Genesis 45 "Oh Brother (and Sister)"

You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.

Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.

It strikes me as, well, it struck me as I was listening to them.

You guys are really excellent. You know that?

And I tend to, I think I take that for granted.

I mean, I've only been here for a couple of years, and James is really good.

And he organizes people around him that are also really good.

And I'm proud to call you a friend, James, and I'm grateful every time you get to be up here and lead us in worship.

Will calls people out because he's playing a long game.

And as the junior member of the pastoral staff, he likes to remind everybody else that they're getting older,

and he looks like he's staying the same age.

And I'm grateful for you, brother.

Not for you calling me out, but I'm grateful for you in general.

This morning we're going to continue in our summer series, Redemption Stories,

the Gospel According to the Old Testament.

Last week, young Will preached about our hero, King David,

as a foretaste of our true champion, King Jesus.

And this week we're going to take a further step back in time

and examine the life of Jacob's son, Judah,

who's the namesake of the tribe from which the Messiah comes, David and the Messiah.

We're going to cover a rather large swath of Scripture, pretty much chapter 37 of Genesis through 45.

But we'll focus our reading in two specific areas,

on two specific scenes within the context of the rest of the story.

So I'll be doing a lot of storytelling this morning.

Raise your hand if you get lost.

I'm happy to stop and go back.

What I'm going to encourage you to do, though,

is to think of the Gospel reflections and implications of the Scriptures

as we're going through them.

Will reminded us last week, none of these characters are the Christ.

And that's a little easier to see this week than it has been in other weeks.

But our Heavenly Father seemed fit to use these people

and to use people like you and like me to accomplish His purposes on the earth.

Most importantly, His purpose to reconcile all things to Himself through Jesus.

So let's pray together, and then we're going to get into it.

Gracious God and Heavenly Father,

I can't help but be led this morning to confess my own willingness to think too much of myself.

We know we actually can't think anything of ourselves at all.

You don't call us to dwell there and to be mashed into the ground like worms,

even though we can be compared to that.

Because you've made a way for us.

You've given us your Son, our King Jesus.

As we go through this text today,

I pray that the meditations of all of our hearts,

the words of my lips will be pleasing to you.

I pray that we will learn more about the gospel,

learn more about the love that you have for us,

that you've shown us.

Your servant, the writer of Genesis,

picks and chooses these things to communicate a greater story about you

and about who you are and how you love your people in actual time and actual space.

And this reflects upon us.

I pray that we would see how big the gospel is and how far reaching your story goes.

Thank you for loving us.

And thank you for our King Jesus.

In his name we pray.

Amen.

Not much on reality television,

but the most intriguing piece of reality television that I've probably ever seen in my life

is the 2005 NFL Draft.

And for those of you, you can chuckle.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about,

long before he was a future Hall of Famer and a sure-fire future Hall of Famer,

Aaron Rodgers left college a year early,

assuring everyone that he was going to be the number one pick in the NFL Draft.

And he knew and said loudly to anyone who would listen to him

that he is going to be the key to whatever franchise he was going to join.

Mel Kuyper and the other people who also seem ageless.

They may be robots, though.

They knew that he was unorthodox in the way that he operated.

There were chinks in his armor and widely,

and this was the reason that Mike Nolan,

the then coach of number one pick San Francisco 49ers,

said he was just arrogant.

He was just hard to be around in that way.

And so football being a fraternal game,

any of the 11 guys on the field are no more important

than any of the other guys on the field.

If they don't all pull their weight and do their job,

nobody is going to be successful.

And so there's a certain kind of arrogance that can work,

and then there's a certain kind of arrogance that's just not going to work.

So that's the state that Rogers was in,

but as it led up to the draft, the media,

especially ESPN, who was hosting the draft on television,

said, hey, you're going to be one of the six people we bring here

because you're probably going to be the number one pick,

and we know it.

We want you to be here to go up on stage

and wear the hat and the jersey and all that kind of stuff.

Well, as a viewing audience, it was very interesting.

We watched at home with empathy,

with interest in the beginning,

then empathy, then sympathy, and then just sadness.

My wife still can't watch any replays of that

because we remember watching it in 2005 and just thinking,

oh, this is so painful to watch.

Unfortunately for Mr. Rogers,

the climax of his draft was with the number one pick

because with the number one pick,

the San Francisco 49ers chose not Aaron Rogers.

