Genesis: Judah and Jesus

So we have two stories left in the book of Genesis.

So we've been going through different stories to the book of Genesis for a couple months at this point.

And we have two stories.

We have a story today that we're going to look at about Judah and tomorrow.

And then we have a story that we'll look at in the next couple weeks.

It's the story of Joseph, which takes up like the back 25% of the book of Genesis.

And so we'll take a couple weeks to look at that story.

Now, this story this morning is the Genesis 38, and it's a story of Judah, which is Jacob's son, one of Jacob's sons.

This is another soap opera dysfunctional family story.

I mean, it it is it's just crazy.

As I even tell you the story, you don't have to worry about reading it through the passage there.

I'm going to tell you a lot of it.

It's insane.

What we left off last week was we left off with Jacob and Esau embracing, right?

Big brotherly hug, and they wept together.

So Jacob, he has a whole bunch of kids, and one of the kids is Judah.

Now, Judah has some kids, and one of his sons, Ur, marries this girl, Tamar.

Now, all the Bible says is that Ur dies under God's judgment.

And so Ur dies, and at this point, Tamar's without a husband.

So at this point in history, no life insurance policy that kicks in and Tamar is taken care of the rest of the way.

So there was a thing called the law of the Leverite marriage.

And so what this was is that if a husband died, the brother of the husband would marry that widow and continue his line of children and care for her and for those children.

And then if the father-in-law was alive, it was sort of the father-in-law's responsibility to make sure this happened.

So uh so Ur dies, Tamar's without husband, so Onan marries Tamar.

So Onan marries Tamar, but for some reason, Onan, and probably because he didn't want to split his inheritance amongst a whole bunch of different kids, he decides he's not going to have children with Tamar.

And so then the Bible just says, all it says, not a lot of explanation, except that he dies under God's judgment.

And so now Tamar is without husband again.

Now there's another son, Shelah.

But at this point, we can read in Genesis 38, verse 11, then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, remain a widow in your father's house till Shalah, my son, grows up.

Genesis 38:11

So he said, okay, it doesn't make sense, right?

Like so Shalah's not old enough yet.

So he's saying, hey, just hang on.

You know, we're gonna do the right thing.

We're gonna do the Leverite law, we're gonna do the right thing.

You, you, you'll we'll take care of you.

But then the verse keeps going.

He says, For he feared that he would die.

So for he feared Shalah would die like his brothers.

So Tamar went and remained in her father's house.

So so now Judah only has one son left, Shalah, and he sort of feels like Tamar is cursed.

Right?

This is cruel because Tamar's probably about 15 years old at this point.

And like pack her, pack your bags, right?

Like, pack your bags, head back to your dad's house.

And nobody's gonna marry her.

Nobody else is gonna marry her.

I mean, she she, in terms of in society, and I mean we're talking, we're talking to ancient history here, like that, like the way in which you're known in society is through having children.

This is the way in which your value was expressed and being married.

And this is the only way your value is expressed in society.

It's different now.

Back then, so she is sort of like banished back to her dad's house.

And this is sort of the first point where we get a hint of the storyline here.

And it's this it's that it's never us, right?

Like it's never our family or our children, it's her.

It's those people, right?

It couldn't be, for Judah, it couldn't be that his parenting was bad or that his boys were bad or his family was bad.

It was her.

She has to be the problem.

There was never a moment of perhaps, just perhaps it could be me.

Perhaps it could be my sons could be the problem.

No, no.

It's got to be her.

She has to be cursed.

So a few years go by, it says some time goes by, probably a couple years, because Shalah becomes the age where he could marry her, and Tamara realizes Judah's never gonna let her marry Shalah.

And so, this I mean, what this is like is this is like you're married and your husband dies, and there's a million-dollar life insurance policy, and your father-in-law steals the policy.

I mean, this is what it feels like.

You are angry, you are mad, you are upset, and she is all of these things, and she's all these things, plus she is hopeless.

And she decides she's gonna get some justice, this girl.

And so she finds out where Judah's headed, and she goes and she dresses up like a prostitute, and she puts herself on the side of the road, and somehow she knows that Judah is probably gonna play into this, so which might shine a little bit of the measure of hypocrisy going on here, that he would banish her so quickly without ever looking at him and his family, but she's cursed, not us.

And so Judah comes by, he doesn't recognize her, and he takes her up on the offer.

I mean, this is I mean, Gray's anatomy can't write this stuff.

I mean, this is crazy.

So at the end of the adult activities, Judah asks about compensation, and Tamar says, Well, bring me a goat later.

Good payment for this type of stuff.

Bring me a goat.

And he says, Well, I, you know, I don't have a goat right now, I don't have anything.

So, okay, bring me the goat later, leave your signet, leave your cord and your staff until then.

