A Tale of 2 Mothers - Happy Mother's Day

0:00 Well, happy Mother's Day, real life. Give a shout to all the moms who are here today. It's such a special day. Yes, to get to celebrate and sorry I'm a little bit I don't always get to be down worshipping with everybody and I love it so much and that song. It just gets me that last song. It's like man, God put his breath in our. Lungs and we get to give it back to him like what an awesome picture of God. So I am so excited I am if I haven't met you. My name is Diane I'm Shawn's wife and so excited to share with you just something God has put on my heart this Mother's Day. So I think we can all agree on something today and it's that moms are incredible right that kind of yes give them a hand again.

0:41 They don't get enough thanks for all of the work they do. They are the reason that we're all here. They are the reason that some of us are here and dressed appropriately for the day, right? They might be the reason some of us remembered to come to church today. OK, Like there, there might be some of that going on too. So do a quick poll. How many do you would say that Mom ever fixed something that you had messed up? I forgot something. I failed at something. I fell down. I hurt myself. Yes, I think that's pretty consistent. Moms have this superpower where the combination of like a Band-Aid and a cold paper towel and a prayer can fix just about anything. And we're not really sure which one of those things it was that did it right. All right, one more who has who has a mom who has a special dish that nobody else on earth can make the same way. Well, now Sean's looking at his mom because I don't think it's because it's really good.

1:32 I think it's actually gets really bad. For some of us. I love my mother-in-law. I really do. She's great. She's so great. But I know now I'm going to go buy her flowers. It's going to be a great afternoon. We're going to have so much fun. Yeah. Hey, we got you some flowers. It's going to be great. So that dish, right. Like you might have gotten even gotten the recipe for mom and it doesn't matter. You can't make it the same way that she made it. And moms just really carry something that's irreplaceable. It's often. Unseen and you can't. Put your finger on it. But it's woven in the background of all of the ordinary day-to-day things that we do. It's so special. We can't explain it, but they make such a huge difference.

2:13 So we hope that you feel honored today. We love the moms in the house. We want to celebrate all of the ladies across this space for all that they do. And so happy Mother's Day to all the awesome moms out there. Yeah, one more hand. Let's give them a hand. So today we are going to talk about a story about two moms. But the story is really one for every person in the room. Of course, moms, but maybe those waiting to be moms, maybe those who have lost their mom, maybe those who are in a complicated relationship with their mom or whose mom never quite showed up. Or maybe just any one of us today who needs a reminder that no matter what circumstances we're in, that God is here and he wants to show up in those. And so this story today is not really the Hallmark Channel version of Mother's Day.

2:59 It's real life. And real life, as you all know, can be a little bit complicated. So this story is almost kind of uncomfortably real. I like to say it's in the book of Genesis. Barry mentioned it. It's a story of two sisters named Leah and Rachel. I've heard some people call her Leah. I can't get that in my brain. So today she's Leah and Rachel. So if I'm my Hebrew is not right, that's OK, I'm sorry. But she's Leah and Rachel today. And I'm calling it the tale of two mothers. And Sean thought it'd be really funny if I said this story really does have the best of sometimes and the worst of times because it does. So I'm not as funny as Sean. So you'll get some some Sean jokes on the backside. Yes, I am. I know it's not my superpower. It's OK.

3:40 I have other superpowers. But it made me think about this story, looking at this series that we had been in called Theology for the Rest of Us. And I think this story is one of those nods to the credibility of God's word. Because if I was looking back at the lineage of my family and trying to like line down all the lives and what God had done through them to get me where I am today, this is like a cringe worthy account that probably wouldn't have made it in my list of like, let's honor Aunt Leah and Rachel who had this just messy, yucky weirdness. But what I love about it is God doesn't whitewash the lives of the people in his story. His intention isn't to make these perfect people that we never feel like we could attain to.

4:23 The people in this book are real people just like us, and they screw up just like us. And I really believe that God knew that we would need that reminder to see that how He works through the lives of people matters so little on our own ability and so much on our ability to trust that He's in control and He can do it. So we're going to dive in. Sorry if I talk fast. I have lots of Bible verses today. Logan gave me an award for maybe having almost the most Bible verses that we put in a message. But I really want you to, I don't know if that's a good award or a bad award. There's lots of it, but I really want you to see this story. So the setup is this Jacob, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob has just gotten the blessing from his dad, Isaac. He has promised to go find himself a wife who is still connected to his family.

