Finding God In the Mess, Part 1.

Steve Gentry

[0:01] Alright, go ahead and have a seat. [0:02] Welcome to Village Church. [0:04] If this is your first time here, my name is Steve, one of the pastors here at Village [0:07] Church, and as always, I am thankful and grateful to see each and every one of you. [0:13] If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to Genesis chapter 38. [0:17] And as I did a few weeks ago, I have to, I feel rather the need to give a bit of a disclaimer

[0:25] that this message is of a mature nature. [0:30] There are some chapters when you go through the Bible as a pastor and you think to yourself, [0:34] I could go my entire career and never preach this and feel that I’ve done my job. [0:38] Genesis 38 is one of those chapters. [0:41] It’s a little down, they’re rolling a little dirty. [0:44] So if you have young, young children, my advice, now you can do whatever you want to, just

[0:49] don’t blame me afterwards. [0:50] But my advice is to take very young children to village kids at this point. [0:55] I believe if you’re under the age of fourth or fifth grade, maybe my words are going [1:00] to be a little bold this morning. [1:03] Not vulgar, we hope. [1:05] Sometimes that does happen, I’ll be honest.

[1:07] It’s my hope, I hope I can make it, but you know, no promises. [1:12] So young children, this may be a little too mature. [1:15] Now the second thing I want to talk to you about before we get into that is this coming [1:20] week for our group life, for our community groups here at Village Church, we’re doing [1:25] something a little different. [1:27] It’s a little different.

[1:28] And I just kind of want to talk a little bit about it. [1:30] This week is what’s going to be called Go Week. [1:33] And so what that means is that we are specifically as a church setting aside time for those who [1:40] are in our community groups to be involved in their neighborhoods, be involved in their [1:46] maybe unbelieving family members’ lives, being involved in maybe their unbelieving co-workers’ [1:51] lives, and this week your group time is to be spent intentionally seeking to live missionally

[1:58] in our community. [2:00] And so it’s a personal push. [2:02] So your groups aren’t going to be meeting. [2:04] You’re not going to get together, you’re not going to pray together. [2:07] Your groups are scattered all throughout this county, all throughout this region, and our [2:15] last week, if they didn’t, go to them and tell them that they’re in trouble, should

[2:18] have given you something to kind of help engage you in a more missional mindset into how to [2:24] look at your neighborhood, how to look at your life, and how to love people with an [2:28] agenda of hoping that you’re going to lead to a gospel conversation. [2:32] Because my hope is that we as a church this coming year will grow in our ability to have [2:38] gospel conversations with people who do not necessarily believe the gospel or have kind [2:44] of fooled themselves into thinking they do believe the gospel while we know that they

[2:49] don’t. [2:50] And so that’s what this week is, that we’re going to kind of nudge you a little bit, kind [2:56] of push you a little bit so that in the back of your mind, when some of you are going [3:00] to try to catch up on American Idol, is that still on? [3:04] Am I way behind? [3:05] Whatever it is that you watch now, you’re going to try to catch up on your DVR, and

[3:09] in the back of your mind I want you to hear my slash the Holy Spirit’s voice saying, you’re [3:14] not supposed to be doing that right now, are you? [3:17] You’re supposed to be out there, you’re supposed to be meeting people, you’re supposed to [3:20] be loving your neighbors, you’re supposed to be living the mission of Jesus. [3:24] And so that’s what Go Week is, and so that’s what you need to be making your time about [3:29] this week rather than our regularly scheduled group time.

[3:35] Now last week we started taking a look at the life of Joseph. [3:39] And Joseph, if you spent any time in Sunday school as a child, or if you spent any time [3:45] in Bible studies, you may have done a study in the life of Joseph because he is one of [3:50] the more famous biblical figures. [3:53] From his coat of many colors to his time in Egypt, the story is renowned. [3:58] And he is significant in the book of Genesis as Abraham’s great-grandson.

[4:03] And so God, like we talked about last week, made a promise to Abraham that his family [4:08] would be blessed and be a blessing to the nations. [4:12] His descendants would outnumber the stars in the heavens, God told Abraham. [4:17] And the Bible then, once Abraham is out of the picture, shifts to begin to focus in [4:23] on the members of the family that these promises would specifically go through. [4:29] And Joseph is one of those descendants.

[4:32] And now last week when we talked about Genesis 37, we drew a stark contrast between Joseph [4:38] and his brothers. [4:39] I was kind of surprised to hear some of the feedback that many had thought that Joseph [4:45] is actually the bad guy of the story and he’s this annoying little brother that always gets [4:50] his way. [4:51] I don’t know who taught you that, but you made that up.

[4:54] That is kind of what I want you to understand about that view of Genesis 37. [4:58] You or someone made that up. [5:01] Find it. [5:02] It’s not there. [5:04] Joseph is innocent. [5:05] Joseph is faithful.