So this would have been like, leave your wallet.

Leave me your wallet, and then bring me the payment later.

But then when Judah comes back, uh, she's gone.

The prostitute's gone.

Now he still didn't realize that it was tomorrow, but all he knows is the prostitute's gone, and he has a little bit too much pride to go searching around the area, like, hey, you know, I slept with the prostitutes.

Anybody know where she's at because she has my wallet.

Like he's not doing that, so he just lets her have the wallet.

He figures he'll figure out the signet and the cord and the staff, he'll figure out he'll get some new ones.

A few months go by.

And you know what happens.

Her tummy starts to grow a little bit.

She's pregnant.

Word gets back to Judah, and he is furious.

He is embarrassed.

Now remember, he doesn't know that she was the prostitute he slept with.

And it says this, verse 24 through 26 of Genesis 38.

About three months later, Judah was told, Tomorrow your daughter-in-law has been immoral.

Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.

And Judah said, Bring her out and let her be burned.

As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, by the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.

And she said, Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.

Then Judah identified them and said, She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shalah, and he did not know her again.

Isn't this interesting?

He has no, he finds out she's pregnant, he has no concern for her or for women like her.

That was such a double standard, right?

I mean, he just reacts such so greatly towards this immorality, but there's no reflection on his own immorality.

And then he's going to kill her.

He's not just going to kill her, he's going to burn her.

So he's going to torture her.

I mean, this was bitterness inside of him that he still believes she was the cause of his two sons' death, and he is so bitter that he's not just going to have her killed, he wants to burn her.

And it's just so interesting.

And maybe you're like this, I can be like this.

You think you have it all figured out, right?

Like you fit, you think you have that person figured out, or those people figured out, you know, what they're like or why they're like that.

We're really good at that.

I'm really good at that.

I can figure out why anybody's like how they are, and then very, very easily why I'm better than them.

And he is furious because his image and his family, his family image is going to be scarred.

And this is just somewhere we can just sort of stop and pull just a little lesson at this point, and it's this that when your family image becomes the guiding uh force for decision making, you have entered dangerous waters where you're going to burn your children and your spouse.

Because you're protecting a family image instead of just loving your family.

I mean, think about this.

He he is going to burn his daughter rather than deal with the fact that his family image might be tarnished.

And he's willing to do it.

Never does he ask, never does he inquire, never does he say, hey, like, hey, tomorrow, what happened?

Like, what happened?

Can you explain this to me?

What are you okay?

Are you hurt?

Never does he doubt anything.

I mean, it's just all pride, all self-righteousness that he thinks he knows the whole story and the irony, you see it, right?

It's so clear all the while, he is the same as her.

And then she shows up and she has that wallet.

Right?

She has that signet, she has that cord, she has that staff.

And in a moment, everything changes.

It's the moment like the light's turned on, it's the moment you've experienced it where you're holding judgment toward that person and you think you know their whole story, and then you learn that other little bit of the story or that piece of uh news about them, and then it's all turned back on you.

And you think, ah, I'm so judgmental.

Like, how could I have even been thinking that?

I didn't even know the whole story, and he sees that signet and that cord and that staff, and everything's turned back around on him.

So there's the story, right?

Crazy, right?

Crazy, crazy story, because basically what it means is these kids' dad is also their granddad if you haven't put that together, and that's crazy.

All right, so a few points.

Number one, God desires for those with resources and position in society to help those without.

God desires for those with resources and position in society to help those without.

So social injustice is taking advantage of a group of people or a person or ignoring them when you have the ability to do something.

Right?

This is the point in the Leverite law.

This is the point when Jesus says, whatever you do for the least of these you have done for me, this is what Judah does not do.

And I don't know what that means for you or your position or influence or resources, and I'm not going to like prescribe that out for you.

I don't think that'd be a healthy thing.

It means something.

I don't even know what it means for me.

I'm really good at being selfish.

I mean, this is something I battle with all the time.

But it means something.

I don't know what it means for our church.

Like our church as we grow and develop and you know, and become outward and missional and things develop.

I don't know what it means for us in Marietta to be socially missional and for justice for people.

I don't know what that means, I don't know what it all means today, but it means something.

Because God does desire for those with uh position and resources to help those without.

That's point number one.

Number two, Judah can't love her until he is honest about himself.

Because he's just operating out of pretentiousness.

He's constantly just he's reacting to the threat coming against his ego.

Right?

Like a threat comes against his ego and then he reacts.

That's how he lives.

So as soon as Tamar threatens something in his life, she serves no purpose for him and his family, and so she's banished.

And then she's eventually going to be burned.

And it's only when he sees his own sin, right?

Like he sees the signet, the cord, and the staff, and then only then can he love her.

Because before we see her own depravity, we're just consumed with ourselves.

