GOD IN THE MESS | GOD'S FAR-REACHING GRACE (February 26 2017) - Mike Armstrong

Genesis 38 is where we are today.

And as you get kind of flipped over and situated over there, uh question for you.

Have you ever been like skiing or snowboarding before?

Have you ever done that?

You ever attempted that before?

Well, I remember when I was, uh, I was like 20 years old, 19 or 20 or something like that.

I remember going snowboarding uh with my friend Carl.

Now you might remember Carl Whittingstall, he preached here, uh, he's preached here before in this church.

Well, him and I went snowboarding.

I think we were at like uh Horseshoe Valley up near Barrie.

I don't know if you've ever been there before.

Um but we were there and we've been riding around for the whole day.

And I guess we, I don't know, we got bored or something like that, and we decided, you know what, let's let's go ride the bunny hill.

Okay?

Now, I don't know if you know what the bunny hill is, but it's like kind of the beginner, kind of the easiest run that you can do, and it's where like all the little tiny kids are learning how to snowboard and all the adults doing it for the very first time.

And so I remember we uh went over and we jumped on, they had a chairlift on that bunny hill, it's like a four-seater chairlift.

And I remember we were kind of going up the hill, kind of, oh, this is gonna be so funny, you know, thinking it was gonna be like that.

And I don't know what we were thinking, but we wanted to go kind of hit the bunny hill up, I guess.

And I remember that as we were getting off, I don't know if you've ever gotten off a chairlift before, but it's always a bit of an adventure.

And uh I Carl, I remember he had, you know, he kind of popped off before I did.

And so I think I was on kind of the right side of the lift, and you know, I had to go to the right, whereas the chairlift swings around to the left and goes back around.

And I'll remember as I was kind of getting situated, and I go to push myself off, but my glove got like caught on the actual like bar or on the chair or something like that.

And I'll remember that because you know it's a it's a bunny hill chairlift, so it's like as slow motion as it gets, right?

And I just remember my arm kind of slowly going like this behind me as I was going to the right, and then slowly but surely it's kind of fell on my back, and then pathetically got dragged kind of around as this thing was swinging back around.

I remember just like trying to yank the hand.

Finally, my hand comes out of the glove, but the glove stays hooked on and starts to go around.

Well, to make matters worse, the the lady that was running the chairlift, kind of from her little hut up there, thought that I was doing this to be a clown or whatever, and so she comes out and starts kind of reading me the riot act, starts yelling at me, thinking that I'm doing this on purpose.

I'm like, no, this is totally by accident.

You know, and Carl's off to the right, just like dying, right?

Just rolling, you idiot, what are you doing?

I'm trying to scramble out of the way because all these kids are trying to come.

Anyways, all of that aside, okay, that's the kind of failure that's probably pretty easy to laugh off, right?

Because it's kind of hilarious and it's and it's ridiculous, and the only thing that's really wounded there in the end is my pride.

And obviously my pride uh really needed it.

Um but, okay, or however, you know, what about those failures that you and I have, um, you know, like the really the really serious kind, you know, the ugly failures in life, you know, the times where we have seriously blown it.

You know, and you've you know made these mistakes, these errors, these sins that have seriously affected your life.

They've brought consequences and sometimes very real uh scars and those aching memories into your life and sometimes uh into the life uh of others.

And sometimes these these failures, and you might know what I'm talking about, they leave us with these very real doubts or sometimes even certainty.

You know, that these pieces were never gonna get put back together again.

Right?

Here I am left kind of in the in the carnage of the decisions and the failures that I've made, and I've sort of, you know, just gotta live with it.

Right?

These are the kinds of failures that are maybe not so easy to just kind of laugh off.

Right?

Well, our passage today in Genesis 38, it really serves as both a grim reminder of the ugly mess that our sins and our failures can create.

It serves as that, but at the same time, and this is so great and so good of God to do this, it also serves as an amazing reminder and and a real blast of hope that God will not uh waste even our biggest failures.

He won't do it, he won't waste them.

He's right there with us in the mess, in the thick of it.

And I mean, that's what this series is really all about.

He can create something beautiful out of the ashes that we have made.

Right?

He can do that.

And so this message should really be kind of a twofold thing.

It should be a serious wake-up call and a warning to any of us here who are living right now in the sinful choices and decisions that we're making.

And maybe some of you are in that right now and you're like, this doesn't seem so bad, and and you know, I don't I don't know what all the talk is about, you know, sin and consequences and everything, because right now you're experiencing kind of the fun and the good of all of that and and the enjoyable aspects.

Well, just you wait.

Right?

Just you wait.

It's coming.

And the pain is very real and it's very, very difficult.

And so it should serve as a wake-up call for you if you're kind of in that space, but then on on uh on top of that, it should really serve as an encouragement to those of you who know all too well that sin is deadly.

To those of you who have made the huge mistakes, those of you who have, it feels like anyways, torpedoed your life, and you've made some grievous errors that affected you and affected those that you know, people who you care about very much, and you're and you're struggling with it and all of that.

Well, this message today will bring hope to you.

