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When God Blesses

David Sorn

Jul 26, 2026

30:25-31:21

Jacob gets blessed by God, and he sure doesn’t seemed to have earned it. Learn more about God’s blessings!

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT

  1. 2 QUICK ANNOUNCEMENTS
    1. (Renovation Slide)
    2. Good morning! My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor of Renovation Church.
      1. 2 Quick things for you before we get into our Bible Teaching for today…
    3. Firstly, we’ve been mentioning over the past few weeks, our great need for Host Homes for our House Churches starting in the Fall.
    4. (Host Home Slides)
      1. And we still need 6 more hosts.
        1. If you’ve been following along, that number hasn’t moved very much.
          1. If you’re waiting for someone else to do it, that someone else might be you.
      2. Seriously, hosting (which isn’t leading), it’s merely opening up the home God has blessed you with, and using it to host the group that you get to be in an as well.
        1. And it’s a HUGE blessing to so many people and an amazing way to serve God.
        2. House Churches are our main adult ministry.
          1. And it gives you an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to do incredible ministry in your house!
        3. So if you are even 10% interested, your church needs you.
          1. If that’s you, would you sign up through our app (right on the featured tab), or talk to Pastor Derek (our Pastor of House Churches) at the Welcome Table after the service.
    5. (Collin, NOT SURE WHAT TO PUT HERE FOR A SLIDE)
    6. Secondly, many of you have been asking lately about the launch of our 3rd location (our north location), with our Location Pastor, Nate Gustafson.
      1. As you may have surmised by now, we’ve hit a number of roadblocks and closed doors in looking for a place to meet for this location.
        1. However, we are praying, and hoping to have a big update for you regarding this location within the next month, so please stay tuned, and if you would , pray for God’s favor for that location right now.
  2. THE PASSAGE
    1. (Series slide)
    2. All right, let’s jump into our Life of Jacob teaching series.
      1. Go ahead and grab a Bible
      2. Genesis 30:25-30
      3. Page 21
        1. If you’re new or just catching up with us:
          1. Jacob stole his twin brother Esau’s birthright & blessing, and so he was forced to leave his homeland
            1. …and had to flee to his Uncle Laban’s house way up in modern-day Turkey
          2. Then, he gets married (uh, a couple of times…talked about that last week), has a lot of kids…and we’re rejoining the story after he’s been up north (away from his family of origin) for 14 years now.
    3. Okay, we’ve got A LOT of reading today in Genesis, and it’s another crazy chapter
    4. (Genesis 30:25-30)
    5. 25 After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland. 26 Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much work I’ve done for you.”
      27 But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.” 28 He added, “Name your wages, and I will pay them.”
      29 Jacob said to him, “You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. 30 The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?”
      1. (When God Blesses)
      2. Let’s pause here for a minute…but keep this open.
        1. Jacob has finished the 14 years he agreed to work for his father-in-law Laban, and he’s ready to go back home to the Promised Land.
      3. But Laban says, “No! Don’t go!”
        1. And why?”
          1. Well, Jacob is such a hard worker and very smart, and he’s made Laban rich.
        2. And Laban, who’s not truly following the Lord, says, “I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you”
          1. This is a crazy sentence.
            1. Laban is saying that he engaged in the pagan practice of divination, and most likely some sort of evil spirit has revealed to Laban that the reason he’s gotten so rich is because God’s hand of blessing is on Jacob’s life.
        3. And then Jacob confirms that in verse 30 by basically saying the same thing: He tells Laban “The Lord has blessed you wherever I have been”
          1. And yet, the financial part of that blessing, hasn’t fallen on Jacob.
            1. Jacob has a big family, but Laban is the only one financially prospering, so Jacob is saying, “I’ve finished my 14 years with you, I want to go home”
    6. But when Laban says, “Name your wages,” and Jacob gets tempted to make another deal
      1. Genesis 30:31-36
      2. Page 21
  3. (Genesis 30:31-36) - NIV
  4. 31 “What shall I give you?” he asked.
    “Don’t give me anything,” Jacob replied. “But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: 32 Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. 33 And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen.”
    34 “Agreed,” said Laban. “Let it be as you have said.” 35 That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. 36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.
  5. (When God Blesses)
    1. So here’s what’s happening
      1. Jacob agrees to stay on and help Laban some more in his work, but he says, “My wages will be any speckled or spotted sheep or goat.”
        1. In that part of the world, the sheep were white and the goats were dark.
          1. So Jacob’s asking for the smaller section of the flock, and the ones Laban wouldn’t have preferred anyway.
      2. But Laban is still worried that that Jacob is going to breed his speckled flock with his non-speckled flock.
        1. So Laban separates Jacob’s speckled and streaked flock from his own.
  6. It’s about to get a lot stranger
    1. Genesis 30:37-43
    2. Page 22
  7. (Genesis 30:37-43) - NIV
  8. 37 Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. 38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals. 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. 43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.
  9. (When God Blesses)
    1. Okay, what in the world is going on here?
      1. There are really two parts to Jacob’s thinking.
        1. One is quite logical, and the other is very superstitious