[5:07] Joseph is seen as the righteous one amongst completely unrighteous brothers. [5:13] And so if you side with the brothers, repent. [5:19] I don’t know what else to say. [5:22] Go get rid of the baggage your parents gave you. [5:25] I don’t really know how to help you with that. [5:29] But Genesis 37 draws this stark contrast between Joseph as a faithful brother and his

[5:37] brothers as being completely faithless. [5:40] His brothers did hate him as Jacob made the mistake and as a father he did give Joseph [5:47] favoritisms. [5:48] But then we see Joseph receives dreams from God and his family responds by beating him, [5:54] stripping his coat of many colors and then selling him into slavery. [5:59] And so like we said last week, we’re kind of starting what is the final lap of the

[6:03] book of Genesis. [6:04] And then we come to Genesis 38 and it just doesn’t seem at first to fit. [6:12] It feels like a story that’s almost kind of tacked in there and you’re like, did they [6:19] make a mistake? [6:20] Because the record seems to kind of skip a beat with 38 because you seem to watch the [6:26] story of Joseph and you’re like, well it goes from 37 then it picks back up in 39.

[6:31] And so we look at 38 and a lot of people think to themselves that this is some kind of interruption [6:36] of the story of Joseph. [6:37] But many point out that this isn’t the case. [6:40] It is actually part of the narrative of the life of Joseph. [6:44] Because as we’ll hopefully see next week, there are many parallels between Genesis [6:50] 38 and Genesis 39 that show how different the lives of the brothers are with Joseph

[6:57] and their faithfulness to God. [7:00] And one of the key themes of Genesis 38 is also a theme of 39 just in a completely different [7:06] way as the narratives are somewhat sexual in nature. [7:11] But we’re going to see what a faithless brother does with sexuality and how Joseph deals [7:18] with sexuality in Genesis chapter 39. [7:21] And I want to be honest, there are times that biblical texts are difficult, they are confusing,

[7:27] and they are quite frankly hard to preach. [7:29] And this is one of those texts. [7:32] There’s a big difference between preaching John 3.16 and preaching Genesis 38. [7:35] John 3.16 is pretty straightforward. [7:37] I can cut it into, you know, man I can cut it into like 3, 4, and 5 points. [7:41] But you know, I’ll choose 3 usually.

[7:44] But so you can divide it up. [7:45] You’ve got these objective facts. [7:47] You’ve got these statements that are easy to apply. [7:49] You get to Genesis 38. [7:51] And Genesis 38 feels a little bit more like a Coen Brothers movie where you get to the [7:56] end and you’re like, well, what did we learn here?

[7:58] We don’t know, but don’t do that again. [8:00] That’s kind of the way we come away from chapters like Genesis 38. [8:06] But the fact of the matter is, is that we can at times in much honesty ask God, why [8:11] is this in the Bible? [8:13] But what we have to realize is, is that our question has an answer, but it doesn’t necessarily [8:19] lie within us.

[8:21] We must go to God when we find places in the Bible that are hard to apply. [8:25] We must go to God when there are places in the Bible where we’re like, man, I don’t even [8:28] know how to make sense of that craziness. [8:32] But what we’re going to see today is that scripture shows the reality of sin in a fallen [8:36] world and our need of redemption through faith in God. [8:41] And so the central figures in Genesis 38 are Judah and Tamar.

[8:45] This is a man who has no fidelity to family nor righteousness and a woman left to fend [8:51] for herself that turns to wickedness to get what she believes she deserves. [8:57] All right, so look in Genesis 38. [9:00] Starting in verse one, it happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers [9:05] and turned aside to a certain Adulamite whose name was Hira. [9:10] There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shuah.

[9:14] He took her, went into her, and she conceived in Borisan, and he called his name Ur. [9:19] It’s a great name.

[9:23] So you read some of these and it’s like, some of you are looking for biblical names, [9:26] choose that one. [9:27] Be really holy. [9:29] Like that’ll prove everybody. [9:30] You are the holiest. [9:31] I chose Ur.

[9:36] It’s like nobody names their son Judas. [9:37] Don’t name your son Ur. [9:40] She conceived again and bore a son and called his name Onan. [9:45] Yet again she bore a son and she called his name Shelah. [9:49] Judah was in Kazeb when she bore him. [9:52] And Judah took a wife for Ur, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

[9:56] But Ur, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord and the Lord put him to [10:01] death. [10:02] Then Judah said to Onan, Go into your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law [10:06] to her. [10:07] Raise up offspring for your brother. [10:09] But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his.

[10:12] So whenever he went into his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground so [10:16] as not to give offspring to his brother. [10:19] And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord. [10:22] And he put him to death also. [10:24] Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in your father’s house till [10:30] Shelah my son grows up.

[10:33] For he feared that he would die like his brothers. [10:36] So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house. [10:41] Shelah, meditate on that. [10:42] Pray with me. [10:44] Father, Lord you are good. [10:48] And Lord you have much to reveal to us in Genesis 38.

[10:53] Lord I pray that you would give us the faith, Holy Spirit, that you would fill us so that [10:58] we could receive your word. [11:01] So that we could know your word, worship you through it, and then apply it to our lives. [11:09] Lord be merciful to me a sinner. [11:11] In the name of Christ I pray. [11:13] Amen.

[11:14] Number one this morning is very simple. [11:16] The Bible does not hide the good, the bad, and the ugly. [11:20] The Bible does not hide the good, the bad, and the ugly. [11:24] It simply is a case of you needing to define who the good is, who the bad is, and who [11:29] the ugly is. [11:30] God is the good.