And for the next five hours,

that guy sat there in the green room

as pick after pick after pick went.

And they could keep it interesting for a little while,

but after a while, it just got really painful.

You see this guy there sitting by himself

as pick went and pick went,

and by the 10th pick, all the other five guys were gone,

and there he sat.

In fact, the problem with Aaron was his arrogance.

He thought way too much of himself.

He was unwilling to learn,

some people thought about that, or about him.

But finally, with the 24th pick,

the Green Bay Packers said,

well, hey, we'll take him.

And so there was this dude who had told everybody

about how he was the best,

and he was going to be the number one pick.

He was the key to any franchise,

rebuilding it, stabilizing it, whatever.

And instead, he goes, number 24 overall,

five hours later,

to be a backup quarterback

for somebody else who was already

a surefire Hall of Famer in Brett Favre.

It's quite a difference a little bit of time can make.

He thought too much of himself.

He probably thought too little of the weaknesses

that he showed,

and thought that he didn't need to learn anything.

I wish that was just Aaron,

but like me, and probably like most of us,

he lacked some self-awareness

to understand how vulnerable he actually is

and was,

to understand all of those things.

And unfortunately, like most of us,

it took a pretty dramatic event

to get his attention,

and to make him realize

that he probably needs to learn.

Of course, that worked out well for him, right?

He's gone on to do a couple of things.

I wish that my greatest weakness

was my arrogance and athletic talent.

I really do,

and I don't mean to make light

of Aaron's situation,

but unfortunately for me,

my greatest weakness is thinking

that I'm capable of growing

to the point that

I no longer need God.

I function that way every day.

It shows itself in many ways for me,

but the bottom line for me

and probably for us

is that we just overestimate who we are.

As people,

we define a purpose for ourselves,

and then we pursue it,

not wrong in and of itself,

but we think that we have it all figured out

and we need to teach others

about how we've had it figured out.

We feel like we understand

pain and suffering

and that we can grow to be immune to it,

and we live as though

the person and work of Jesus,

the very cross we come to remember today,

are just nice pillows

that we can rest on at night

and don't have any bearing

on the rest of our lives.

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ

is that God already knows this about us.

This sinful behavior,

these sinful thoughts,

our sinful inclinations,

they've already been taken into account

and why we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us.

I'm thankful for that.

As we go through this,

Judah is going to show us

that he committed

these same types of sins,

many of them much worse,

but they actually have the same root cause

and the same degeneration

of the heart and mind.

But the same grace

that's drawn us together

in this place

to celebrate our Savior

at this table

is a grace that God has shown

to Old Testament believers,

and we'll find that out today.

So let's get into it.

We're going to jump into Judah's story

in Genesis 37,

and we'll find him and his brothers

in the midst of another famous narrative,

but Judah and his brothers

have gone away from home.

They're having some issues at home,

and he and nine of his brothers

decided to take their flocks

and go out,

and so they went out

to this place called Shechem,

and then they decided

to go a little bit further.

They decided to go down to Dothan,

which is an actual place in Canaan.

They didn't go to South Alabama.

They got new jobs,

building tires,

and they were really happy

with their lives.

So they're on the plains of Dothan

with their livestock together,

and one of the things

that they were trying to escape,

they see coming over the horizon

at them.

They are sons either

of Jacob's wife's handmaids,

or else they are the sons

of Jacob's wife Leah,

who was not really the wife

that Jacob loved.

If you remember the story

of Jacob and Laban,

he went in and he saw Rachel,

and Jacob said,

hey, I want to marry your daughter,

and Laban said,

hey, no problem.

He worked for me for seven years,

and you'll get to marry my daughter,

and he says, great.

So he works for him for seven years,

and the night of their marriage

to consummate the relationship,

Laban sends his oldest daughter,

Leah, into the tent,

and they consummate their marriage,

and when he wakes up,

he realizes this isn't Rachel at all.

This is his sister.

And Laban says, hey, I'll make it right.

You worked for me for another seven years,

and I'll also give you

my daughter, Rachel, for marriage.

I'm making sure in my mind

I don't have Rachel and Rebecca

mixed up in my head.

At any rate,

I'll give you her for marriage as well.

Well, this is insane in two reasons.