And then when we look at other people, we we see through the lens of self-justification and self-righteousness.

So when she shows up and they're pulling her out, I mean, to he just sees her as just a whore, as nothing more, just a prostitute.

And she's being drug out to be burned, and she pulls that package out and she says, Hey, show this to my father in law.

And in verse 25, she says this.

She says, please identify whose these are.

But it's deeper than that.

In the text, it's deeper than that.

It's richer.

It says, it's like this.

It's like, as you see these, do you see yourself?

Right?

So imagine Judah in that position, right?

Burn her, burn her.

She deserves to be burned, and she sends his wallet back to him.

And he's like, as you see your wallet, do you see yourself?

Because he sees the wallet, and then he remembers the side of the road, and he remembers that time with her, and then he sees all of his immorality, and then he sees all of his judgment and all of his self-righteousness, and he sees himself, and now all of a sudden, all the sudden, now he can have compassion towards somebody else.

So Tamar has twins.

Uh one of them she names Perez.

And so Perez means breach or breakthrough.

So the literal image uh in the in the passage is actually as he's being born, he reaches out of the womb.

And so she names him Perez or breakthrough.

What I was thinking about when I when I read it, and I started to think about this idea of breakthrough, and that image.

I was thinking about when I was just out of college, at the end of college, my buddy and my roommate, he was a guide on the Okoe River.

And so we would go up several times throughout the summer to visit him and hang out, and he would take us down the river, and we would do what was called trash runs.

We do trash runs all the time.

I think I've talked about trash runs before, because it was just it was the kind of thing only stupid 20-year-old guys do, and you don't ever do it at any other point in your life.

And so we would all get in the raft and we have our jackets on, our helmets on, our paddles, and basically the whole aim was in every rapid to flip the raft and for there to be as much chaos as possible.

I mean, this I mean, like I said, it's the only thing 20-year-old stupid people do.

And so it like unto the point where we would tie a rope to the front of the raft, all sit in the back, go into the rapid, and then all just like pull back.

I mean, we would just do just really dumb things.

And so, of course, sometimes there would be a really dumb result.

And and you you know, you look back on it, you're like, it's not not real bright things going on there.

And so one time, uh flip, it's chaos, and usually most of the time, you know, you wash out, you come up, and you're swimming through the rapid, and it's fun, and you all laugh, you get back in the raft, and you have you know high five, and you go do it again.

But one time I I I went and you know, go under the water and you're swirling all around.

If you've ever been underwater in a river, you're swirling all around, and you know you're gonna come back up, and you're but you're still fighting because you're kind of scared you might not.

And so you're swimming and fighting, and you really want back up.

You you're you know, you're starting to hit the point where like I really would like to get back up.

And when I came, I hit and I felt.

Has anybody had this moment?

In in your under the raft?

Anybody had this terror moment?

And in and I realized I remembered, and I had remembered from years ago, somebody said, Andy, if this ever happens, you're under the raft, you head in one direction, don't stop until you don't go in circles, right?

Like that'd be the worst thing that happened.

Like head in one direction and keep going in that direction.

So I hit, and you just, you know, it's just fear, but you're ready for some air at this point.

And so start to work my way to the edge, and I head to the right, and I can still remember it, and you're just like, please hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, you're kicking, you're fighting, and I you know, and kind of reach out and felt the side of the raft, and my hand kind of feeling the air and pulling myself out, and and then just, you know, and I could just remember so badly wanting air, want needing air, literally dying underneath the surface, and then breaking through and receiving and getting the air that I wanted.

Right?

One second you're drowning, and then the next you come up from under the surface into the light, and you can breathe.

You know this feeling.

Whether you've had the feeling of underneath a raft, you know, in a river, you don't want the feeling, but if you've ever had that or in a pool, right?

Like you're under the raft in the pool and you're struggling to get out, you know that feeling.

Or maybe just in life.

That feeling that you're just you're under you're just underwater, right?

People even say that, maybe we're just underwater.

And then to have that breakthrough where you come out and all of a sudden you can breathe.

And so for for Judah, this is Judah's breakthrough.

Like seeing this signet and this cord and this sta, this is his breakthrough.

This is this is his breakthrough.

Perez, which means breakthrough, actually produced for Judah his breakthrough.

Because it helped Judah finally see everything that was going on inside of himself.

And maybe it's just for us to let Judah break us this morning.

That we're more like him than we tend to think, and maybe you go, well, I'm not like him, I'm not that cruel, you know, I'm I'm really not that cruel.

I'm a pretty, pretty good person.

But see, if you don't face the ways in which you are like him, maybe in the immorality or maybe in the self-righteousness, if you if you never face that stuff, then you never have breakthrough.

You never get the air, you never get the new life.