And so I want to pray for you now as we get into this and look at this very serious uh passage of scripture and then apply it uh to our lives and the very situations uh that we find ourselves in.

So why don't you join me as we pray?

God, we thank you so much, Lord, for your word.

Lord, and as we're gonna see here, a very messy passage, Lord, a very difficult passage to even read, let alone uh try and comprehend and then apply to our own lives.

Lord, we thank you that you are a God of grace.

Lord, we thank you that uh your grace is greater than all of our mistakes.

God, we thank you that in you life is never over.

It may feel like it, we may feel depressed, we may feel down, we may feel extremely broken because of some of the things that we have done.

But Lord, we thank you that you never let go.

We thank you that you meet us right there in the mess of all of it.

And Lord, you are in the business of redeeming.

You are in the business of making beautiful things out of things that we've we've made ugly.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would bring real hope and encouragement to your church today through the preaching of your word.

Would you do this in Christ's name?

Amen.

Amen.

Well, interestingly enough, uh Genesis chapter 38 actually takes us on a detour from the story of Joseph.

Genesis 38 · chapter mention

And you might be thinking, well, what's up with that?

Like, didn't we just start the story of Joseph in uh the previous chapter in 37?

Like, what's with kind of the break?

What's with the hiatus uh in all of that?

Well, what it does is it's actually introducing us a little bit further to one of Joseph's brothers, uh, Judah.

And uh again, why?

Why would it do that?

Well, a couple of reasons.

One is it really sets up this stark contrast between the you know the morally upright Joseph.

And you're like, wait a second, morally upright Joseph, we haven't seen that guy yet, we've just seen like the cocky punk.

Right?

We're gonna see him uh starting next week in chapter 39.

You're gonna see that he's actually a great guy as the Lord is working in him, but it contrasts the morally upright Joseph with the morally degenerate Judah.

Okay, that's one of the things that it does.

It shows us this great uh contrast there.

Um, but also, kind of like any good story, it also builds suspense.

It builds suspense because we're left kind of at the end of chapter 37, like Joseph's gone off to Egypt.

He's been sold.

Uh he's in Potiphar's uh family now or in his household.

And you're like, what's happening?

And so, I mean, no most of us here probably know the story of Joseph, but this is this is just a really well-told story that builds suspense and momentum.

And then, of course, another thing that it shows us, and this is so important and hopefully so encouraging to us here as we mistakes uh make mistakes, is it shows us just what God can do in even the scummiest people.

Right, and that's the life of Judah for sure.

And uh, you know, we're gonna relate this, of course, this story to our life, and as we're gonna look through this, we're gonna see here uh that I've never blown it so badly that God's grace can't reach me.

Right?

There's one thing that you take away from this this morning.

Remember that.

I have never blown it so badly that God's grace cannot reach me.

You're never so far in over your head that God can't rescue you.

You're never so lost that God can't find you.

God's grace is greater.

Listen, God's grace is greater than all of your sin combined.

Do you believe that?

Do you believe that?

I mean, we say it, we kind of know it, but does your heart sing that tune?

Right?

In him, in Christ, there is always hope.

No matter how gross your sin is, no matter how often you keep coming back to that empty well, no matter how many times you do it, no matter how bad it is, there is always hope in the Lord.

We're gonna see that here, okay?

So again, I've never blown it so badly that God's grace can't reach me.

And listen, that's saying something, because I can get into some very dark places.

I can get into some very dark places.

That's the first thing here.

Now, as we begin here, um, if you're at all familiar with the story of Judah and Tamar, uh, you'll know that this is uh quite explicit.

Right?

Some of you are familiar with the story.

I've even had a couple of you kind of come up to me and ask, like, hey, are we are we going through this story here next week?

You know, are you kind of skipping over that and going right back into the Joseph narrative?

Like, how are you handling that?

We are going through it.

We are gonna go through it.

And it's an amazing thing to know that God's word never never shies away from the truly awful situations uh that people can get themselves into.

And as a church that you know preaches God's word verse by verse, we believe in the entire counsel of God's word.

Uh, we're not gonna skip over this, even though it's difficult and and even though it's it's grimy, right?

And what it shows us here is that even our deepest and grossest failures don't send, they don't send God into the ditch.

They don't.

They really don't.

He meets us right there uh in the muddy waters.

All right, so there's your there's your warning, I suppose, okay, as we go through this.

Explicit content ahead.

Okay, you ready for this?

Let's go.

Okay, verse 20 uh verse 1.

Uh let's go through this now.

We're gonna read all the way down to verse 23, a lot of verses.

So hopefully you got a copy of God's word.

Okay, because here we go.

All right.

It happened, verse 1, it happened at the time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adulamite whose name was Hira.

Okay, well, first of all, what does it mean at that time?

It happened at that time that Judah went down.

Well, what this is referring to is it happened at the same time that Joseph was sold into slavery.

Right?

Same time there.

Um, what happens is Judah, so we're introduced to, again, one of his brothers here.

He goes down to uh this certain Adulamite, his name's Hira.

We'll see him a bunch through this story here, and this is a Canaanite man.

Okay, and then verse 2.

There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua.

Okay, and so what happens here?