One, as a pastor friend of mine

infamously says,

one woman is enough for any sane man,

and one man is enough for any sane woman.

The Bible is not saying here

that it's okay to be polygamous.

But the other problem is,

he's got these two wives,

and he's been tricked into this situation.

And Leah had four sons first.

Reuben is the oldest.

Jacob was, I'm sorry,

Judah was the fourth,

who we're going to be talking about today.

And then he had more sons by the concubines,

or the wives,

or the handmaids of his wives,

who he treated like concubines.

And then finally,

much like it happened to Jacob's mother,

his beloved wife becomes pregnant,

and she bears him two sons.

And that's where Joseph and Benjamin come from.

So he gave Joseph a pretty gaudy robe.

You may have heard about this.

And Joseph comes walking over the hill,

and his brothers see him.

And unlike the song that we just heard them singing,

the opposite was going through their heads.

When they looked into the face of their brother,

they saw their enemy,

and they decided they were going to kill him.

And Judah was at the forefront of this

and was pretty much okay with it.

Reuben, the oldest brother,

said,

no, you can't kill him.

Throw him into one of these pits.

Well, the pits that are around there

are these cisterns

that are usually filled with water.

But they found a dry one.

And I'll read from Genesis 37,

starting in verse 24.

Well, I'll start in 22 or 23.

When Joseph came to his brothers,

they stripped him of his robe,

the robe of many colors that he wore,

and they took him and they threw him into a pit.

The pit was empty.

There was no water in it.

And then they sat down to eat.

And looking up,

they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites

coming from Gilead

with their camels bearing gum, balm, myrrh,

on their way to carry it down to Egypt.

Then Judah said to his brothers,

got an idea, guys?

What profit is it if we kill our brother

and conceal his blood?

Come on, let's sell him to these people.

And let not our hand be upon him,

for he's our brother, our own flesh.

And his brothers listened to him.

Then Midianite traders.

Midianite is interchangeable with Ishmaelite there.

Think in your minds.

We would call Arab people,

appropriately Arab people,

and then there are nationals.

Our nation's inside of that, correct?

Then the Midianite traders passed by

and they drew up Joseph

and they lifted him out of the pit

and they sold him to the Ishmaelites

for 20 shekels of silver

and they took Joseph to Egypt.

Then they decided they had to go tell their dad something.

And if you remember about Jacob,

Jacob did something pretty ornery in his early days.

His father was going to give his birthright

to his big brother Esau.

And Jacob did what?

He went and found a goat and he killed it

and he put the goat pelts on his arms

and he went to his dad and his dad felt his hairy arms

and said, well, you must be Esau.

I'll give you my birthright.

And he tricked his father out of his birthright.

Well, these brothers do something interesting.

They go and they also find a goat

and they slaughter it

and they tear Joseph's robe up a little bit

and they pour blood on it.

And then they send it to their dad

to tell him about what had happened.

And commentators are a little mixed up

as to whether or not they sent it ahead

because they didn't want to physically be present

when their dad got the news

or if they brought it to him themselves.

Either way, they were lying to their father

and they'd just gotten rid of one of their brothers,

one of their father's favorite sons.

But even through that ruse,

what the brothers didn't realize

is that the Midianites had taken Joseph to Egypt, right?

And they'd sold him into Potiphar's house.

The way Jacob, I'm sorry,

Jacob responded to seeing it,

the torn robe was first of all

in disbelief to his sons.

He thought they were liars.

He found them to be bad people.

But he also began to weep and mourn.

And in Jewish cultures,

it's not strange to have set periods of time

that you weep and mourn.

But Jacob says,

I'm not weeping and mourning for a set period of time.

I'm weeping and mourning until I die,

until I see this son again.

He couldn't be talked out of it by any of his family,

any of his daughters,

any of his wives,

any of his brothers.

Nothing could stop him from it.

And in that moment,

the sons realized a little bit more

about what they'd done to their father.

My work with students has revealed

that they tend to react in a few different ways

to a potentially new member

joining their group.

A particularly malicious way,

which is something that is not allowed

at any high-life events,

is the pack mentality

of seeing a new person coming in

and the group decides

at the sight of this new person

that they are not going to allow them in

no matter what.

And the interesting thing

that happens to them mentally

is that they actually pit the group

against the person.