[11:33] The Bible has a clear message about the goodness of God. [11:37] Throughout the entire arc of the Bible God is shown as good, faithful, gracious, powerful, [11:43] and glorious. [11:45] And we were created to bear the image of these attributes to all of creation. [11:51] And that is where we falter. [11:53] God is always the hero of every narrative of scripture.

[11:57] And ultimately His goodness is proven through the work of His Son Jesus Christ. [12:03] As Jesus bore the penalty for our sin on the cross, lowered Himself into the deepest depths [12:09] of suffering on our behalf and then He rose from the dead in order that we might have [12:15] a new life. [12:16] That is God the hero. [12:18] That is who we have.

[12:19] If you’re looking for who the good is in every aspect of scripture, always go to God. [12:25] Because it is God who is the good. [12:27] But the world would tell us a different story about God. [12:31] Because of sin we are tempted to question God’s goodness. [12:35] You know whenever anything bad happens we don’t look to how we fail to show the image [12:40] of God in our sin.

[12:42] Instead we ask questions like how could a loving God let this happen? [12:47] And when that happens we must look to the cross and say no matter what the reason is [12:51] it’s not that God doesn’t love us because Jesus is evidence that He does. [12:56] It doesn’t mean that you always understand. [12:59] There are many things in life that I don’t understand. [13:01] There are many things in life that you’re not going to understand.

[13:03] But the key is to believe that God does understand it and the cross of Jesus Christ proves it. [13:09] It means that there is evidence of God’s goodness on display for us to see on the cross. [13:16] On display for us to trust. [13:18] And when we don’t trust Jesus here’s what happens. [13:21] We easily lose sight of the goodness of God. [13:26] And we will try to make ourselves the good.

[13:30] Make ourselves the hero. [13:32] Make ourselves the ones in which righteousness is found. [13:37] And here’s the thing that you have to understand. [13:39] You never go right with that. [13:42] It’s always going to go wrong. [13:44] You will never find righteousness looking in the mirror.

[13:48] You will only find it on looking to the God who has proven it. [13:52] So yes people are the bad. [13:55] People are the bad. [13:57] Now I want to be clear here. [13:58] It has been said that those of us who subscribe to the biblical belief that people have a [14:03] default mode of sinfulness, we’re accused of believing pond scum theology.

[14:09] We believe that people are basically awful and worthless. [14:14] That is ridiculous reductionism. [14:17] And it’s completely inaccurate in what real biblical theology teaches us. [14:22] It teaches us yes, people are born into sin. [14:25] And because of that we are separated from God. [14:29] But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

[14:32] And that’s the point of the gospel of Jesus Christ. [14:37] The good news is that Jesus saves. [14:41] Every person has the potential to be reconciled to God. [14:45] And when we are reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ we unlock the vastness [14:51] of human potential and what it means to be a person that bears the image of God when [14:58] we are redeemed, when we trust God.

[15:02] He gives good back to us. [15:04] Why? [15:06] Because remember God is the good. [15:09] And so he gives us the very good of God when we trust him. [15:13] Now I want to be very clear on this. [15:15] It is sin that is the ugly.

[15:18] As people are not good left to themselves we are bad. [15:23] But it is sin that mars the image of God in us. [15:26] It is sin that corrupts us. [15:28] So it is sin that is ugly. [15:31] Because sin is not redeemable. [15:35] People are redeemable but we are redeemed out of sin.

[15:38] So you have to understand there is no beauty in sin. [15:42] There is never anything beauty. [15:44] There is never anything redeemable about sin. [15:49] There is redemption available for people who are in sin but the sin is to be condemned. [15:56] The sin is to be left behind. [15:59] And Genesis 38 is a great example of the ugliness of sin in this world.

[16:07] It reveals what happens when man is separated from God. [16:11] Because people are bad without God. [16:13] Because God is the basis of what good is. [16:16] And so you take God out, what do you get? [16:18] Calamity. [16:19] It is sin that does this.

[16:21] So Genesis 38 shows Judah the son of Jacob. [16:24] He separates himself from his family. [16:27] Now we get no explanation as to why but we do see Judah goes off on his own. [16:32] And what does he join up with? [16:35] Well he joins up with godless people. [16:37] He joins up with the Nadula might.

[16:38] He joins up with this guy, Hirah, who as you go through Genesis 38, [16:41] you see man, when he gets hooked up with that guy bad things happen. [16:45] That’s why the book of Proverbs is just completely saturated with [16:49] be careful who you surround yourself with.

[16:55] Because when Judah gets in league with Hirah, you notice that no good ever comes from it. [17:02] That’s all I hear people say, oh you know you’re not known by the company you keep. [17:05] You should not be judged by the friends that you have. [17:08] Well the Bible does that for you. [17:09] It says look, if you surround yourself with fools, you’re one of them. [17:15] If you surround yourself with people that give you bad advice,

[17:17] if you surround yourself with people that are tempting you into sin, [17:20] if you surround yourself with people and receive the close community that you are [17:24] supposed to have with believers, rather you find it with unbelievers, [17:31] guess what? [17:32] Good is not going to come from that. [17:35] You’re going to be led astray and that’s what happens to Judah.