5:08 So not a Canaanite woman, somebody in their family he knows about. His uncle lives in a far off town, so he goes off off on the way for several chapters. He has this dream about the stairway to heaven. He's promised all these descendants, all these things. So we're going to pick him up when he has made his way to town and he has run into some shepherds at a well. So we are in Genesis 29. We are going to start in verse 9, and we are going to make our way through most of this chapter. So it says, while he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherd. And when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban and Laban sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well, and watered his uncle's sheep. And then Jacob kissed Rachel, and he began to weep aloud, because he had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and the son of Rebecca.

5:58 So she ran and told her father, and as soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him, kissed him, and brought him to his home. And there Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, You are my own flesh and blood. After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, Laban said to him, Just because you're a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be. Now here's where we meet our sisters. So in verse 16, Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. It says Leah had weak eyes, which I will tell you does not mean she didn't see well. It's actually a Hebrew idiom to mean she wasn't much to look at. But it says Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. I know, right?

6:47 I want that to be MyHeritage like Diane. Not much to look at like in Scripture for all of his. No, just hypothetically speaking. So Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. So you can imagine these two sisters already had some sources of contention living this life. So Jacob was in love with Rachel. We're one month in, he loves her and he says I will work for you for seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel. Now, men, I want you to let that sink in for a little bit. Like most of you are like, let me save up two months wages for an engagement ring, or how about 7 years worth of your salary just to pay the bride price, right? Like that's pretty sorry.

7:29 That's pretty significant, love, you would say. Actually, in this time frame, the wage of a shepherd would have to work about three years for the average bride price. So Jacob's got it bad. He's like, no, I will work for seven years. I'll do whatever it takes. I love this lady. But so 19, Laban said. It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. Classic father-in-law line, right? Like I guess you'll do better than someone else. Stay here with me. So Jacob served for seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. Yes, we can all say so. Jacob arrives, meet Rachel. He's got it bad.

8:09 A month in, he agrees to work seven years to marry her. And this is where the Hallmark Channel version. Oh, thanks. Sean will say it's not going to let me drink this, but it's vodka. Watch out. And that's what Sean just told me. It's OK. For those in the back who couldn't hear, kind of like people are like, are you nervous about speaking all these people? Like, no, I'm nervous because Sean's right here and I can hear what he's saying. So it's like. Oh man, marriage is a blessing so. This, and maybe this is where the Hallmark Channel version of this story wraps up. He loves her, she loves him. He worked seven years, but it was only just a few days because he was so in love, right? It's almost been 19 years, but just felt like a few days. That's right.

8:54 So chapter 21. We're going to keep going. Then Jacob said to Laden. Give me my wife. My time is completed and I want to Make Love to her classic son-in-law line. So Laban brought together all of the people and gave a huge feast to celebrate this wedding. But when evening came, he Laban took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob. And Jacob made love to her, Yes. And when the morning came, it says there was Leah, much to Jacob's surprise. So Jacob is mad, rightly so. Jacob said to Laban. What have you done to me? I have served you for Rachel, didn't I?

9:34 Why have you deceived me? Now this is really interesting because Jacob's name actually means deceiver. And not too far before this, he had deceived his own dad and his own brother to weasel them out of his birthright. So the deceivers getting deceived, it's very ironic. And Laban's like, oh, it's not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Probably like really helpful information from 7 years ago, right? So why don't you finish this daughter's bridal week and then we will give you the younger one also in return for another seven years of work. And so Jacob did it. Man, he loved Rachel. He finished his week with Leah and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel also to be his wife.

10:17 Laban gave his servant Bill Hot to his daughter Rachel as her attendant and Jacob made love to Rachel also and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years. Like this story is crazy. And Jacob does end up getting Rachel for his wife, but not without some serious collateral damage to the lives of both of these women. But. My favorite, but there's several but gods in here. But God doesn't wait for their circumstances to get better or change to show up and to let these two women know that He's their God and He is with them. In verse 31 it says this. When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. God saw Leah, He saw that she had been rejected, He saw that she was in the middle of a situation she never asked for. He saw her and he moved.