And they convince themselves

that they are actually the ones

who are in the right

and this person is in the wrong.

And they begin to make up

all of these ways

that this person is wrong

and the group is right,

therefore that person cannot be accepted

into the group.

And you can deal with them

by any means necessary.

This happens for a few reasons.

Scientifically, we can say that,

well, teenagers' brains

are being rushed with hormones

and their prefrontal cortex

is underdeveloped

and therefore until they're 25, 27,

maybe 30,

they're not going to be able

to deal with emotions

and reasons perfectly

at the same time.

And therefore,

things like this happen.

Some people are just jerks.

That's another explanation.

That's my favorite one.

Even though I've studied the other.

But I just can't imagine

as I look at them,

can you imagine,

I mean, I can't,

can you imagine being arrogant like that?

Can you imagine being so self-absorbed

that you could ever treat

another human like that?

Well, unfortunately,

I feel like I witness it every day

in civil discourse,

in the so-called civil discourse

in the United States

on political issues.

and they actually give way

to something completely other.

If I say the phrase,

President Donald Trump,

it tends to evoke

an emotional reaction

from many people.

People who are against him

will give you one chance

to be on their side,

and then they quickly chastise

or chide you

for your ignorance

or worse,

right?

People who are for him

will give you one chance

to be on their side

or they will chastise you

and chide you

for your ignorance

or worse.

This really shouldn't be

at all

the way that we deal

with each other.

And we've developed

this pack mentality

on issues such as politics,

on issues such as religion,

on issues

like economics

and things like that

that break down

any reasonable discussion,

any reasonable ability

to relate to other people.

I asked James

to sing that song,

Brother,

for three different reasons.

One, I really like it,

and Hosea listens to it

every night

as he goes to sleep.

Two,

we played it a few weeks ago,

maybe months ago now,

during a sermon of Wills

when we were discussing

ideas of seeing your enemy

and recognizing yourself

with them.

I wanted to show

kind of the other side

of that this morning

and consider who we are

as brothers and sisters

in Jesus

and what our role is

to the world,

to a watching world especially.

The arrogance

and self-absorption

that we show

in civil discourse,

so-called civil discourse anymore,

has poisoned our brains

into thinking that

a person's worth

is wrapped up

in their political affiliation,

their religious affiliation,

their whatever.

Whatever is not us,

it's them,

and that's how they are defined.

This type of idolatry

is what an unbelieving world

simply finds unbelievable.

When you look at Christians

and you see that way

of interacting with each other

and with other people,

how can you even think

that they're offering you

a taste of the kingdom?

And that's exactly

what we're supposed to be,

a taste of the very kingdom

of God.

But we allow our conversations

to betray our source of hope

in the face of many

different situations.

We seek safety

in those around us

rather than running

to King Jesus

for safety,

knowing that image bearers

are waiting desperately

to know about

their heavenly father.

The hens of this idolatry

of the brothers here

have come home to roost

when they see the impact

of their decision on Jacob.

He can't respond

with any measure of grace.

He's completely torn apart

as a person.

Thankfully,

our God doesn't receive us

this way.

He is certainly torn apart

by our sin,

even this idolatry,

this pact mentality

that I'm talking about.

But he bridges the gap

on our behalf

because for those of us

who run to Jesus

in faith,

believing in him,

he welcomes us.

Remember way back

in Luke 5,

two and a half years ago

when we began our series

on Luke?

Way back in Luke 5,

when he was calling

the disciple Matthew,

Jesus said to Matthew,

Levi,

those who are well

have no need

of a physician,

but those who are sick do.

I haven't come

to call the righteous

but sinners

to repentance.

And that's good news

because somewhere

in the story

that I just told,

you should probably

be able to identify yourself.

And thankfully

for you and me,

our heavenly father,

knows these things

about our hearts already.

We run to him

and King Jesus

and we find

fatherly grace

for self-righteous

sons and daughters

like you and me.

And maybe even Judah.

We'll find out.

Let's keep going.

Judah wasn't quite done

learning his lesson.

This guy,

I don't want to get

into the events

of Genesis 38 here,

but we can safely assume

that the lordship of God

was not manifest

in his life.

It was not in the forefront

of his mind.

I can identify with that

practically speaking.

What happens

after that,

we get some stories

of Joseph

and Potiphar's wife

and everything

that happens to him

as he raises up

and in Genesis 43,

we begin to see

that Jacob

is understanding

what's going on

around him.