This is kind of the first sign of trouble.

The first sign of trouble in this story.

So uh Judah ends up seeing with his eyes.

So understand here, lustful intent.

Okay, he sees this woman, this Canaanite woman.

Now we don't even know her name.

It doesn't even tell us her name.

It tells us that her father's name was Shua.

The important thing to know is that she was a Canaanite.

Now, what do you know about God's people and Canaanites?

They're never encouraged to mix, are they?

Never encouraged to mix, because the idea was that if God's people mixed with other pagan cultures, what would always end up happening is those pagan cultures and that false worship would always end up influencing them, rubbing off on them, and they would discontinue worshiping the one true God.

And so what does this tell us about Judah?

It tells us that he doesn't give a flying rip about any of that.

Right?

He's just like, I'm gonna follow my desires.

I'm gonna follow what I want, and I don't care about the Lord and uh any of the things, any of the things that he tells us to do.

Alright, so verse 2, pick it up again.

It says that he took her, he took her because he liked the look of her, and he went into her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Ur.

Okay, so he takes this woman.

We learn from verse 12 that she becomes his wife.

Okay, and so he takes her, he marries her, and uh begins this relationship with her, where she gives birth to a son, Ur.

Now, verse 4.

Okay, she conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan.

So you've got son number two there.

Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shala.

Okay, so Judah was in Shazib when she bore him.

So another Canaanite town.

And so you get the picture here, right?

He's had this, you know, he has this relationship with this woman, she becomes his wife, and she gives birth to three boys.

Okay, this is really important that we understand that as we go forward here.

Okay, look at this.

Okay, verse 6.

And Judah took a wife for Ur, his firstborn.

Okay, so you're fast-forwarding a bit of time here.

Ur is of age now where he can get married, and uh he gives Judah gives his son a wife, and her name was Tamar.

Okay, so now we're introduced to Tamar, and she plays a very prominent role in the rest of this episode here.

Okay, but listen to this, verse 7.

But Ur, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.

That's pretty stark.

I mean, we're not even told what he did.

We don't know.

We're not even told how he was put to death, but obviously this was justified, right?

And God never sins, he always does the right thing, he does what is good, and so whatever happened here, whatever the sin of Ur was, he was put to death.

And it's kind of, I think it kind of serves to show like it doesn't even matter what he did.

He was just evil, we're not even gonna give much attention to it.

You're gone.

Okay, that's what he says to Ur.

So Tamar's first husband, uh, he's done.

Okay, but verse 4, no, sorry, we're a little further down here.

Verse 8.

Then Judah said to Onan, so this is the second brother now, go into your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offering or offspring for your brother.

Now you might be thinking, this is weird.

Like, what's going on here?

Like, all of a sudden you give, you know, the younger brother, the brother-in-law, to Tamar.

Like, what's that all about?

Well, this is what was known as Leveret marriage or or Leveret law.

And this was very common, even before the later Levitical law that would come up.

This is a common, common practice uh for people in these cultures uh to take care of widows and also to see that the line of uh the family line would be continued.

And so this was again a very a very normal thing where Onan was to be given to Tamar, again, to take care of her and for him to sire children through her that would be kind of credited to his his dead brother, Ur, and so that Ur's line can be continued.

Alright, hopefully you got that.

Okay, but here's what happens here, verse 9.

But Onan, second brother, knew that the offspring would not be his.

Okay, he knew that the offspring would not be his.

It would be even though he was the genetic father, it would be credited to Ur, and it would be Ur's offspring.

Okay, so whenever he went into his brother's wife, he would waste the semen on the ground so as not to give offspring to his brother.

To which we all say, Ew.

Right?

This is where it's like, yeah, we really preach the word of God every single verse?

Yeah, we do.

And it gets pretty gritty, doesn't it?

Right?

And so what he's seeing here, okay, what what Onan is seeing, he's like, you know what?

If I sire a child here that's gonna be really at the end of the day, Ur's child, okay, all of the all of the blessing, all of the inheritance, and actually a double portion, because he was the oldest son, a double portion of the inheritance is gonna go to this son that I sire.

Right?

It's gonna be attributed to him.

And because my older brother is now dead, what Onan's thinking, he's like, now I'm the first in line, right?

I am the favored son, so to speak.

I am the one who will get the inheritance and the double portion of it.

And so that's why he does what he does there, which is, again, kind of gross, right?

But he doesn't want to have any children for Tamar.

And so then what happens here?

Okay, verse 10.

What he did, it was wicked in the sight of the Lord.

And so he put him to death also.

And so the Lord sees here that what Onan did was incredibly selfish.

It was not at all in line with what God had planned for Tamar and for this family, and he says, You're done too.

So that's son number one and son number two, they're both dead.

Okay?

Verse 11.

Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, he's kind of freaked out here now.

His first two sons are gone.

He's like, Remain a widow.

Remain a widow in your father's house till Shalah, my son, grows up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's that that's that's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna give you my youngest son later.

Right?

And then it says here, because for he feared that he would die.

Right?

He's probably rightly rattled here.

My two son, he thinks that Tamar's a curse.

He thinks that she is the problem here.