[17:38] So you take God out of the equation, bad things happen. [17:41] And so Jacob, excuse me, Judah separates himself away from Jacob. [17:47] We don’t know why, but what happens in his life becomes completely ugly. [17:54] His family tree becomes something that is hurtful, that is pagan, [17:59] and that is so destructive that it costs two of his sons their lives. [18:06] It shows how it hurts people at multiple levels, through multiple sins,

[18:12] causing other multiple sins that bring about reactions that cause more multiple sins. [18:18] And our response should simply be, we need to get this story back to God. [18:25] That is what our response needs to be. [18:27] And there it is. [18:29] That is the point of Genesis 38. [18:31] Because the one person that you don’t hear from in Genesis 38 is God.

[18:40] It is a story that is devoid of the voice of God other than judgment of sin through his righteous [18:49] wrath. [18:51] And so, number two this morning, the Bible reveals the depth of human sin. [18:57] The Bible reveals the depth of human sin. [18:59] You know, the Scriptures main point is to recover for us what the glory of God is. [19:07] So it is filled with the glory of God, it is filled with getting us back to the glory of God,

[19:12] but it is also filled with the folly of man. [19:16] It is also filled with the folly of man. [19:18] You know, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the ultimate picture of the glory of God. [19:23] But because of sin, we are tempted to rob God of his glory. [19:28] We are tempted to try to give it to ourselves. [19:32] But people aren’t glorious.

[19:35] God is. [19:37] And so what you find in narratives like this that are devoid of the voice of God, [19:41] that are devoid of a message from God, that are devoid of a revelation of God, [19:45] is that the reason it is devoid of that thing is because people throughout the entire narrative [19:49] are trying to get the glory of God for themselves. [19:52] They are trying to look in the mirror and find something worth worshipping.

[19:58] So what do we find? [20:00] Well, Judah’s sons were wicked. [20:03] They were born in pagan relationships. [20:06] They didn’t look to God. [20:08] And Dad wasn’t obeying God, so guess what? [20:11] Neither did they.

[20:12] They didn’t obey God, why would they? [20:14] Then they start getting older and Judah finds his oldest son a wife. [20:20] And Ur is so wicked, he’s so wicked, that God kills him. [20:27] You know, the Scripture don’t tell us what specifically it is that Ur did. [20:33] We just know that his entire family separated from God. [20:36] His father, taking away the voice of God from his family, left them so marked that these sons

[20:44] became so wicked that first God looks to Ur and he says, [20:48] there’s so much wickedness in you, I will use you as an example. [20:51] You are dead. [20:52] And it just says that God struck him. [20:54] We don’t even know how God struck him. [20:55] We just know that God struck him dead.

[20:58] And this is a picture of God that most of us don’t want to look at. [21:03] But the Bible forces us to. [21:04] Why? [21:04] Because the Bible doesn’t hide the good, the bad, the ugly. [21:07] The Bible puts it there on full display. [21:10] And some people, and let’s call them red-letter Christians,

[21:13] the ones that only believe the words of God are those words that years later we painted red [21:18] in the New Testament. [21:20] They would say, oh my goodness, but that’s not the picture of God that Jesus gives us. [21:25] And I say, yes, it is because God the Father killed God the Son for your sin. [21:32] So that shows the seriousness of sin. [21:33] And here’s what I want you to understand.

[21:36] Jesus killed Ur.

[21:41] Jesus lived before he was born to the Virgin Mary. [21:43] He lived for all eternity. [21:44] Jesus created all that is. [21:46] And Jesus found Ur so wicked that Jesus said, you will not receive my mercy. [21:53] I condemn you today. [21:56] And he did.

[21:59] God has the freedom to lay out his justice when he sees fit. [22:07] And we see this same picture with Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament. [22:11] And then we see the same picture with Onan, the brother. [22:15] Now, this is where the narrative gets a little weird to us. [22:18] Okay. [22:20] This is what was called in the Old Testament as levirate marriage.

[22:24] So I want to explain that to you real quick because some of you, especially those of you [22:29] that are unmarried and you’re here with your siblings, you’re like, man, I pray that I am [22:33] never responsible for the decision of a spouse that you make. [22:36] I pray that I never have to marry them. [22:37] All right. [22:38] It’s okay.

[22:39] We don’t do this anymore. [22:40] Typically. [22:42] So what would happen is if the family is all together and a brother dies, [22:47] the unmarried brother was responsible to marry and continue the family line of the older brother. [22:55] Now we might think, man, that is weird. [22:58] And I’ll just kind of want to caution you on that.

[23:00] Have you seen some of the weird stuff going on in our society? [23:03] We do not have a sexual high ground on what is weird. [23:08] All right. [23:08] I just want to make that very clear on this text. [23:12] This is nowhere near as weird as some of the stuff we got going on.

[23:17] But so Tamar is married to the next brother, Onan, and Onan doesn’t want to perpetuate the [23:23] name of his brother. [23:25] So he uses what I’ll call pre-modern medicine birth control and God kills him for it.