11:15 And I think so much of the pieces of this story of God walking alongside people in their suffering and in their circumstances is so we can also know and have that reassurance that whatever you're walking through right now, God sees you too. Wherever you are, whatever season, as you're waiting for things that don't seem to be coming together, he's here. And it doesn't matter if your pain came from your own choices or choices that those that people had done for to you, God sees it and I believe he wants to create something beautiful from your pain. So we're here, two sisters, same house, same husband, both living with circumstances. They didn't choose what could go wrong. So this is where our story goes from bad to worse. Because instead of them focusing in and saying OK I have this that God has given me, they immediately start looking at each other.

12:04 So let's look at verse 32. It says that Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son she named him Reuben for she said it is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now who was like what should we name the baby? How about my misery? Like you know suffering is a really great name to name your first born child. You can see the pain that is in the situation because every child is named after what's going on in verse 33 it says she conceived again when she gave birth to a son. She said because the Lord heard that I'm not loved, he gave me this one too. So she named him Simeon. In 34 again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, now at last my husband will become attached to me because I have borne him three sons. So he was named Levi.

12:56 And her pain is palpable here. Like she like, nobody wants to name their child my suffering, you know, like, isn't that the name of Hitler's manifesto, you know, like Mein Kampf, Like this is literally these children, each one coming out. And they don't just come out, you know, back-to-back to back. This is a period of years that you can see that Leah is feeling so unloved and so unworthy. But. She's not the only one in pain. Let's look at Rachel in Genesis 30 verse one, it says when Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, give me children or I'll die, which might be a little bit dramatic, but it also shows just how painful that daily reminder was of her struggle.

13:44 And Jacob actually becomes angry with her. Am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children? Like, hey, I'm sorry you're going through this, but I don't have any control over the situation and you're mad about. So not only has it been bad, it's worse because nobody has the life they wanted. They're joined together and they have a permanent daily reminder of the pain and struggle they have been through. Leah has married, but unloved because Jacob loved Rachel more, it said. And Rachel is loved but barren, which would be devastating in a culture where the main place of honor for a woman is to be able to provide heirs for a family. I mean, Jacob just got a word from God that they're trying to build a nation, right?

14:25 She's like, I am totally failing at this. And so can I be real for a second this morning? I think that in a room. This size, there's got to be some of us that are living in a life that we didn't choose. Maybe your marriage is going harder than you expected that it would, or maybe motherhood didn't bring you this peace and joy that you thought this fulfillment was going to have for you. You might be in a season of waiting that just feels like it has gone on and on and on. Or maybe you're carrying this quiet grief that nobody sees because Leah had sons, real sons, who loved her, but she couldn't stop looking at what she didn't have. And Rachel had love and devotion and a husband who just sacrificed so much for her, but she couldn't stop looking at what she didn't have. Both of them were looking sideways, and it was making them miserable.

15:17 And today, comparison doesn't just happen among siblings or friends or people that we know in our workplace. Comparison happens every time we open our phone. You open a feed and see somebody who seems to have their life all together went on another family vacation or upgraded their house or their car or they meet you another milestone or an achievement or any other life. And it's perfectly filtered, framed, beautiful way just looks better than your life. And suddenly then what you have, what God's given you, doesn't feel like enough. What I'm building isn't enough. And that turns into then who I am will never be enough. And I truly believe that it's that comparison of my life to someone else's life to something else I see that will make me blind to the prayers that God has already answered in my own life. Each of us has received so many blessings from God, but comparison won't let us see it that way. So I really wish that in this story that they made it to happily ever after, but it doesn't neatly resolve that way. The story is so raw and so real, and I think that there's a real beauty in that.

16:24 But there's an undercurrent happening here about how God continues to be present in the lives of these people through their struggles and their circumstances. Because for both of these women, in different ways in different times, God continues to show up. So like I alluded to, in the ancient world, names carried A tremendous meaning. Every child Leah named was a window to her heart. We talked about that in Genesis 2932. She was pregnant, gave birth to a son, named him Reuben. And she said it's because the Lord has seen my misery. Her first son's name shows that she is reaching and she is hoping, and she's still waiting to be chosen. If only I can do these things, then I'll be loved.