Um, so Tamar went and remained in her father's house.

Now you need to understand that doesn't sound like a big deal when you read it.

Right?

She's going back to her father's house, and this is normal, but this was actually considered very shameful.

And this was him completely, you know, shunning his responsibility to care for and provide for Tamar, who is now a widow and considered vulnerable in this society.

And so Judah, in his fear and in his worry and in his selfishness, he's kind of like, let's get rid of the cursed woman, because I don't want my youngest son when he gets old enough to suffer the same fate.

Okay, so you start to see what's happening here.

I mean, this is this is this is messy, isn't it?

Right?

This family situation is not great.

Well, good news, it's about to get worse.

Okay, verse 12.

Okay, in the course of time, the wife of Judah, Shua's daughter, died.

So we understand that that uh that Judah married this Canaanite woman, right?

Well, it says that she passes away.

And when Judah was comforted, so he had done and completed his mourning, because it says that he went up to Timnah to his sheep shears, he and his friend Hira the Edulamite.

All right, so again, he gets he gets reconnected with Hira, the, you know, his business partner, his his buddy, the Canaanite, uh the pagan guy.

And listen to here, verse 13.

And when Tamar was told, okay, your father is go your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep, she took off her widow's garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah.

For she saw that Shalah was grown up and had not been given to him to him, she had not been given to him in marriage.

And so she hears about this.

She hears that Judah has kind of done his mourning and he's heading off to this town, and she's like, I I get it now.

Shalah is now grown up, he's old enough to be given to me, but I realize that my father-in-law is kind of dropping the ball here, and he doesn't care about me, so I need to take matters into my own hands to care for myself and to carry on my family line.

Now, what she does here uh is not right.

Okay, it is not good, but you can kind of understand her, right?

She's fearful, she's trying, she's trying to fix this situation.

She realizes that her father-in-law uh does not have great character here, so she takes off her widow's garment and covers herself with a veil.

Okay, and so what is she doing?

She has been suffering and and mourning as a widow all of this time, but she's changing her garb now to look like, to appear like a prostitute.

That's what she's doing.

Take a look at verse 16 now, 15.

When Judah saw her, so he's coming up to the gate now where she is sitting, he thought that she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

He turned to her at the roadside and said, Come, let me come into you.

For he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.

And she said, What will you give me that you may come into me?

And he answered, I will send you a young goat from the flock.

That sounds weird to us, right?

You can have a goat, that's the payment, but that was pretty normal in terms of this awful practice, anyways.

And she said, Listen to this.

If you give me a pledge until you send it, I love this part.

He like he cuts her off.

Or you can tell where his mind's at, what he really wants here, right?

He doesn't even let her finish.

He's like, what pledge shall I give you?

He's like, just name it.

Name it, I don't care.

Just make this happen.

She's like, if you give me a pledge until you send.

So she knows that he can't be trusted.

She's like, yeah, you say that you're going to give me a goat.

You say that you're going to pay me, but I know what your word is worth.

He replies, and he said, What pledge shall I give you?

She replies, Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.

And so the signet, what it was, was kind of like a like a stamp that would have like that he would have used to sign off on business deals.

We know that he was a businessman and a shepherd of some kind.

And so he would have, it was kind of actually like a tube, like a cylinder with a cord wrapped wrapped around it, and he would wear that around his neck.

And so it was a very personal thing that would say, hey, this is Judah signing off on this business deal here.

And then the staff that she also requested would have also been a very personal thing for him that probably would have had carvings on it and would have also signified that this belongs to Judah.

And so what does it say there?

Keep going.

So he gave them to her, and he went into her, and she conceived by him.

Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil, she put on the garments, uh, the garments of her widowhood.

So she kind of reverts back to dressing as a widow to uh again kind of fool everybody here, but we know that she is she is pregnant.

Now, when Judah, verse 20, sent the young goat by his friend the Adulamite, so this is Hira back into the picture again.

And notice how he sends Hira to do the dirty business.

Right?

You go payer.

I don't want to have to deal with any of this.

So Hira goes after her and he he looks for her, but it says that he can't find her, verse 21.

And he said to the men of the place, Where's the cult prostitute who was at Enaim at the roadside?

And they said, No cult prostitutes been here.

So you'd understand in pagan cultures, and some of them in their worship, they actually had prostitution as part of their worship.

They would perform these duties with men.

I mean, just twisted and sick.

And that's I don't know if he thought that that's actually what she was, or if he was uh if he was just calling her that.

I mean, not too sure there.

But he says, Where are they?

Where is she?

And they said, No cult, uh, no cult prostitute's been here.

Verse 22.

So he returned to Judah and said, I have not found her.

Also the men of the place said, No cult prostitute has been here.

And Judah replied, Let her keep the things on her own, right?

Or we should be laughed at.

You see, I I sent the young goat and you did not find her.

He's like, My hands, my hands are clean from all of this.

I tried to pay her, let her keep those things.

And and we don't want to be a laughing stock, meaning that if we if we continue to dig deep here and try to find her and ask more questions, what's gonna happen here?

All lies are gonna be on us.