[23:34] I’m not going to make a statement about birth control there, but do with that what you will. [23:39] All right. [23:39] Some of you are like, I believe in Jesus Christ in the pill. [23:43] Believe a little more in Jesus. [23:44] He’ll kill you. [23:46] But so Onan does something that is very wicked in the sight of God and God kills Onan.

[23:57] We know what Onan did.

[24:01] I don’t want to read that verse again, so I’m not going to, but Onan refuses to perpetuate [24:08] the family line of his brother, Ur, because that would take away from his inheritance. [24:13] That’s kind of the way the Old Testament meets this out when you compare scripture [24:17] with scripture is that brothers, specifically you see this in the book of Ruth, [24:21] when someone thinks it’s going to take away from their inheritance, they will not perpetuate [24:26] the bloodline of the older brother so that they can have a larger inheritance.

[24:29] So my assumption, it’s an assumption, my assumption is that that’s what’s taking place here. [24:36] And the Lord looks to Onan and he looks to Onan and he says, [24:39] that is wickedness that I will not tolerate. [24:43] And so God kills Onan. [24:46] And like I said a few minutes ago, the silence of God in this text is very telling [24:52] of what’s taking place here and the wickedness of the removal of God

[24:56] from having influence on the family. [24:58] The only time that God shows his hand in this narrative is to, [25:03] and it specifically says that God kills them. [25:06] That’s it. [25:07] And Judah doesn’t get it. [25:11] Judah’s not repenting.

[25:12] He’s not pointing his family to God. [25:15] His response is, hey, I’ve got a third son, but he’s not old enough, [25:19] so go to your father’s house and wait. [25:21] The fact is Judah’s response is, what is wrong with Tamar? [25:25] She’s like the black widow here. [25:27] And so I’ve got to save my youngest son away from her because he thought she was deadly.

[25:34] The fact of the matter is, is at this point in the story, [25:36] it doesn’t show Tamar as sinful. [25:39] It shows Ur and Onan as sinful. [25:42] And here is where Judah begins to show his sinfulness as he’s already separated [25:48] himself away from his family. [25:49] He’s already come under the influence of pagans.

[25:52] He’s already found pagan wives for his sons that he really shouldn’t have married [25:57] into that family to begin with. [26:00] But Judah doesn’t accept the judgment of God on himself. [26:03] You know, when dealing with sin, we may ask, why does God kill for this? [26:09] And I want you to understand something about God, and I want you to understand something [26:12] that we struggle with.

[26:14] More so now, because most people are somewhat illiterate of the Bible, [26:19] they’re mostly illiterate of understanding theology is, is that we are freed, [26:25] and God is constricted to our will. [26:27] It’s the other way around.

[26:30] God is free. [26:32] God is the only truly free being in creation, above creation, because he created it. [26:41] We are the ones that are constricted. [26:44] The Bible gives us a clear view of that here. [26:47] God has freedom of the will, and God used his freedom of the will to exact justice [26:52] on the sins of Ur and Onan, and he does it swiftly.

[26:58] We all deserve death. [26:59] I want you to understand that. [27:00] Our sin, our glory thieving, is treasonous to God, and we deserve death. [27:08] But God doesn’t kill all of us, but he does deal death out at particular points in history, [27:16] particular points in the Scripture, to kind of remind us of how much he hates sin.

[27:25] And here, I think what we see is that God does not tolerate someone seeking to prevent [27:33] his mission from moving forward. [27:37] Because I can tell you that was Onan’s sin, is that God told their great grandfather, [27:44] your descendants will outnumber the stars. [27:46] And so what was their mission? [27:47] Well, we saw it a couple weeks ago.

[27:49] Be fruitful and multiply. [27:52] So Onan said, I don’t want to be fruitful. [27:55] Onan said, I don’t want to multiply. [27:57] And so what is Onan doing? [27:59] He’s putting up a personal barrier to what? [28:01] The mission of Jesus.

[28:05] And this is a sin that God will not tolerate. [28:09] If you note through Scripture, you read all the narratives, you can study sin.

[28:14] God does not tolerate those who stand in front of his mission.

[28:19] When Moses disobeyed, when Moses didn’t trust going into the promised land, what does God say? [28:24] Fine, you will die before you ever go into the promised land. [28:28] When Moses, excuse me, when Moses is used by God to go into Egypt, free the Israelites, [28:33] he parts the Red Sea, he tells them, I have a promised land for you. [28:36] And they begin to mumble, they begin to groan, they say, oh, we’re going to die if we face [28:40] the people in the promised land.

[28:41] God’s mission needed to move forward. [28:42] But what did God say? [28:43] This entire generation will die rather than see the promised land because you would not [28:50] push my mission forward. [28:51] So, friend, I tell you, when you refuse to live a missional lifestyle, when you refuse [28:56] to live the mission of Jesus, when you refuse to let the gospel of Jesus Christ be the agenda

[29:01] for your life, you do so at great peril.

[29:07] Er and Onan did not trust God. [29:11] Er and Onan sought to cease the mission of God. [29:16] And God’s response was swift and God’s response was just.

[29:23] And so Judah’s wife then died after a period of time.

[29:28] And so Tamar gets tired of waiting. [29:31] All right. [29:32] And that’s kind of the theme. [29:33] It’s kind of like we got scene one, now we got scene two. [29:38] Woman scorned. [29:39] Right.