      2. The logical piece is that Jacob is mating together only the stronger animals, thus creating a stronger flock for himself, rather than Laban.
        1. That makes sense…breeders still do that all the time today
    2. But the weird, superstitious part is where he has the animals look at striped objects while they mate, and Jacob thought that was supposed to produce striped or streaked animals.
  10. Now, let’s remember a few things here.
    1. This is 4,000 years ago…and Jacob is surrounded by a mostly pagan culture…full of superstitious and unscientific beliefs.
      1. And also, before you get on your high horse and start judging Jacob for being antiquated and ignorant, even modern people are still quite superstitious.
        1. How many people do you know still knock on wood, cross their fingers, or make a wish at 11:11?
          1. All of which are about as unscientific, unspiritual, and silly as it gets.
      2. Or if you’re into sports, you might be the most superstitious of all.
        1. I remember when I was in high school, I watched every Vikings game at my best friend Jake’s house.
          1. And he had a rule, that whenever the Vikings were down, you had to find a couch pillow, and sit on it.
            1. And that of course, obviously helped the Vikings come back & win…just like Jacob’s animals would be born with stripes if their mom looked at a striped branch.
              1. I’m honestly not sure which one is more ridiculous.
        2. I can still remember watching the 1998 NFC championship at his house, when the Vikings, who were 15-1 that season, and had a kicker named Gary Anderson who literally didn’t miss a field goal all year, missed the field goal that would’ve taken us to a super bowl.
          1. And we grabbed our worthless pillows and threw them across the room!
  11. But it’s important to note here that the Bible is not teaching what Jacob is doing as some sort of alternative to genetics.
    1. Again, it’s merely describing what Jacob did.
      1. Now, the weird thing is, it kind of worked! And a lot of speckled & streaked animals were born.
    2. But, in the very next chapter, Jacob is going to reveal that it was God’s doing that allowed this miracle to happen
  12. Let’s start reading that next chapter now
    1. Genesis 31:1-13
    2. Page 22
  13. (Genesis 31-1-13) - NIV
  14. Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were saying, “Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father.” 2 And Jacob noticed that Laban’s attitude toward him was not what it had been.
    3 Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”
    4 So Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to come out to the fields where his flocks were. 5 He said to them, “I see that your father’s attitude toward me is not what it was before, but the God of my father has been with me. 6 You know that I’ve worked for your father with all my strength, 7 yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me. 8 If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked young. 9 So God has taken away your father’s livestock and has given them to me.
    10 “In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted. 11 The angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ I answered, ‘Here I am.’ 12 And he said, ‘Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. 13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.’”
  15. (When God Blesses)
    1. This passage then finishes with Jacob’s family secretly fleeing from Laban.
  16. But here we read that all of the increase of Jacob’s flock are from God
    1. In verse 10, Jacob even tells us that it was GOD that gave him a dream about how it would happen.
    2. Earlier, In verse 5, Jacob says this is all happening because “The God of my father has been with me”
    3. In verse 6, Jacob says, “Even though Laban keeps deceiving me and has changed my wages (not for the better) 10 times, God has not allowed Laban to harm me
    4. Look at verse 8 again because this is where it really shows that the Bible is not advocating a bad version of genetics OR superstitions, but in reality, it was God that allowed the speckled and streaked animals to be born. It’s a miracle.
      1. 8 If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, ‘The streaked ones will be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked young.
        1. It’s God making it happen.
        2. It’s God, ultimately, that is blessing Jacob.
  17. WHEN GOD IS GOING TO DO SOMETHING, HE’S GOING TO DO SOMETHING
    1. So what do we do with all this?
      1. And what does the Bible even mean when it says that God blesses someone?
        1. Or sometimes the Bible describes it as, “God’s hand was on them?”
          1. And things are just working out…almost no matter what they do.
            1. You can just see that God is with them.
      2. I don’t think we talk about this very much in the church, so I want to quickly, give you 2 principles we can draw from this text about when God blesses
    2. PRINCIPLES FROM WHEN GOD BLESSES:
    3. #1: When God is going to do something, God is going to do something
      1. Think about it:
        1. The data was not in Jacob’s favor for him to be able to leave Laban and go home.
          1. Especially with the resources he would need to support his large family.
        2. And even when Jacob made the deal to only take the streaked and speckled animals, the data was not in his favor.
          1. The streaked and speckled animals were in the minority, and there didn’t seem to be any easy way to breed them with the others since Laban had separated the flocks.
      2. But when God is going to do something, God is going to do something.
        1. There is no stopping Him
          1. (Isaiah 14:27) – NIV
          2. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
            His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
      3. This is why God’s promises matter so much to us in the Bible.
      4. This is why if God has told you to do something, talk to someone, or go somewhere, you can trust Him.
        1. If God is on your side, it doesn’t matter if your situation looks insurmountable.
          1. When God is going to do something, He’s going to do something.