And I would rather not have that and be the laughing stock and be at the the the butt of everyone's joke.

So I guess just let her keep that stuff.

You know, what could go wrong here?

You know, and and it's interesting for sure, uh, because as we see here, um, a lot, a lot goes wrong.

And you see that and you're just like, this is dark.

This story, it's a sordid tale of just awful and uh and this despicable sexual sin and incest and deceit and betrayal and all of it.

Now I think one of the dangers when when you and I read a passage like this is we can, I think, very easily tend to think, like, man, I'm glad my life's not that messed up.

Right?

You ever think that?

We read that and we automatically think, I'm in a better position than Judah and Tamar.

And we start to kind of look at them and maybe even judge them.

Well, it's probably true that your situation and my situation isn't quite as Jerry Springer as all of this.

You know, we'd be missing the point entirely if we didn't learn to view our sin the way that we tend to view Judah and Tamars.

We'd be missing it big time.

After all, if you really think about it, is our sin any less grotesque in the sight of God?

I mean, is it really?

I mean, sure, certain sins carry a you know a greater, a deeper, a worse consequence than others, for sure, right, depending on the sin.

But at the end of the day, sin is sin in God's eyes.

Right?

That's the way that he sees it.

Right?

He went to the cross for our what we would maybe call acceptable sins, right?

Things like, let's, for example, uh gluttony.

I mean, I mean, how many of us give in to the sin of gluttony every single day, and we're we're looking to food to you know to provide us with comfort and pleasure and meaning and all of that, giving into that time and time again.

But we don't even think about it as a wrong thing.

In fact, we celebrate it even, don't we?

But that that's that's what I'm talking about, the kind of acceptable sin.

God went to the cross for those kinds of acceptable sins that we would say, just as much as he died for the sins that we would call extra grievous.

Right?

Sins like like murder and and rape and as we're seeing in here, even uh incest.

Right?

So again, let's let's learn to see and not make the mistake.

Let's let's learn to see that our sin is dark.

Let's see it for what it is.

It's deserving of death, it's deserving of separation.

You know, our sin alone, just take yourself as an individual, not your family beside you, not anyone else in the room, your sin, my sin alone was enough to send Christ to the cross.

Right?

We didn't need Judah and Tamars to do it on top of it.

Now, that being said, you know, whereas it for sure is the case where some of us don't tend to see our sin for as deep and as ugly and as painful and as awful as it really is, there are a number of us who have no problem feeling the weight and the burden and the consequences of our sin.

Right?

And some of you are feeling that big time, and in fact, you carry that darkness around with you on a daily basis.

You know, and everywhere you turn, you are you are reminded by the mistakes that you've made, and you feel like those are constantly being thrown in your face all the time, and maybe it's by someone who just can't seem to forgive you, and they're they're always reminding you of it.

You know, or maybe for you it's just your own overactive sense of guilt and shame when when in reality you've been forgiven by Christ long ago.

And you're the one that keeps kind of dredging it up and reminding yourself, and you feel like sort of metaphorically flogging yourself and whipping yourself is putting you into a better position.

It's not true.

That's anti-gospel.

Your sins have been forgiven in Christ, done, gone, buried.

Your sins are over.

Or perhaps you've sinned in some seriously dark and twisted ways in the past and and it's affected your life big time now.

You know, relationships with loved ones have disintegrated.

You know, maybe, you know, for you, it's because of something that's just like it's 100% totally, thoroughly, completely on you.

Right, and you're left kind of dealing with all of that.

Maybe it's some kind of financial strife because of some some errors, some sin that you've done.

Maybe your sins have even affected you physically in some way, and you're carrying that with you now.

Maybe it was some kind of you know, uh addiction.

Maybe it was, you know, some kind of substance abuse, and now your body is just kind of a uh a shell of what it formerly was.

And you've got these cravings now that affect you on the day in and day out because of mistakes that you have made, and you get it.

Like I'm dragging this with me everywhere.

Well, as we're gonna see here later on, we see in this passage, and what the gospel shows us is that you and I have never blown it so badly that God's grace can't reach down and pull us up out of the muck.

We've never, we're never so far off.

His grace is enough to save you.

His grace is enough to forgive you.

His grace is enough to heal you.

Period.

Right?

And I love that the line from that Matt Redman song our shame was deeper than the sea.

Your love is deeper still.

Right?

That's a picture of God's grace.

Now, some of you, you need to hear that truth and you need to receive Jesus Christ today for the forgiveness of your sins.

You've never done that.

And you need to understand and you need to know that Christ went to the cross for your most deplorable acts.

He went to the cross for all of it so that you can be forgiven.

God punished his son Jesus through Calvary so that you could be forgiven and go free.

Would you trust him today?

Would you believe in him?

Would you confess your sin?

Would you invite him to be your savior?

And then you can start along the wonderful, glorious, challenging, amazing road of growing in Christ and being healed.

But some of us here today, maybe a lot of us, maybe even the bulk of us, need to remember the gospel that you had believed.

You've believed it in the past.

You need to remind yourself that in Christ you are forgiven.

You are forgiven.

It's done.

And you need to stop dredging up the past as we've talked about.