17:07 Verse 33 same thing she conceived again her second son named because the Lord heard I'm not loved. Simeon means God heard that I'm not loved. She's naming her pain out loud before God sharing her struggle and her third son Levi. Now at last my husband will become attached to me. Levi actually means attached and she's still hoping and praying and waiting for this circumstance to change. But it's between this point, verse 34 and then 35, that something shifts. And there's something really incredible in this passage that's easy to miss if you kind of fly through it and gloss over it. And I've missed it before, But in verse 35, I don't want you to miss this, it says that she conceived again, which is now her fourth child with Jacob.

17:59 And when she gave birth to a son, she said, this time I will praise the Lord. So she named him Judah, Leah's fourth son. Judah. His name means this time I will praise the Lord. We don't have any reason to think that between verse 34 and 35 that anything changed in Leah's life. Jacob still loved. Rachel Moore Leah was still the one who was never chosen. But somewhere between Levi and Judah, something changed inside of Leah. She stopped naming her children after her longing, and she started naming them after her God. She stopped waiting for her life to change and she's chose to worship God inside the life that she had been given.

18:48 And I think for so many of us, like if that thing could be tattooed on my arm to remember, to say I need to name my struggle after my God instead of letting my struggle identify my life. Leah stopped waiting. She stopped longing and striving. This life and these circumstances might not ever change, but I am going to make a decision to choose praise. I'm going to choose God inside of this life I have. And I don't think that that's pretending that she wasn't in pain. She'd already named her pain. I think she just made a different choice. No matter her circumstances, no matter her pain, no matter the poor choices of her dad or anything else that led her to this point, Leah decided to praise God.

19:32 And I think that's such a powerful example for us as we look into what is God asking us to do today. And her faith is so inspiring. But what about our other mom? What's going on with Rachel because we're Leah chose to praise Rachel's story is a little bit different path. So in Genesis 30 verse one, we already saw these first 2 verses 1. So Rachel saw she wasn't bearing children. She said, give me children or I'll die. Jacob became angry with her and said, am I in the place of God who's kept you from having children? And then she said, here is Bilhah my servant, sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family. Through her now to our world context.

20:12 This feels really strange. This was actually a common way of building a family and building family wealth in these days. Good, bad or ugly, this would have been a common practice. So it's not so out there crazy, but it says that she gave him her servant Bill Ha as a wife and Jacob slept with her and then she became pregnant and bore him a son. So Rachel is now getting to build her nation with Jacob in her own line. And Rachel said God has vindicated me. He's listened to my plea and given me a son. Because of this she named him Dan. Verse 7 Rachel's servant Bill Ha conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. And Rachel said, I have had a great struggle with my sister and I have one.

20:56 So she named him NAFTA Lee. See, Rachel had already started with so much. She was beautiful, she was desired, she was the one Jacob chose, and yet she spent even this part of her life receiving the blessing from God, Miserable. Because she couldn't stop naming her pain. She couldn't stop looking at what Leah had literally named her child. Like ha ha, now I'm going to win. I'm doing it better than my sister did. Like she couldn't be happy. She ended up manipulating, bargaining. She used her servants as surrogates just to keep up, traded her husband's company for mandrakes, which were like ancient fertility herbs, because she was so desperate to have what Leah had.

21:39 And I think you really see as you walk through this story throughout Rachel's life that she was so consumed by what she lacked and didn't have that she couldn't receive what she already had. But this is my next. But God, God is so good in this story because he saw her pain too. And he remembered her. In Genesis 30, verse 22, it says then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and enabled her to conceive and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. And she said, God has taken away my disgrace. And she named him Joseph and said, may the Lord add to me another son like she's in like this is it. This is her beautiful moment where the prayer of so many years, probably he had gone by God answers these prayers gives her the deepest desire of her heart to carry her own child with Jacob. Yet her name for him wasn't praise. Her name for him was like, man, I need God to add me another one because I'm still trying to catch up with what God is doing in Leah.