There's a famine

on the land

and he needs

to send the boys

to Egypt

to get grain

so that people

don't die.

So you have

a mourning father

who is still

in mourning

and we'll find

that out later

who's also looking

at,

he's been greatly

materially blessed

and he's looking

at all of these people,

all of this livestock,

all of his stuff

and going,

oh man,

this is going to happen.

We're all going to die

unless something

happens here.

And so he sends

ten of his boys,

he keeps Benjamin

at home

and sends the other

ten to Egypt

where they run

into a guy

who they knew

from their past,

he knew them,

they didn't know

who he was

and he begins

to ask them

a bunch of questions

about their home

and he gives them

all the grain

that they were

looking for

and then he sends

them back on their way

to their father

but he says,

you have one condition

on this,

you all have

to leave somebody

here with me

and bring back

your younger brother.

And they said,

what do you mean?

Long story short,

Simeon stays behind

in Egypt

while they go home

thinking,

how in the world

are we going to

talk dad into this?

He doesn't want

Benjamin going anywhere

because of what

happened to Joseph

but Joseph

is testing his brothers

and he's tricking them

and he desperately

wants to see

his brother Benjamin

but they leave

Simeon there

in jail

waiting for them

to return.

It's funny to listen

to these stories

and to think about them

because they happen

so rapidly

and you could read

through all of this

in less than an hour

and digest it

and get what's going on.

I just did a Google Maps

thing from Jerusalem

to Cairo

and it's roughly

a 146 hour walk

continuously,

that's a little over

six days,

continuously from

Jerusalem to Cairo

somewhere in central

Canaan

to somewhere in

central Egypt.

Add on top of that

whatever you're

bringing with you

as far as

animals,

stopping,

eating,

all of that kind

of stuff.

The trip itself

took a long,

long time

and then they had

regular life to deal

with when they were

at home as well.

Simeon didn't just

go sit in jail

while they drove

the 10 hour drive

from Cairo

back to Egypt

and then came back

the next day.

Simeon was in jail

for maybe as long

as two years

where they were

waiting for him

to return.

So,

they come back

and they open up

their bags

and not only do they

have the food

that they bought

but they have all

the money that they

brought to purchase

it with as well

and now they're

freaking out

because they're

thinking,

oh man,

how did this happen?

We've stolen

from this guy

who can clearly

dictate our lives

and now they have

to figure out also

how in the world

are we going to

talk dad into this

giving us double

the money

because we have

this money as well

and giving us

Benjamin to go back

with him.

So,

what this is a picture

of in my mind

is sympathy

empathy versus

experience

and some of you

may know this

from your own

personal lives.

There are people

who tell you

that they feel

sorry for you,

I'm sorry,

it's a good thing

to say,

don't hear me

saying that that's

not a good thing

to say.

I'm sorry

or maybe there

is some type

of empathy

because there

is a related

situation between

you and them

that they've

experienced with you

but they have

not experienced

what you're

experiencing

and so their

attempt to

console you

often falls flat

because as people

we aren't very good

at keeping our

mouths shut

when we say

something

sympathetically

or even

empathetically

to somebody

and then they

respond in a way

that doesn't give us

a lot of confirmation

because sometimes

when we say stuff

like that

really what we're

looking for

is for them

to pat us

on the back

for noticing,

right?

When they don't

give us that

we keep talking

and we keep

digging a hole

and we get

deeper in it

and we get

deeper in it

and we get

deeper in it

and what's

happening with

the brothers

especially with

Judah,

he comes to

his father

and he's

saying,

hey,

send Benjamin

back with us

I promise you

hey,

I'm staking

myself on it.

Reuben

stepped forward

and said,

hey,

you can have

you can kill

my two sons

if something

happens to

Benjamin

and they're

showing some

kind of weird

understanding of

the situation

but they have

no appreciation

for the experience

of a father

who is sitting

there watching

everything around

him potentially

die from a

famine

and still

grieving the

loss of his

son.

There's nothing

that can pay

that back.

There's no way

you can give

him the assurance

that he needs.

We find out

in a couple

of chapters

that Jacob

is wrapped

up in

Benjamin

that their

lives are

basically

intertwined

together.