No more wallowing in the dark places that you've once been in.

In the dark places that your sin had you, but don't actually have you anymore.

Okay, you're not there because in Christ, you need to believe that you have been forgiven.

All of that is covered by God's grace.

There's nothing positive to be gained by continually bringing that up and reminding yourself and giving into the enemy's plan to continually remind you of all of it and that feeling guilty and all of it.

You're not anymore.

You're not guilty.

You are free and you are forgiven.

Okay, but what if we're currently in that place?

Right?

What if we're currently in that place, that dark place because of the sin that we have given into?

You know, like how do how do we actually get out of it?

Right?

It's one thing to say, don't be there, but how do we actually get to a better place?

Well, that's really the second thing.

Okay, to get back on track, I will own up to the mess that I've made.

I will own up to the mess that I've made because of my sin.

Okay, let's look at this, verse 24 now.

Verse 24 says, about three months later, okay, about three months later, you find out what happens here.

Judah was told, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral.

Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.

Okay, and Judah said, okay, overreaction alert, okay, here it is, bring her out and let her be burned.

Right?

What do you sense in this?

Right?

Like, how about like take the speck out of your own mind, bro?

Right?

Right?

This is the guy that caused her to be in this position.

And he's like, let's let's kill her.

Right?

And we know that Levitical law later said that she could have been stoned for this.

Right?

But he like he wants to take it even further than this.

He is on this vengeful, we need to make an example of her.

He is not at all looking at his sin for what it is at all, right?

So he says, Let her be burned, and then verse 25, as she was being brought out, she said, she's being like hauled out to be you know tried and executed right there.

She sent word to her father-in-law, and this is so clever, by the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.

Right?

So you know where this is what's happening here.

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

Okay, and this is powerful, verse 26.

Then Judah identified them and said, This is so great, she is more righteous than I.

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

So what do we see here?

What do we notice?

I think what we're witnessing here is a moment of brokenness for Judah.

And we're gonna talk about it uh in a few moments here.

But this is really, I think, a turnaround in his life.

Because he comes to the place where he owns up to his own part in this.

And he owns his own mistakes, he owns up to the mess that he's made.

Listen, listen, we need to do the exact same thing.

We need to do the exact same thing when we've blown it.

I mean, that's what repentance is.

It's owning up to our part that we've played.

It's confessing it, it's it's not hiding it, it's not pretending that it's not there, it's not any of those kinds of things.

It's it's repentance.

It's just looking it square in the eye and saying it is sin.

It's agreeing with God about what he says about the situation.

And listen, repentance is the only road to getting on back track back on track with God when we've blown it.

It's the only road.

It's the only way.

Again, face the facts about what we've done.

Face it head on.

Own up to the mess that we've created.

You might be like, well, why?

Why is it that, why is that the case?

Well, that's because it's because that's what God blesses.

That's what God blesses.

You and I don't like repentance.

It's messy, it's uncomfortable, it's painful.

We would rather do a lot of other things, but this is what God's word says.

2 Chronicles 7, verse 14, love this.

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, this is God saying it, if my people who are called by my name, what, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I'll forgive their sin and I will heal their land.

The only road that God gives us towards getting back on track is the road of repentance.

That's it.

Now, if you are a Christ follower, you've probably heard that before.

In fact, you've probably heard it a hundred times.

But don't you realize it's kind of a little bit shocking when you think about it, just how often we try to take other avenues to get back on track with God.

We don't want to go the repentance route.

We want to try a bunch of other things.

We want to go down other roads.

We want to try alternate routes instead of simple biblical repentance.

And so, what I want to do right now is give you five alternate routes to repentance.

And these are things that probably you have tried.

I know I've tried it, and listen, none of them work.

Right?

None of them work.

Okay, so if you've got a pen, you can write these down if you want.

Okay, but the first one, do nothing.

Okay, do nothing.

You ever tried this tactic?

You know, maybe if I don't do anything, the problem will just fix itself.

Right?

We we've tried that.

We've all done it.

I'm just gonna kind of hope that it all takes care of itself, and you know, maybe God in his mercy, even, will just kind of you know sweep the whole thing under the rug, and and you know, I'll kind of get away scot-free with it, and maybe there really won't be any consequences.

We try to ignore the problem, you know, or maybe we just we just we're flatter not taking our sins seriously enough.

Okay, that's the that's the do nothing route.

Here's another one.

Try harder.

Try harder.

You ever tried this?

You know, I I want to fix this problem myself.

You know, and I'm a I'm a self-made man, and you know, no one can tell me what to do, and you know, I'm just gonna work to fix my own situation.

What ends up happening?

We always muck it up worse, don't we?

You're trying harder on your own, and the Lord is like, he's just letting you have at it.

All right, go for it, see if that works.

Right?

It doesn't.

It always, listen, when you try harder, it always ends in in frustration.

You know, why am I not fixing this?

Why does it seem to be getting worse?

It always ends, listen, in failure, in even more failure.

Here's another one.

Blame someone else.

Blame someone else.

This is the convenient response for sure for a lot of us.

You know, it's it's it's my lousy upbringing.