[29:39] This is what goes on because according to lever at marriage, what is Judah supposed to do? [29:45] Well, Judah is supposed to raise up the next son for Tamar. [29:49] But what does he do to Tamar? [29:50] See, the reason that Tamar’s life was filled with so much injustice is because in that [29:56] culture, and we’re going to see the widow’s clothes come out, that now that she is someone [30:01] who’s been married and she’s widowed twice over, she is not in this culture, free to go

[30:08] and just live whatever life she has in that culture. [30:11] She had to wear the widow’s garments. [30:14] The widow’s garments meant you’re not on the market. [30:18] Widows garments meant you’re kind of an old hag. [30:22] Widows garments meant don’t want that one. [30:27] Right.

[30:27] And so she is not being taken care of by Judah. [30:31] She has to go and basically sit in her father’s house. [30:34] And according to scripture, she’s not an old maid at that point. [30:39] And so an injustice has been done to Tamar. [30:43] And so she sits and she stews and wickedness comes out of that.

[30:52] And so according to verses 12 through 19, and I’ll just seek to summarize those for us, [30:58] she disguises herself as a prostitute. [31:02] And when Judah had gotten over mourning the death of his wife, [31:09] he goes up to the sheep shears. [31:11] But who does he do it with? [31:13] Hira, that great pagan advisor that has gotten him so much good so far in the story.

[31:21] He goes up to the sheep shears and we don’t really know what that means, [31:25] but along the path they decide to have themselves a good old time. [31:29] And at that point in culture, prostitution was something to be ashamed of. [31:35] Should be now, but it’s not as much. [31:38] And so prostitutes would wear a veil over their face [31:40] so that when they got off work, they could walk around with no shame.

[31:46] And so Tamar puts the mask basically a veil so that you could not recognize her over her face. [31:53] And she went and stood at a particular place where it was pretty clear what she was doing. [31:59] She was being a cult prostitute. [32:02] And so Judah and Hira go and they see her and Judah, the widower, is tempted and he goes and he says, [32:11] yes please. How much? [32:14] Apparently back then a goat was worth a lot.

[32:17] And so he offers her a goat for a time and Judah’s like, [32:21] I’ll send you the goat. [32:22] And she says, but what am I going to hold on to as proof? [32:26] What you know, basically you need to put down a security deposit on your lease. [32:29] And so he puts down the security deposit, gives her staff, gives her signet, gives her cord. [32:35] And these are things that can easily be identified with Judah.

[32:39] So basically saying, if I don’t send you a goat, you can blackmail me [32:42] and you can embarrass me publicly that I’ve been with a prostitute. [32:46] And so the text is very clear. [32:48] He goes, lays with the prostitute, gives her possessions as a guarantee of his payment. [32:53] And what do we see? [32:54] We just continue to see the destructive tendencies of sin to the next generation.

[33:01] Sin upon sin upon sin. [33:05] If you haven’t noticed, nothing inspirational is happening in Genesis 38. [33:11] It’s depressing.

[33:13] But what I want you to understand is it’s important. [33:16] It’s vital that you see what’s happening in this text. [33:20] Sin left undelt with will be judged even if it is just a judgment of watching sin [33:30] go on to the next generation and destroying your family. [33:34] Sin must be judged. [33:36] People must repent.

[33:38] And I want to be very clear here. [33:39] When parents don’t repent and lead the family, [33:42] it is expected that your children won’t listen to the voice of God. [33:47] It’s because I think some of you are convinced that if you could just find the secret narrative, [33:53] if you could just find the secret leader, that your kids will be okay, [33:57] even if you don’t follow Jesus.

[33:59] That’s never how the story plays out.

[34:03] Every statistic we have since we started professional youth ministry in the 1950s [34:08] has shown that youth ministry without the influence of the parent being the major emphasis [34:13] fails every single time. [34:17] The children do not grow up to follow Jesus no matter how hard the youth pastor works, [34:21] no matter how hard the lead pastor works, no matter how hard the staff works. [34:25] If the parents do not disciple their own children, then statistically,

[34:31] you can basically count on your children will not follow Jesus.

[34:37] That’s statistics. [34:38] And here we have great evidence of that. [34:40] We’ve got the death of her. [34:41] We’ve got the death of Onan. [34:43] Now, because of Judah’s sin, what is Tamar doing?

[34:48] She’s prostituting herself because she’s a woman scorned.

[34:53] Jacob did this to Judah. [34:56] Then Judah did this to his children. [35:00] Now Tamar is doing it again.

[35:05] Someone has to break the cycle of sin.

[35:10] Someone.

[35:13] I know, parents, some of you did not have a great upbringing. [35:18] I know that I’ve met some of you. [35:19] I’ve talked to some of you about it. [35:22] And you did not have a godly example to follow. [35:24] But here’s what I want you to understand. [35:26] That redemption is available in Jesus Christ.

[35:28] And because of Jesus, what I talked about is that he unlocks that human potential [35:32] for the image of God. [35:33] If you will repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ, you can break that cycle.

[35:40] You can break the cycle of sin for your children. [35:43] Faith is meant to go to the next generation. [35:46] But here’s what I want you to understand. [35:48] Faithlessness can also go to the next generation.