            1. And God had decided it was time for Jacob to go home to the promised land, so Jacob was going to go home, and nothing, I mean nothing, was going to stop that.
              1. It can’t.
  18. NOT EVERY BLESSING MAKES SENSE
    1. And here’s the 2nd principle I want you to see from when God blesses.
    2. PRINCIPLES FROM WHEN GOD BLESSES:
    3. #1: When God is going to do something, God is going to do something
    4. #2: Not every blessing makes sense
      1. …to us that is.
        1. I think this is in part why we don’t talk about blessings very much in the church today
          1. We look at someone (maybe it’s someone in your family, or someone you went to school with), and they just looked blessed…like all the time.
            1. I’m not just talking finances (not prosperity gospel)
            2. Life is just constantly working out for them.
              1. And honestly, you’re not sure why.
      2. We could certainly question why God is blessing Jacob (of all people), right?
        1. Jacob is not going to be in the list of Top 10 most morally outstanding people in the Bible.
          1. The vast majority of the actions we’ve seen him do in our series have been more awful than inspiring.
            1. And yet God’s hand is just on him.
              1. Why?
              2. I don’t know if there is a clear answer here…besides it was just part of God’s plan to bless the future Israelite nation through Him.
      3. But we always want to make sense of it.
        1. We want to say, “That person is being blessed in their life because they did A, B, and C, and thus D, E, F, G”
          1. And honestly, it’s just not that simple.
            1. There’s so much going on in God’s plan, that we just don’t know.
    5. I think about this with our church a lot.
      1. We haven’t said this, but we’ve basically been the fastest growing church in MN that past few years.
        1. And so I get asked, literally multiple times a week, “WHY? What’s happening? What did you do?
          1. And listen, I think I do my part: I work hard, I try my best.
          2. I understand that I have some unique and different gifts (especially for a pastor)…as my highest spiritual gifts (even beyond teaching) are actually in organization, vision understanding systems, building scalable infrastructure for our church.
            1. That’s how my mind works.
            2. And we’ve got a great team with incredible leaders.
      2. But honestly, at the end of the day, I think you could say, God has just decided to bless this church in this season.
        1. Most of the great movements of our story, we can’t even take credit for.
          1. I’ve told you several times how we botched up negotiations in buying this land, and yet the seller miraculously changed his mind 4 days later and threw in an extra half acre.
          2. We had the southern piece of this land donated for us.
          3. The northern corner where the old shell gas station was, we needed $300,000 in just a few weeks, and people gave $400,000
          4. And I’m telling you, I’ve got more miracles to tell you that are coming.
          5. Even our leaders…people will say, “Where’d you find a guy like Matt Martinez, our Shoreview Location Pastor?”
            1. I didn’t. He just applied on Indeed.com
        2. Like, at some point, you just have to sit back and say, “God is just doing something. He’s blessing. His hand is on it. Let’s not mess it up”
    6. And a lot of blessings, you can’t always make sense of
      1. And the problem is: If you try and make sense of the blessings, you’ll try just as hard to make sense of the hard times.
        1. And those won’t always make sense either.
    7. Do you know what’s really interesting to me about Jacob?
      1. In the first half of his life, he’s not that great of a person, and yet God’s blessing is just all over his life…especially once we get to this chapter.
        1. God is blessing Him because God is building that important family of Israel, his 12 sons, and the future 12 tribes.
      2. But what’s fascinating is, in the second half of Jacob’s life, as Jacob becomes a much more godly person, Jacob experiences not more blessing, but pain.
        1. For example, his beloved son Joseph, is sold off into Egypt as a slave, but Jacob thinks his son is dead.
        2. And then, a severe famine hits the promised land
          1. And Jacob and his whole family are forced to flee and live in Egypt
            1. And that of course was a part of God’s greater plan as well.
      3. But think about this!
        1. When Jacob wasn’t being all that good, he’s blessed beyond measure
        2. But when He truly starts to follow God, he suffers under difficult times.
    8. Now, don’t try and make an applicable formula out of that; I’m just pointing it out to you to say: There is a whole lot more going on in your life and in God’s broader plan than you can know
      1. And so some of the best advice I can give you, is STOP TRYING TO FIGURE IT ALL OUT.
        1. Sometimes God’s blessings (or the hardships that come) just won’t make sense…this side of heaven.
      2. But our highly developed sense of fairness or justice leads most of us to believe that life should be fair (and we should be able to figure it all out)
        1. But life is not fair.
        2. There’s nothing fair about Jesus paying the penalty for our sins.
          1. Fairness would be us paying for our sins.
      3. See, Jacob and his family weren’t perfect.
        1. In fact, as we’ve seen this summer, they were quite a mess.
          1. And yet, God, in His mercy blessed them.
            1. Is there anything fair in that?
              1. Maybe not.
            2. But maybe that’s what makes it beautiful.
    9. And like you, I don’t deserve a relationship with Jesus or eternal life in heaven.
      1. That’s not fair. I’ve sinned against God and others and on and on.
        1. But God, in his mercy, offered me forgiveness by sending Jesus for me, and for you.
          1. And that is what makes His love and His plan beautiful.
            1. (Invite them to go to prayer room.)

Copyright:

David Sorn

Renovation Church in Blaine, MN

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