You know, my my dad never showed me uh enough love, or my my mother was so nitpicky and so critical of me, and because of that, that's why I am the way that I am, and it's really their fault and and not mine.

You know, maybe you blame someone else or something else.

You know, it's my lousy job.

That's what has my attitude so, you know, so spun out and in the ditch, and and that's why I'm cranky and crusty all the time.

And you're not owning it at all, you're blaming it on the job or your stressful life or any other number of situations and circumstances or people that you can blame it on.

Okay, blame someone or something else.

How about this one?

Find a distraction.

Find a distraction.

This is kind of linked maybe to the do nothing part.

Find a distraction.

This is where you kind of, you know, you try and you want to ignore the problems, so you try and busy yourself in something else.

Right?

Like I know there's this area, this kind of dark area, this big area in my heart that I need to face, but it's kind of too scary, and I don't really know how to go on from here.

I've got too much pride to really want to face it and be uh, you know, just admit it before God and before others.

And so, you know, what should I do?

I don't know, I'll get a golf membership.

Right?

We throw ourselves into a hobby.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, having a hobby, but sometimes we do it to escape.

It's golf.

It's it's I'm gonna go to the movies.

I'm gonna spend copious amounts of hours playing video games when I should really be manning up.

Right?

It's it's it's finding some hobby or idol to worship and hope that that busies me and distracts me.

Fifth one.

Just give up.

Just give up.

Right?

And this is this is where some of you are living.

You know, you've maybe even tried.

I've tried to do some things.

I've tried to bring it to the Lord.

You have no idea, man.

I've tried to repent, I've tried the prayer thing, it's not working.

It just hasn't happened for me.

And I don't I don't sense my life getting on a on a good track at all.

And so, you know what, forget it.

I'm I'm I'm despairing that you know the Lord can't help me, or he doesn't want to, or he doesn't care.

I don't know, pick one.

It doesn't really matter.

All I know is that my life is not changing, so I'm quitting here.

And you get kind of this woe is me attitude, and you know, why don't things go my way and work out?

When when the reality is maybe the Lord's trying to produce some perseverance in you.

And yeah, he maybe won't answer your prayer the second that you ask for it.

God's not a microwave where he just kind of gives you a meal in 30 seconds.

Where he's trying to produce character in you and see if you will stick with it, see if you will lean into him more, see if it will produce a greater desire for him than for your situation to be fixed.

God is trying to do all of these things, so don't give up.

Don't give up.

All of these things are dead ends.

So don't go down that road.

Keep out.

Stay away.

Okay, the sooner that you and I brace repentance, the sooner that you and I learn to own up to the situation, the sooner that we can have this max mess fixed.

The sooner that we can get back on track and get into a good place.

Let me just say this before we move on here, okay?

Let's all really work here to be a church.

Okay, and I mean all of us here in this room.

Let's all work to be a church where we make it as as easy as possible for other people to freely own up to the mistakes and the sins and the problems that they've made.

In other words, we need to be gracious, don't we?

We need to be gracious.

Are Christians generally good at being gracious to each other?

Right?

We're brutal at it.

We're hard on each other.

We don't provide a safe environment.

We're not kind, we're not loving, we're not very welcoming, we're not forgiving.

We would rather move on than forgive somebody.

And so we need to create this atmosphere harvest where we where we have this place where we are, you know, we're done with the self-righteous elitism.

Right?

Done with all of that.

Okay, done with the harsh and damning judgments on people, done with the pretending that we've got it all together and you know they're the ones that need to have it all figured out and get fixed, you know, and all of that just props up this kind of this fake, I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine, you know, pretending fantasy world nonsense.

Right?

We need to be done with all of that.

And recognize that, listen, we're all in the process of being made whole.

We're all messy.

We're all in various situations where you know we're a work in progress.

I'm not better than you.

You're not better than me.

We're not better than anyone.

The church is supposed to be this hospital for sick and dying people where they come and find wholeness and healing and salvation through Jesus Christ alone.

We're supposed to be a place where people can come and work through these difficulties and find healing.

Now listen, if we are not that kind of church, can I just put it this way?

We have utterly failed.

Because why?

We're not like Jesus.

We're not like Jesus.

We don't make it a safe place.

We haven't created an environment where people can come and just be real.

Okay, so to sum it all up here, own your mess.

Own your mess first of all.

Worry about where you're at.

Worry about your own heart, and then on top of it, work to create an atmosphere where other people can come and own theirs as well.

Last thing.

I've never blown it so badly that God's grace can't reach me.

Since even in the aftermath of my failures, the Lord can do the Incredible.

He can do the incredible.

Take a look at this as we land the plane here, verse 27.

When the time of her labor came, that's Tamar, there were twins in her womb.

And when she was in labor, one put out a hand.

And the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, This one came out first.

But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out, and she said, What a breach you have made for yourself.

Therefore his name was called Perez.

Perez just means breach.

Afterwards, his brother came out with a scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zera.

Don't you kind of find this like a kind of a funny conclusion to this story?

You're like, man, this is like, again, it's just ugh.

Right?

This whole story is, it just, it's so bleak, isn't it?