[35:52] Greatest work of evangelism that you have in your life is the life of your children. [35:56] But I want to be clear. [35:57] Tamar was wicked for what she did. [35:59] Some people don’t focus on that. [36:01] But I want to be very clear. [36:02] She did not do a good thing here.

[36:05] When you find yourself going undercover as a prostitute and actually prostituting yourself, [36:09] it’s pretty hard to paint a picture of heroism.

[36:12] Hook her with a heart of gold. [36:14] Not a real story.

[36:16] It’s not a real thing that doesn’t exist. [36:21] Some of you all still watch Pretty Woman. [36:22] And I’m like, why? [36:24] What’s wrong with you? [36:25] Gross. [36:27] She was wicked.

[36:28] Her response to the injustice was deceptive. [36:32] It was deceptive temptation and her response was lust. [36:37] Proverbs 7, 24-27 warns both men and women of the sin of tempting and the foolishness [36:44] of giving in to this type of temptation. [36:46] What does it tell us? [36:47] It says, run.

[36:51] The text tells us in Hebrew it’s called the strange woman or the kind of temptress. [36:57] When she lays in wait and tempts you, what do you do? [37:01] You run away from her. [37:04] You do not go towards her. [37:06] And it says, why? [37:07] Because her house is the way to Sheol, the grave, going down into the chambers of death.

[37:15] So what does Judah do? [37:17] No, he walks on in.

[37:20] Walks on in.

[37:23] So what do we do with that?

[37:25] Number three this morning, I want you to understand that God as hero, because that’s [37:29] where we started, must lead to you as trusting and repentant. [37:36] Sometimes it is difficult to trust God in a sinful world, but we must return to God [37:42] every single time. [37:44] We were created to enjoy God. [37:46] We were created to revel in His glory.

[37:49] That is the only place of real joy. [37:51] When we see God judge sin, the answer is never. [37:55] Quick, hide, cover your tracks. [37:57] That’s what Judah tried. [38:00] Nor is it to play God and trick people into doing things our way. [38:04] That is what Tamar tried.

[38:07] We look down and I want to skip ahead to verse 24 of Genesis 37. [38:13] So, Tamar conceived.

[38:22] Her plan kind of worked.

[38:25] Verse 27, when the time of her labor came, excuse me, verse 24, rather, sorry. [38:30] About three months later, Judah was told Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral. [38:35] Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality. [38:38] And Judah said, bring her out and let her be burnt. [38:42] Wow.

[38:45] Wow. [38:46] That’s what you say, Judah.

[38:49] You were just with a prostitute, bro.

[38:54] Verse 25, as she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law. [38:58] And this is where the blackmail came.

[39:01] By the man whom these belong, I am pregnant. [39:05] And she said, please identify who these are, the signet and the cord and the staff. [39:09] Then Judah identified them and said, she is more righteous than I, [39:14] since I did not give her to my son, Shailah. [39:17] And he did not know her again.

[39:22] That’s an interesting way for the story to kind of go forward.

[39:29] He sought to burn her after he had banished her. [39:35] He sought to lay injustice on top of injustice. [39:38] Why? [39:38] Because he wanted to cover his tracks.

[39:42] It’s so easy to see the sin of other people and not see your own sin, is it not? [39:47] It’s so easy to lay condemnation on someone else than it is to repent of your own sin. [39:54] I want you to understand that when he says she is more righteous than I, [39:59] it’s an interesting statement in a story like this, isn’t it? [40:02] Because no one in the story was right. [40:04] But here’s what I want you to see from that phrase.

[40:07] Some were more wrong than others. [40:10] That is what Judah is getting at and he is right. [40:14] He was more wrong because he was in the place of authority. [40:20] He was in the place of influence. [40:21] He was in the position to break the cycle and he had power also to orchestrate injustice. [40:27] And he did.

[40:30] Tamar’s sin was rooted in his sin. [40:34] And I want you to understand something. [40:36] Forcing someone to sin is pure wickedness. [40:40] Jesus gets at that in Matthew 18, 6. [40:44] He says, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, [40:47] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck

[40:51] and be drowned in the depth of the sea.

[40:57] When you willfully cause someone else to sin, [41:00] you are responsible for your sin and in a very real way, [41:03] you are responsible for their sin. [41:07] Putting someone in a position to sin is grievous.

[41:11] And parents need to ponder that especially.

[41:15] You know, the Bible actually oftentimes forces us to think. [41:19] I know it’s an activity that a lot of us don’t like, [41:22] but the Bible forces us to do that. [41:24] When I read this narrative, as I said before, it is harder to parse than John 3, 16. [41:28] But I’m thankful. [41:30] Much of scripture forces us to stare at God and think,

[41:36] what do I do with this? [41:40] And I believe that to be by design. [41:42] I believe that to be for our good to make a stare at the word of God longer than we normally do.

[41:51] You see, Judah did what came natural. [41:55] Tamar did what came natural. [41:59] And I hear a lot from people, oh, that’s just who I am. [42:03] And what you’re saying is, that’s just what comes naturally to me. [42:07] But the question you need to ponder today is, what if what comes natural is sinful?

[42:13] If that is the case, we must not do what comes natural.

