Sermon

The one true love for the unloved 

Big Idea: Come to Christ, unloved ones, for only the one true God can satisfy our longing we have for our one true love

1.     Finding and pursuing after one’s “one true love”

2.     Deception and disappointments after the pursuit

3.     Our one true love and the love of the One true God

What’s happening in 13 days’ time?

Is it Chinese New Year? No, it’s Valentine’s Day.

Chinese New Year is on the 17^th February.

Valentine’s Day’s on 14^th February, and it’s one of the busiest times for florists because many people would buy flowers for the person they are in love with, for their one true love.

After a day of work or school, there will be girls holding the flowers that their boyfriend or their secret admirer gave them.

Some would even get some flowers from their husbands!

But there will be many girls who won’t have any, because they don’t have someone who think of them as their one true love.

That can be hard for some on Valentine’s Day.

They might have a longing to be loved, they might even have a longing to be loved by someone they have in mind, but that love remains out of reach.

What will you do to be loved by your one true love?

In today’s passage, we see someone who did something extraordinary for his one true love, as well as someone unloved who long to be loved.

If you have your Bible there, please open up to Genesis 29 beginning from verse one.

We’ll see three things:

1.     Finding and pursuing after one’s “one true love”

2.     Deception and disappointments after the pursuit

3.     Our one true love and the love of the One true God

Before we go into it, let’s pray, “Our heavenly Father, please open our eyes to see a glimpse of the glorious love you have for us in the Lord Jesus, for whose sake we pray, Amen.”

1.    Finding and pursuing after one’s “one true love”

Last week, in Genesis 28, we saw that Jacob was on his way to a place called Haran to find a wife.

He was alone in the wilderness and found a place to sleep at night.

While he was sleeping, he dreamt of a vision from God.

God had promised to be with him wherever he went.

What a promise! He then continued on his way to Haran.

On the way, he met some shepherds with their sheep lying around the well.

There was a large stone covering the well.

They had a special custom; a habit, as it were.

The shepherds would wait until all the flocks were gathered, they would roll the stone away from the well, and water their sheep.

Maybe the stone was so large that it needed a few men to move it.

When Jacob got there, he started asking them questions about whether they knew his uncle Laban from a place called Haran.

They did. And more than that, Laban’s daughter Rachel was coming with Laban’s sheep even as they were speaking.

As Rachel was approaching, Jacob started ordering the shepherds around.

Look with me in verse 7, “Then Jacob said, “Look, it is still broad daylight. It’s not time for the animals to be gathered. Water the flock, then go out and let them graze.”

What he was really saying was, “It’s midday, you should’ve already watered the flocks and you should’ve taken them out to the pastures to graze, you lazy lot!”

And then they repeated their custom to him in verse 8, “We can’t until all the flocks have been gathered and the stone is rolled from the well’s opening. Then we will water the sheep.”

They had rules to follow, and they weren’t going to break them because some random young stranger thought he was better than them.

And so, when Rachel got to the well, Jacob rolled up his sleeve, showed his massive biceps, and moved the stone all by himself.

While the Bible doesn’t say how he felt about Rachel, it certainly looked like he was trying to impress her.

What do boys today do to impress girls?

What did I do back in the day to impress Jenny?

I didn’t have large biceps to show off!

But I do remember going to a Christian ball with my friends and calling her on the train, from my mobile phone…I mean, my Dad’s mobile phone.

My Dad gave it to me to use just in case anything happens to me on the train.

But one of the first people I thought of to call was Jenny.

And it was a big deal – we had to pay quite a bit for each call.

Do boys still use the phone to call girls to impress them these days?

Maybe not. Maybe they just do what Jacob did and move big obstacles to show how strong they are.

After his literal power move, he kissed Rachel and wept loudly.

And that’s before he introduced himself!

Can you imagine what Rachel was thinking, “Oh, what a strong man. Oh, he’s coming. Woah, he’s getting a little close.

Some personal space, please! What’s with the kiss, stranger?”

It could’ve been romantic, but it was most probably more like a greeting sort of a kiss, than a romantic sort of kiss.

As soon as Rachel found out that Jacob was her father’s relative, and Rebekah’s son, Rachel ran back to her father, Laban.

When Laban heard about Jacob, we went out to meet him, to hug him and to kiss him.

He was very excited to see him. Why? Because he’d seen something very similar before.

When Jacob’s mother Rebekah was still living at home, Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather, sent his servant to help Isaac, Jacob’s father, find a wife.

Rebekah was also at the well, just like Rachel was by the well.