22:37 She's still striving. She is still in continued competition with her sister. And then Rachel's last moment is really heartbreaking because some years later Rachel gets pregnant again. This is probably the course of the story takes place over decades. You know, we're reading it a few verses over, but she finally gets pregnant again. God added her other son even gave her granted her the wish of Joseph's name. She gets her miracle. And so in Genesis 3517 and 18, you can slip over there. It says Enda, she was having great difficulty in childbirth. The midwife said to her, don't despair, for you have another son.

23:18 And as she breathed her last, for she was dying, she named her son Ben Oni, but his father named him Benjamin. Rachel was giving birth to her second son and she was dying. She ended up dying in childbirth. But in her final breath, she whispers out the boy's name is Ben Oni. And what's so heartbreaking about this story is that in Hebrew, been Oni almost certainly means the son of my suffering or the son of my sorrow. And so Rachel never got to her Judah moment. She never made that turn from longing to praise. And maybe her heart was broken and suffering because she knew she was dying and she wasn't going to get to live with this miracle that got it done.

23:59 But even at the very end of her life, in the middle of this miracle that she is a huge part of creating this nation for God, she was naming her suffering instead of naming her praise. In a culture where names were someone's destiny, she used her dying breath to curse her son's name because of her pain and to push that pain on to the next generation. She truly did get what she prayed for. Two sons to carry their family's legacy, to build a nation, to carry on the line of her husband Jacob. But it wasn't enough. So the contrast is impossible to miss. Unloved, overlooked, but chose to praise. Loved, beautiful, chosen, but suffering and completely unable to receive the life she had.

24:46 And I really believe this. A life that is spent grasping for what we don't have. We'll always miss the blessing of what we do. When my eyes are always up looking out on what could be and what is not and what could have been and what I don't have, it's impossible for me to look and see with gratitude what I have been given. These two women have the same family, same husband, same house, same God, but they chose to do something different with it. And there was a season in my life, too, where I needed a miracle. And like Rachel, I was begging God to take away pain. So Sean and I had two teenage foster kids right out of, well, really right out of getting married.

25:32 And after they had graduated from high school, we decided it was time to start our family, to have our own kids. And for about four years, we struggled through a season of infertility. And if you've ever been in that struggle, you know it's not just a physical struggle. It's emotional, it's spiritual, and it touches every part of your life. You have months and months of trying and waiting and praying and then carrying that disappointment to know that you're completely helpless to do anything but pray and just say, God, why is this happening? We want so badly for you to give us a child. And I honestly wondered for a lot of years, like, is this even going to happen? I question God, you know, I work in healthcare, in Pediatrics, and you see all of these children who are barely wanted by their families to go, why God? Like we want a child so badly and we would love a child so well.

26:25 Why is this happening? And it really, it feels like like everything and everyone around you is moving forward, but you're just standing still waiting. Like I can't move to the next thing. I can't go to the next season. I'm waiting for this to start. And you know, we we're still serving God and trusting his plans for us and really ultimately just trying to find gratitude for every person around us who is expecting children and love on those who got it, called us to love and care for. And I think we finally came to this place of what I call this like open handed surrender. Like God, maybe you were calling us to a life where we don't have any more children because you have something bigger for us. Like you have something that we need to carry for your ministry or for your word to go out. That wouldn't work if we had kids. And so we started praying through this season of what I now call the fiery furnace prayer. And that comes from Daniel chapter 3. I'll read it.

27:20 But this is when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were getting ready to be thrown into the fiery furnace because they refused to bow down to idols. They only would worship their God. And so it says Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him. King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. That they were unwilling to bow and worship the king. But if we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is what? Yeah, he's able. He is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you've set up.

28:10 Like that prayer in that season was key for me because it's God. You know the desire of my heart. You know that I want to have a child. You know I want to carry a child in my own womb with my husband. But even if you choose not to answer that prayer, you're still good. And you had to come to that place to say, even if he doesn't is the prayer that it was. Even if he doesn't allow me to have kids, even if he doesn't provide healing in this season, even if my spouse never accepts Christ, even if my circumstances never change, he is still good and I'm going to give him praise. And in that season, we prayed that. And we meant that. There's actually a song from that season of life called by Hillsong United called Desert Song, and the lyrics of it were really a praise declaration for us.

