter 35:23SCRIP: The sons of Leah: Reuben the firstborn of Jacob, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun.b. It just a genealogy it doesn’t sound like much, but notice one of her sons is named Judah, and I mentioned that her sons went on to become the tribes in Israel. c. Well the tribe of Judah was the kingly line, David was in this line and later on Jesus Christ.d. You see though Leah’s life was filled with rejection but little did she understand that in God’s eternal plan He had much more in mind, and that through her, and her pain and suffering, would come the man of pain and suffering the man of sorrows Jesus Christ, the hope and the redeemer of the world. e. Which is the final lesson I hope you take home today and that is despite your pain, imperfection and rejection God still has an incredible plan for your life.The Bible says weeping may last for a night but Joy comes in the morning. Amen<br />Pastoral Prayer Holy Father of goodness and light, we confess that we have not always been a light to the world or the salt of the earth. We have not always acted in ways that showed our faith. There have been times when our own wills were stronger than yours and we have failed to love our neighbors. Forgive us O Lord, so that by your grace our light might shine and our love might freely given to all. You spoke your Word in the beginning and gave us life. You spoke your Word in Jesus Christ and brought us wholeness. Lord, teach us the language of your Word, Grant us the love that we might share with those who don’t know you; and your mercy when we ask for forgiveness. Give us the courage to tell others of the hope you brings us in eternal life. We pray for the prophets of our day to speak strongly and with sincerity, and we pray for protection and wisdom in this day of the evils of this world. This morning Lord we especially pray for …..Concerns We are so grateful to you our God, for this moment that we can slow down….be refreshed and be restored in you….. Joys. Lord we ask that you ease our minds, open our hearts and touch us with your healing peace. In your Son Jesus’ name we pray.<br />Offertory prayer Through these gifts we bring, we light a small candle and ask that you use it to bring enlightenment to our dark world. Amen.<br />Benediction Go in the Power of the Spirit of God to be the church to this community and may the blessing of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit be upon you!<br />