Verse 26 says this then Judah identified them, so he identified his signet as cordonist, identified them, and he said, She is more righteous than I.

I mean, think how quickly he went from pride to humility.

Since I did not give her to my son Shalah.

This is so interesting.

And I mean, just how how this scripture handles this.

They both have sexual sin.

She lied and she tricked him, a pretty deceitful act.

But then he says that he's done something worse.

It's so easy to swing, uh, say, swing, say you swing to the liberal view.

And you go, it's her body.

She can do with it as she pleases.

And you know what?

She he had it coming.

Like, I mean, if anybody had it coming, that guy had it coming, and it's her body, and she can do with her body as she pleases, right?

Liberal view.

It's very easy to swing to towards a conservative view.

Right?

And never speak of the sins of self-righteousness or social injustice in the story, but just talk about the uh sexuality.

The sexual immorality.

And what's interesting in this passage is that it handles all of it.

Right?

It doesn't dismiss either sin.

It doesn't dismiss the sexual immorality, and it doesn't dismiss the self-righteousness.

That both are toxic, and that he looks at it, and he as a person, and this is the stance, Paul's stance in the New Testament, he's the worst sinner of all, and that Judah's looking at it and he just says, I, you know, she's more righteous than I am.

It's a breakthrough moment.

And I'm just praying for us.

Would Judah teach us something great?

Would he help us to get to our breakthrough?

When breakthrough happens, you see the signet.

You see it in your life.

My breakthrough moment, I've talked about it a lot.

I guess I remember it so clearly for me.

And it wasn't the moment I became a Christian.

I'd become a Christian years before.

I was working at another church.

I'm driving down, I'm driving down Blackland Drive in Buckhead towards Chastain Park.

And I remember it so clear.

Somebody had handed me a CD of a sermon, and it's playing, and the guy just starts to describe what a self-righteous person is like.

And he just says, he pretty much says this.

He says, a self-righteous person is self-dependent, they're prideful, and then they then they swing into despair.

They're constantly analyzing their spiritual life for signs of maturity, they're exhausted because of it, and they're paralyzed, they compare their lives to everybody else's.

They're insecure, they feel the pressure to live up to being a Christian constantly.

They worry about their standing with God.

They live fearful in life, they have an inability to love other people, and they're judgmental toward everyone.

And I just heard that.

Like that, there's the signet.

That was my signet.

And you know what's interesting is uh once somebody sees their signet and their cord and their staff, you don't have to give them like, here's five ways to love other people.

Like that sermon just doesn't really matter that much.

Because they see their own sin.

And they're like, yeah, I'm not gonna be judgmental to him.

I'm not gonna be judgmental to her toward her.

I'm I can love her, I want to love her, I want to be compassionate toward her because you you you realize your own sin and yet you've been loved.

Do you see it?

Do you see it?

That that we are like tomorrow, that we are like Judah?

Judah's been like her the entire time.

We're like both of them.

So maybe you read this story, maybe Tamar crushes you.

Because you read the story and you associate with her, like her storyline.

You see her storyline, you're like, yeah, I've done things like that.

Like, I know that shame, I know that loneliness, I know that rejection.

Maybe you know that rejection of church, of religious people.

Or maybe Judah crushes you.

You see him and you see yourself.

You're unable to actually consider that you may be the problem.

And so you see him and he crushes you.

And the good news this morning is this that while Tamar and Judah crush us, and this is point number three, they point us to Jesus, the one who rescues us.

This is the breakthrough.

And here's what I mean.

In Matthew 1, there's this there's this genealogy, there's this list of names that basically show the ancestors leading up to Jesus.

And in that long list of names, you have these names, Judah and Tamar and Perez.

And it's really strange that a woman's name is in the list.

Just because back then you didn't list the women in the genealogies, and the fact her name is in there is just odd.

And then, furthermore, once we learn about these people, you're like, these are Jesus' ancestors.

Like, these are the names we're writing down.

And the point here is that God is using the most unlikely of characters for the lineage of Jesus because he welcomes the most unlikely of characters into his family.

That's who gets to come in.

It's not the people who have their act together and they see no need.

It's for the people who know they don't have their act together.

It's the same message when Esau opens his arms to Jacob, as Judah opens his arms to Tamar.

It's the message that to be in the family you don't have to be squeaky clean because none of us are squeaky clean.

And only one person was.

And that's Jesus, and he was that for us.

And for all of us that know him, he is our righteousness, he is our rescue.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you have provided a way for us.

Would you help us to have a breakthrough like Judah to see that we're not we're not perfect and the many people that we look at and we sit in judgment over, we're like them.

Forgive us for our judgmentalism, forgive us of our self-righteousness.

God, would you give us hearts that are softened by your grace that receive your love and turn into love to other people?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.