28:57 It says all of my life, in every season, you are still God and I have a reason to praise. I have a reason to worship. So I will bring praise. And really it's Leah's prayer, right? I will bring praise and there's no weapon formed against me that shall remain. I will rejoice and I will declare that God is my victory and He is here and now only by His grace, His miraculous hand. I do have three awesome little kids and they are loud and they are full of life and they are absolutely amazing kids. And if I'm honest now, almost 10 years removed from that time frame, there are moments in the middle of the chaos of that where it's easy to forget that this noise and the mess and the exhaustion is the thing that I spent years begging God to give me. And I catch myself in that moment, frustrated about the dishes and the laundry and the never ending sibling argument that happens.

29:56 I have to stop and remind myself, this is the life you prayed for. Like see it, be in it. Be in this real life that you have. Take your Judah moment and give praises to God. But I also know in a room like this that not every prayer gets answered that way. And there have been plenty for us that we've cried out to ask God and he didn't answer in that same way. That means in a room like this, there's joy, but there's also grief, and there's answered prayers and there's waiting prayers, but God is present in all of it. He was present with Leah in her long, and he's present with Rachel in her grief, and he's present with you right where you are today.

30:37 And so I want to end Leah's story with something that I think will really stay with you. That's incredible to kind of sit down and think about because Leah did probably feel overlooked her entire life. She lived to be an old age. She was buried with a family, She was unloved. She was unchosen. She was always somehow 2nd. And she never got the love story she wanted. But her fourth son was Judah. And I want you to look at the blessing that Judah's father, Jacob, then Israel, bestowed upon him as he was nearing his death. So this is in Genesis 49, verse 8. It says Judah, your brothers will praise you, your hand will be on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons will bow down to you. The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come, and the obedience of the nation shall be his. You see, Judah, Leah's fourth son was to become the ruler over all of Jacob's sons and ultimately over all of the tribes of Israel that would come from their family and the descendants.

31:44 It wasn't Jacob's first born Reuben, who you would have thought, and it wasn't Jacob's most beloved son Joseph. It wasn't even Benjamin, the son of his right hand. No, Jacob chose Judah. He chose Leah's praise and look at what he chose him for. Go back to verse 10. The scepter won't depart from Judah, nor the ruler staff from between his feet until who, until he to whom it belongs shall come, and the obedience of nations shall be his. The he in that verse is for the future to come, because from Judah's lion came the tribe of Judah. From that tribe came King David, and from David's lion came the lion of Judah. Jesus Christ perfectly come from Leah's praise from the woman who felt unseen, unloved, unwanted.

32:36 Her life, her story, and her faith in God became a part of the greatest story ever told. God used her pain to bring forth healing and salvation for all of humanity and brought forth a Messiah to save the world. And so there's a really good chance that you may not get to see or understand what God is doing through your pain, what he's building, what He's growing for another generation, for people on and on. And maybe you'll never know why your circumstances are writing a bigger story. But in God's story, your pain is not ever wasted. He is doing more through the day-to-day of your ordinary life than you could ever think or imagine. And the prayers you whisper when nobody's watching, the patience you're holding when you're running on empty. And the way you keep showing up even when you feel unseen. God sees you and he loves you and his love for you is so great.

33:31 And your faithfulness to say yes to Him, and your faithfulness to give him the praise. Like we sing about, it's your breath and our lungs. So we pour out our praise. God's weaving that into something so much bigger than you can imagine. So how do we choose praise before we feel it? There's going to be days when you don't feel like praising. I'm sure Leah had them. So we look to her. We praise God before the feeling comes. We give gratitude to God for all He has done. Because joy isn't found in perfect circumstances. It's found in staying connected to the One who can meet our every need. It's not an easy recipe, but it's a simple one. In First Thessalonians 516 through 18, it says this.

34:14 Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Joy always turns our pain into praise. Leah took her pain, her overlook, her not loved with an open hand. She brought it to God, She named it Judah. She used her quiet, faithful pain form life to bring the Messiah into the world. And God's not wasting a single thing that you're walking through in this season either. Not one tear, not one night, not one moment of it is wasted. So whatever you're running or whatever you're carrying from today, my encouragement for you is not to run from it. Don't numb it.