Doesn't it feel like this whole thing kind of ends in this incomplete and sort of unredeemed kind of way?

I mean, at first glance, it certainly appears to be that, you know, that Judah and Tamar are just sort of left to pick up the broken pieces of their shattered lives and deal with this awkward kind of reality of, you know, of father and daughter-in-law now having two boys together.

I mean, weird, right?

I mean, you could easily ask as you read through this, like, where is the Lord in this?

You know, what is he doing?

You know, what why is this section of Scripture even in here?

Why would we spend time on it today?

Nothing good appears to happen.

But actually there is.

There are actually two incredible things that we can notice here that begin to happen as a result that takes place through this, again, this sordid story of Genesis chapter 38.

Genesis 38 · chapter mention

Okay, first of all, and we kind of touched on it a little bit already, but we begin to see here that Judah himself experiences a very radical uh transformation in his own life.

I mean, we already know, right?

This guy was a scumbag.

We remember from last week in 37, it was it was his idea that they turn a prophet on selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites.

Right?

They're like, you know, far be it from us to shed the blood of our brother.

You know, let's let's make a dollar off of this.

All right, so that was that was kind of a scummy play.

And then, of course, we see here that he's like this selfish, lust-driven pervert.

I mean, no, I mean, no other way to say it other than that.

Right?

He neglects his, you know, taking care of his vulnerable daughter-in-law.

It just makes things like worse and weirder and creepier.

Okay, but what do we see here?

We see that he ends up owning up to his sin, doesn't he?

And he admits it.

He's done with the self-righteousness.

He's done with looking at the sin of other people.

And then it's actually later in Genesis chapter 4 that we see this transformation kind of taking even more of a full effect.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

Because we see him willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of his youngest brother Benjamin.

You remember when Joseph is coming at him and we're gonna throw Benjamin in jail, and it's Judah that throws himself at the mercy of Joseph and says, No, sacrifice me instead, take me.

And we see a guy who now cares so much about what his father would think and how his father would handle yet another of his youngest sons, you know, being as good as dead.

And so again, we see him changed.

We see him now, he's emerged as the leader of this family.

And he cares, and people respect him and listen to him.

And what does it go to show us?

Again, it's a reminder that God will not waste our deepest flaws, our deepest mistakes.

Okay, even in the aftermath of my greatest failures, God can do the incredible.

He can do the incredible.

Okay, but that's not all.

I would suggest that's not even the most amazing thing.

The whole part about Judah growing and being transformed and all of it.

Okay, this is incredible.

I won't get you to turn there, but Matthew chapter one, and you might remember this, you maybe have read this before, or maybe you've skipped over it because it's a genealogy, but what we find is the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

Listen to this from Matthew chapter one, verse one.

It says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

And then it says this Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

And then listen to this.

And Judah, the father of Perez, and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez, the father of Hezron, and on it kind of goes down the genealogy, ultimately to King David, and then eventually to Jesus Christ himself.

I mean, this is this is an incredible reminder to you and I that when all we can see is the messy disaster that our sins have created and caused in our life and in the lives of other people that we know and love, our sins and all of it, God redeems.

God redeems, He changes us, and He does all of this, you know, the astounding, the amazing, the incredible, all of it, from the ashes of Judah and Tamar's horrible and decrepit sins.

And what he would do is he would ultimately use this family and then in the brokenness and all of it to raise up King David, who becomes a legend, and then ultimately Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And then the amazing thing on top of all of that, he doesn't hide away from the fact that this is Jesus' family line.

In fact, he draws attention to it, which again shows us that God is not rattled by our deepest flaws in the sense that he can change us and he can use it all.

And so let me ask you this, Harvest.

Who are you to ever say that God can't create something incredible out of the aftermath of your failures?

Right?

Who are we to say that?

In fact, how dare we ever say that or think that?

Because that's the exact thing that God is in the business of doing constantly.

He wants to change you, he wants to redeem you, he wants to make all things new.

And again, we'll have to sort out some of the consequences that come, and you better believe that Judah and Tamar had to deal with a lot of that and all of it.

But isn't it amazing to see that God just reaches down and he does something amazing and incredible?

Listen, anchor your hope in that.

Anchor your hope in that.

You know, as we've seen in the Lord, it's never over.

It's never over for you.

You know, even when you're kind of in the, you know, it feels like I'm in the Judah and Tamar situation of just kind of dealing with the broken, shattered life that I've kind of caused for myself, and you got no one to blame other than yourself, you need to realize that God's grace extends beyond all of it.

It extends beyond.

He can redeem you.

He can answer your prayers.

And listen, he can do it far beyond what you've ever even imagined praying.

Do you think that Judah and Tamar had ever prayed that we pray that the Messiah would come through our line?

Of course not.

They wouldn't have been thinking that.

But again, it shows us the amazing majesty, grace, and power of God.

Remember that as you're wrestling through your own problems.

Remember that as as you're tempted to despair, as you're tempted to lose hope and fear and get depressed and all of it.

Remember that God is not done with you.

That He can redeem.

Cling to that.

Because His grace, it reaches even to you.