[42:19] What do we do, though? [42:21] We look to God. [42:23] No one in this narrative did that. [42:25] Another interesting narrative is found, and I can’t… [42:29] There are some things when I include texts in scripture, I know some of you are like, [42:34] why did he include that text?

[42:36] I can’t always explain why the Lord brings certain texts to mind, but [42:39] as I’ve been going through this narrative for the past couple of weeks, [42:43] the Lord kept bringing me to 1 Samuel chapter 1, [42:46] because it is such a different narrative than Genesis 38. [42:51] I find it to be a complete contradiction to Genesis 38. [42:55] Because in 1 Samuel 1, we find a woman who’s dealing with injustice,

[43:00] just as we do in Genesis 38. [43:02] Just as in Genesis 38, we find a woman who wants justice for herself. [43:07] She wants justice for her life. [43:09] She wants God to work in her life. [43:11] She wants something to happen good. [43:13] We find that in 1 Samuel 1 as well.

[43:17] You see, in 1 Samuel 1, there was another woman who struggled. [43:21] She couldn’t conceive, just like another wife to her husband did. [43:26] And the text calls the other wife her rival. [43:29] And I love that the Bible actually uses that term, [43:33] because it is something that most women are familiar with. [43:36] I love that the Bible says that she provoked her.

[43:41] In other words, she was mocking her. [43:43] She was picking on her. [43:44] She was making fun of her. [43:47] And what’s the natural inclination when your rival provokes you? [43:52] It’s to lash out. [43:54] It’s to get back.

[43:55] But in 1 Samuel 1, she doesn’t.

[43:58] 1 Samuel 1, she doesn’t. [44:00] Verses 9 through 11 show what she did. [44:04] The family had gone to Shiloh to offer sacrifice. [44:07] Hannah, the woman who couldn’t bear, rose. [44:10] Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. [44:14] She was deeply distressed.

[44:17] And what did she do? [44:19] She prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.

[44:25] The Lord is not silent in 1 Samuel 1.

[44:30] Because Hannah turned her focus to God. [44:36] She didn’t seek retribution. [44:38] She didn’t seek to tempt someone into getting her way. [44:43] She went to the Lord. [44:45] You see, God could be trusted. [44:48] Her natural inclinations couldn’t be trusted.

[44:53] You see, we began this morning by looking at the goodness of God in light of the gospel [44:57] of Jesus Christ. [44:59] God is the hero. [45:01] When sin rises, we must kill it. [45:03] How? [45:05] By trusting God.

[45:07] By repenting of sin. [45:10] By looking to the word of God, to what it should look like to follow Jesus in every [45:17] situation, both pleasant and painful situations. [45:21] And when we do that, it just might break the cycle of sin. [45:28] It just might change your life and it just might change someone else’s life. [45:33] When the band comes forward,

[45:36] you know, there are all in life where we look at our story. [45:40] We look at the life that we’re living and we say something in great honesty.

[45:47] Where is God in all of this?

[45:51] So the key to that is perspective because you ask that question about Genesis 38 and [45:56] we see God is silent. [45:58] He’s not speaking. [46:00] No one’s praying.

[46:02] But God the judge is there.

[46:06] When we go to 1 Samuel 1, we see God show up in a different way. [46:10] We see God show up for someone who’s in pain, someone who is in desperate need of his hand [46:15] and the Lord goes to her. [46:17] And if you read the rest of 1 Samuel 1, the Lord answers her prayer.

[46:23] Friends, I want you to understand that scriptures have much to say about the effects of sin, [46:29] but it never says you deal with your sin the way you see fit. [46:33] Nor does it say you deal with someone else’s sin the way you see fit. [46:38] The scripture tells us seek the Lord, turn from your sin, trust him and follow Jesus.

[46:46] If you’re in here this morning and you’re not a follower of Jesus, I don’t want a week to go [46:49] by that I don’t tell you that you can start following Jesus today. [46:54] Today can be the day of your salvation. [46:56] Today can be the day that you stop trusting your own natural inclinations and trust the Lord. [47:03] There will be people in the foyer that would love to talk to you about it. [47:06] Somebody would love to answer any questions that you might have.

[47:09] Someone that would love to pray with you. [47:11] But if you’re in here and you do follow Jesus, [47:14] I know that sometimes it’s hard to see the hand of God in your life. [47:18] I know that sometimes pain seems to show its ugly head all the time [47:22] and sin both your own and the sins of others seem to affect you. [47:26] And they do, don’t deny that.

[47:29] Trust God more than you trust yourself. [47:33] Why? [47:35] I think communion is a great reason why. [47:38] The bread represents the broken body of Christ, the cup represents his shed blood, [47:41] and as we eat and drink it symbolizes our reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. [47:47] We share a meal with the Lord and then it represents the life of Christ going in ours.

[47:52] That we’re not left to our own interpretation, we’re not left to our own devices, [47:56] but instead we have the life of Christ through his Holy Spirit leading us, [48:01] showing us his word and showing us where to go in every situation. [48:05] So this morning your response is to come, [48:08] proclaim your belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ, [48:12] and then live a life of following him rather than following yourself.

[48:17] When you’re ready, go.

[48:26]