Abraham’s servant brought lots of camels and all kinds of gifts. What will Jacob bring this time?

Laban took Jacob to his house, and Jacob told him all that had happened.

Did he tell Laban everything, including how he tricked Isaac? Including how he’s on the run from his brother, who was about to kill him?

Did he tell Laban that he didn’t bring any camels or gifts, and that all he had was maybe just the clothes he was wearing?

Well, it would’ve been obvious to Laban that he wouldn’t be getting any new camels anytime soon, and so he said to Jacob, “Yes, you are my own flesh and blood”, as if he was saying, “since you are really my relative, you can stay.”

After staying with Jacob for a month, he said to Jacob, in verse 15, “Just because you’re my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”

The next two verses paints a sad scene.

Look with me at verses 16-17, “Now Laban had two daughters: the older was named Leah, and the younger was named Rachel. 17 Leah had tender eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful.”

Up to this point, we haven’t even heard of Rachel’s older sister Leah.

However, Leah’s now introduce to the story and one of the first things we found out about her was that she had tender eyes.

This probably meant that there were some issues with her eyes.

It could mean that Leah had trouble seeing, but it’s much more likely that her eyes didn’t make her look attractive, since Leah was contrasted with Rachel’s beauty.

Rachel was beautiful - she a stunner - but Leah was not pleasant to look at.

These two verses are sad because they already foreshadow how one sister would be preferred over the other.

The next verse confirmed this, “Jacob loved Rachel, so he answered Laban, “I’ll work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Jacob could offer nothing extravagant to Laban for him to give Rachel to Jacob in marriage.

However, he promised to work seven years for Laban and she would be his wages.

Beautiful Rachel was treated by Jacob and her father Laban as some sort of wages that could be earned.

The not-so-beautiful Leah was treated as something even less than wages; she wasn’t even considered ‘valuable’ enough as wages.

And so, Jacob worked seven years for Laban, but it only seemed like a few days because he loved her.

Jacob wanted Rachel, his one true love.

He loved her so much that he was willing to work seven years for her.

Imagine working for seven years, saving all the money, in order to marry the one that he loved.

It’s romantic, isn’t it?

But more than that, this is the first time Jacob was taking responsibility for his life.

Up until this point, he had cheated and lied his way to get his blessings from his blind Dad, he’d left his loving mother behind and he was running away from his big brother.

He made a lot of decisions that led him to lead a lonely life, with hardly any possessions.

But now, he would work for an honest day’s wage, an honest seven years’ wage, in order to get the woman of his dreams.

After seven years of work, he went up to Laban and said, “Since my time is complete, give me my wife, so I can sleep with her.”

Jacob wasn’t messing around; he knew what he wanted.

He said he wanted to sleep with Rachel, to her father’s face!

For all this time, Rachel was the only person he wanted.

She was his one true love; she was his one true desire.

He did many things wrong, he messed up his life so many times, but Rachel, Rachel would be the best thing that could happen to him.

Being with Rachel was his goal in life.

With Rachel as his wife, when he married his one true love, everything would be alright. Or would it?

In his prize-winning book, The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker made this observation about how modern people think about romantic love.

Now Becker was not a Christian, but he talked about what happens when the modern man replaces God with romantic love.

He talks about how the modern man needed to feel heroic, that his life mattered in the scheme of things.

But how would he feel his importance and significance without God?

This is a quote from his book, “One of the first ways that occurred to him, as Rank saw, was the “romantic solution”: he fixed his urge to cosmic heroism onto another person in the form of a love object. The self-glorification that he needed in his innermost nature he now looked for in the love partner. The love partner becomes the divine ideal within which to fulfil one’s life. All spiritual and moral needs now become focussed in one individual. Spirituality, which once referred to another dimension of things, is now brought down to this earth and given form in another individual human being.”

Towards the end of his article, Becker writes, ‘After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to the position of God? We want redemption—nothing less. We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know that our creation has not been in vain. We turn to the love partner for the experience of the heroic, for perfect validation; we expect them to “make us good”: through love,” Needless to say, human partners can’t do this.’

So often, we think we can find our answer to our feeling of hopelessness, our sense of insignificance, is finding love in our one true love.

When we make the person we love the answer to our deepest and most foundational need, we are looking to that person to give value to who we are, to justify our existence, things that only God can do.

When we do that we place far too much burden on the one we love, since we’re putting them in the place of God, thinking that they will do for us only what God himself can do.

While romantic love is often what many of us turn to find our fulfilment, it’s not the only love we turn to.

For some, their one true love is not a person, but a beautiful house.