35:01 Don't let it turn you into Rachel grasping and striving and naming your suffering out onto all the people around you. Bring it to God because he wants to take your been only the son of my suffering and he wants to turn it into now I'll praise the Lord into Judah. God can transform pain into purpose, suffering into praise and he wants to use your story for something far bigger than you can ever imagine. And I believe today he wants every single one of us to choose to praise walking through your pain. Don't miss this. Walking through pain doesn't just form you. Of course you're going to learn from it. You're going to grow from it.

35:44 It's going to impact your life. But when you walk through a painful season, that becomes the very thing God is going to use for you to bring healing to someone else. Your pain surrendered to God becomes your ministry, your hardest season walked in. Faith becomes the language you can use to speak to somebody else who is right where you used to be. And I know this because I lived it. Those years of infertility, of waiting, of crying out to God. They gave me the ability to sit with someone in their grief and say I see your pain and God sees it too and he's still good. God actually gave me the ability to name my turn my pain into praise and we named it in our children that way. I have Jack Shepherd, his middle name is because we believe that God's going to use him and his generation to shepherd people to draw them closer to himself.

36:35 We have Emery Renee, her middle name literally means reborn because there is salvation that this next generation needs to bring in our Levi, not attached, but a Levite, the worshippers, right? He can bring worship to his generation. We named our children because we want to see God use their lives and because he gave them to us and we get to offer them back to him in a stewardship. So you can just sit with people in that pain and say, I see you, God sees you. And I don't know how many lives are touched by sharing my story, but it's much less on a stage than it is in a hallway or on a phone call or a text message or sitting by somebody just in a cubicle at work.

37:15 God uses your pain in your story when you share it and when you let him in an open handed way, say, God, all I have is yours. I'm opening it to you. But I know you can use my pain to bring your good. So in this season, my challenge for you is to give this season of your life a new name. Maybe it is suffering, but maybe God wants to turn that suffering into praise. And I wonder, like Judah, what story is being released into God's Kingdom by your choice to praise him today? Because if you look at it, the story of God, the lineage of Jesus Christ our Savior was born out of Leah's choice to praise. Let's pray, God, we lift you up in this place and just grateful for your word, God, for the lives of the people that you've shown us to live by.

38:10 God, I pray today that as we lean in, that you would just give us words of praise for our pain and that maybe there's a group of people in here today who would say, you know what? I need to turn my pain into praise. No matter my circumstances, I need to make a decision to focus on what you've done and to give this season a new name. And if that's you today, you raise your hand, I'd love to pray for you to say, you know what, God, no matter what I'm going through, no matter what is going on in my day-to-day, God, I choose to praise you. If you raise your hand, I'd love to pray for you. I see your hands, God. I lift up these people. I don't know what they're walking through, but you do. God, you see them, you know them, You feel your pain, their pain, God, because you have felt pain. You know what it's like to feel betrayed, God, and for circumstances to lead to a horrible death that you died for us, God.

39:01 And so I pray that you would give us words for our pain so that we can offer it to praise to you, God, help us to decide today that you are enough and that we can praise you no matter what we're walking through. And maybe there's one other group of people today who would say, you know what? I've never been able to offer praise because I've never really experienced the healing from my pain that comes from Jesus, the lion of Judah. But today I feel like he's drawing me to himself. Today I feel this invitation is urging to say yes. I want to surrender my pain. I want healing. I want wholeness. That's you today. And you'd say, you know, I've never accepted Christ as my Savior.

39:44 I've never made that decision to trust him. I've never made that decision to surrender my life and follow him. That's you. And you raise your hand. I'd also love to pray for you. I'm not going to call you out, but if you say today, I've never accepted Christ, I've never taken his sacrifice for my pain. And today I want that. I want to make a decision to follow him. If you raise your hand and pray for you as well, and not only pray for you, but this is an opportunity to say, you know what? You can also pray to God. You can reach out your hand and say, Lord, I feel you drawing me to yourself, God. And today I've been carrying a heavyweight. But I want you to lift that burden from me, God, I know you died on the cross for my sins. You to take that burden of pain away from me. God, through your sacrifice you can make me whole. And today I want to do that, God. Today I choose you, and I choose you to save me in Jesus name, Amen.

40:40 Well, hey, let's give it up to those who made decisions today to follow Christ, for those who are ready to open their hands to that burden of pain. And thank you guys so much for letting me share with you.