For others, their one true love is a position of power and influence.

They believe that once they have that house, or that position, then everything will be alright, that they will be justified, that they would be redeemed.

Sadly, as both the Bible and history have shown us time and time again, when we place someone or something other than God our one true love, we will be ultimately be utterly disappointed.

2.    Deception and disappointments after the pursuit

After Jacob demanded Laban to give him his wife, Laban invited all the men to come and had a feast.

But look at what he did in verses 23-24, “That evening, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her. And Laban gave his slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her slave.”

The bride would’ve been veiled throughout the whole ceremony and Laban used this opportunity to give his older daughter Leah to Jacob instead of Leah.

What a horrible thing to do to Jacob.

And what a horrible thing to do to Leah!

How badly would Leah have felt?

She knew that Jacob didn’t want her and now it looked like her own father didn’t want her either.

She was given away as if she was some damaged goods that her father got rid of as soon as he could.

At the same time, there was nothing in the Bible to say that she was forced against her will.

Perhaps she accepted the fact that this was the only way that she would get married, even if it was done deceptively.

Even if Leah couldn’t stop her father from giving her away, she could’ve told Jacob the truth on the wedding night.

But she didn’t.

The unloved daughter saw her chance of being loved and she took it.

She pretended to be Rachel on Jacob’s wedding night.

Look with me at verse 25 to see what happened the morning after, ‘When morning came, there was Leah! So he said to Laban, “What have you done to me? Wasn’t it for Rachel that I worked for you? Why have you deceived me?”’

You know the times when things turn out so bad, that you have to ask yourself whether you’re just in a very bad dream? And that you’ll wake up and everything will be normal again?

Have you ever had that experience?

That’s probably what Jacob was thinking when he woke up.

He was expecting to see beautiful Rachel, but he saw the not so beautiful Leah instead.

When he realised he wasn’t dreaming, he went up to Laban and said, “What have you done to me? Why did you deceive me?”

What Laban said was probably one of the coldest responses Jacob’s heard up to this point in his life, in verse 26, “It is not the custom in our country to give the younger daughter in marriage before the firstborn.”

The shepherds earlier were unwilling to break the custom of watering the sheep before all the sheep were gathered.

Laban said he wouldn’t break his custom by giving the younger daughter in marriage before the firstborn.

But it was more than just Laban keeping the country’s customs.

If Jacob did tell Laban all that had happened, he would’ve told Laban that he deceived his father to get his older brother’s blessings.

And now, Jacob got a taste of his own medicine.

He deceived his father, and now his father-in-law had deceived him.

He got what would customarily belong to the older and the more loved brother, and now he’s got what the customs of that country required, the older but less loved sister.

Jacob took advantage of his blind father by putting on goat’s hair, and now he was taken advantage of by Leah with tender eyes, who was veiled so that he couldn’t see who she was on their wedding night.

I think Jacob’s heart would’ve been pierced and deeply hurt when Laban told him about how the younger shouldn’t be married before the older.

Yes, Laban deceived him, but he did it to his own father first.

That’s why when Laban asked him to work another seven years for Rachel, even though Laban deceived him, Jacob obliged.

Jacob knew he was in no position to defend his cause.

He was just as guilty as Laban.

And so, after a week of wedding celebration with Leah, Jacob married Rachel.

For one week, Leah was Jacob’s one and only wife.

She was his, and he was hers, even if he didn’t really love her.

But all that changed a week later when Jacob married Rachel.

Look with me at verse 30, “Jacob slept with Rachel also, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.”

Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.

It must have been piercing to Leah’s heart also.

Leah was unloved by her father and by her husband.

Everyone’s eyes were on Rachel and not on Leah with the weak eyes.

However, even though Leah was not the one Jacob loved, there were far more similarities between Leah and Jacob.

Like Jacob, Leah was not loved by her father.

Like Jacob, Leah longed to for the one she loved.

Whereas Jacob, her husband, longed for Rachel, Leah longed for Jacob.

After the Lord saw that she was unloved, the Lord gave sons to Leah.

The first one she named Reuben, and said, “The LORD has seen my affliction; surely my husband will love me now.” She’s now the mother of Jacob’s firstborn, surely, he must love her now.

The second one she named Simeon and said, “The LORD heard that I am neglected and has given me this son also.”

The third one she named, Levi and she said, “At last, my husband will become attached to me because I have borne three sons for him.”

We don’t know how long it was between the three sons, but it would’ve taken several years, perhaps even seven years, the time it took Jacob to work for the love of his life.

Much like Jacob, Leah was looking for her meaning and her salvation in Jacob, her one true love.

However, Jacob could never give the satisfaction that Leah was looking for.

It’s only in the LORD God, the one true God, that Leah, or anyone of us, can find true satisfaction.

By the time Leah had her fourth son, she might have finally understood the freedom that comes from finding her joy in the Lord, for she named her fourth son Judah and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.”

Then Leah stopped having children.

It’s a glimpse of the peace and satisfaction that she found in the LORD God, and not Jacob.

The renowned Christian writer and preacher Tim Keller made a very interesting observation about what we can learn about Leah.

When Jacob woke up in the morning, it was Leah.

Keller said what we need to know is that through every aspect of life, there always will be a ground note of cosmic disappointment and you’re not going to lead a wise life until you know that.

When Jacob finally thought that he made it in life, he woke up, and it was Leah.

Every time we get into a relationship, move into marriage, get a new job, start a new pursuit, and thinking that everything will be alright, we are going to wake up one morning and we would see a Leah.

We might get excited when we start a relationship or start a new job, much like Jacob working finding and pursuing Rachel at the beginning, but if these are our one true love, then we’ll end up seeing a Leah, we’ll end up disappointed.

If we put all our longing for satisfaction, all of our longing, all of our hope, in our marriage, in our family, in our work, even when they are good marriages and happy families and productive work,

we would ultimately find ourselves crushed with disappointment.

3.    Our one true love and the love of the One true God

How do we find true satisfaction then? We can only find true satisfaction when our one true love is for the One true God.

Though Rachel was favoured by Jacob, Leah was favoured by God and loved by God.

So much so that the fourth child Leah gave birth to, the little baby Judah, would be the one through whom God would continually bless the world.

For it’s through Judah’s line that God would raise up the royal line of David.

And more importantly, it’s through David’s line that the Lord Jesus, the King of God’s Kingdom, would come.

God saw the ugly girl who was unloved by her father, unloved by her husband, and loved her by making her one of the ancestors of Jesus.

That’s what the love of God is like.

God loves the unlovely, the weak, and the ugly not because they have something intrinsic in them that makes them worthy.

God loves the unlovely because by his grace, he has helped them to see their own unloveliness and God’s own glorious love.

God works to heal the blindness of their hearts so that they can see the God alone is the One True Love worth pursuing.

He’s the One true Love who can truly satisfy.

God loves men like Jacob, who lied to get what he wanted and who was himself lied to.

God loves women like Leah, who was unloved by her family and was probably unloved by others due to her appearance.

And God loves men and women, boys and girls, like us, who, like Jacob and Leah, are broken people who long for God’s love.

In Romans 5:8, the Bible says that “But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God demonstrates his love for us by sending Jesus, his one and only Son, to die for us, even when we were sinners.

When we were utterly ugly on the inside, Christ entered our world, became weak, and became ugly (the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 53:2 that we didn’t desire his appearance).

Jesus became weak and ugly to die for us so that we can know the One true God, so that the One True Love that belongs to the One true God will become our one true love.

So don’t make your marriage, even if you have a beautiful marriage, your one true love.

Don’t make your family, even if it’s the best family in your world, your one true love.

Let the love of the one true God, as given to us in Jesus, God’s one and only Son, be your one true love.

What will you do to be loved by your one true love?

If Jesus is already your one true love, then he already loves you, far more than you can possibly know.

Even so, if you do know his love, and if you do love him, work hard for him.

Jacob worked seven years for the woman whom he thought was his one true love and it seemed like only a few days.

How many years will you work to serve the God whom you love?

What will you do to serve the One True God, who is the One true Love who can fulfil our own deepest longings?

Come to Christ, unloved ones, for only the one true God can satisfy our longing we have for our one true love.  

Here are three questions for us to think about this week:

Three Questions

1.     What is the one true love your heart is currently pursuing?

2.     What disappointments have you felt on occasions when you placed your one true love on something or someone other than the One True God?

3.     What love must you set aside to find and pursue the love of God?

If you feel unloved, or if you realised that whatever you have pursued to be your one true love won’t satisfy, come to Christ, for only the one true God can satisfy our longing we have for our one true love.  

Let’s pray, “Father, you are Love and in Christ, you have shown us the depths, the heights and the breadth of your love. Thank you for loving the unlovely and the unloved. Thank you for loving us. Father, forgive us when we place something or someone above you as our one true love. By your Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see that you are the one true God and that it’s only in you, and through Jesus Christ, that we can find the one true love. We pray in the name of Jesus, your beloved Son, and our beloved Saviour, Amen.”