The same

word in

Hebrew

is what's

used to

describe the

relationship

between David

and Jonathan.

That there

is this

underlying

intimate

level

of

something

that allows

them to

be one

in essence.

the brothers

can't

understand

that.

They're

trying to

but they

can't.

And they're

pragmatically

walking forward

trying to

experience that

and trying to

get what they

need out of

the situation.

Eventually

Jacob

understands

what has

to happen.

He has to

send Benjamin

with him.

and so

they go

back

and

Joseph

is

just

over the

moon

to see

his

brother.

So much

so that

he had to

run out

of the

room.

Then he

comes back

in and he

says,

great,

I'm glad

you all

did this.

And he

decides to

test his

brothers one

more time.

He gives

them the

grain that

they needed

and he

sends them

back to

their

father.

And along

the way

they stop

and find

out that

they've been

chased down

because something

has been

stolen from

Joseph's

table,

which is

stealing from

Pharaoh.

And it

was a

goblet,

a cup

from the

table.

And whoever

sack that

that was in

was the only

one that was

going to get

in trouble.

And the

brothers are

like,

okay,

whatever.

Well,

they found

it in

Benjamin's

sack

because

Joseph had

planted it

there.

And he

calls all

of the

brothers

back to

him.

And the

most amazing

transformation

happens in

this guy

Judah,

who was

spearheading

killing his

brother,

then was

spearheading

selling his

brother,

then was

spearheading

lying to

their father,

had evil

sons,

defiled his

daughter-in-law.

And in

verse 18

starts one

of the most

amazing speeches

that you

can see

of

transformation,

God can

transform

people in

seven

chapters of

scripture.

We'll listen

to Judah

starting in

verse 18

of chapter

44.

Then Judah

went up to

him and

said,

Oh my

Lord,

talking to

Joseph,

please let

your servant

speak a

word in

my Lord's

ear and let

not your

anger burn

against your

servant for

you're like

a pharaoh

himself.

My Lord

asked his

servant

saying,

have you a

father or

a brother?

He starts

to lay the

facts out for

him.

And we

said,

my Lord,

we have a

father,

he's an

old man,

then we

have a

younger brother,

the child of

my father's

old age.

His brother's

dead,

meaning Joseph,

and he alone

is left of his

mother's children

and his father

loves him.

Then he said to

your servants,

bring him down

to me so that I

may have eyes

on him.

We said to my

Lord,

the boy can't

leave his

father because

if he leaves

his father,

his father

would die.

Then he said

to your

servants again,

unless your

younger brother

comes down

with you,

you won't

see my

face again

and ostensibly

you'll die.

Verse 24,

when we went

back to your

servant,

my father,

we told him

the words

of my Lord.

And when our

father said,

go again,

buy us a

little food,

we said,

we can't

go down.

If our

younger brother

goes with us,

then we will

go down,

for we can't

see the man's

face unless

our younger

brother is

with us.

Then your

servant,

my father,

said to us,

you know that

my wife bore

me two

sons,

you left

me,

or I'm

sorry,

one left

me and I

said,

surely he's

been torn

to pieces

and I've

never seen

him since.

If you

take this

one from

me also

and harm

happens to

him,

you'll

bring my

gray hairs

in evil

to Sheol.

Now

therefore,

as soon

as I

come to

your

servant,

my father,

and the

boy is

not with

us,

then as

his life

is bound

up in

the boy's

life,

as soon

as he

sees that

the boy's

not with

us,

he'll die

and your

servants

will bring

down the

gray hairs

of your

servant,

our father,

with sorrow

to Sheol.

For your

servant became

a pledge of

safety to

the boy,

to my

father,

saying,

if I

don't bring

him back

to you,

then I

share the

blame before

my father

for all

of my

life.

Now

therefore,

please let

me stand

in his

place.

Let your

servant remain

instead of

the boy as

a servant

to my

Lord,

and let

the boy

go back

with his

brothers.

For how

can I go

back to

my father

if the boy

is not

with me?

I fear

to see the

evil that

would find

my father.

Man,

how beautiful

is that?

The same

guy who

ruthlessly dealt

with Joseph

somewhere along

this journey

of suffering

and waiting

and wandering,

God got to

Judah's heart.

one of the

interesting things

about the

plains of

Dothan

where Joseph

was in the

well is that

that's the

same place

that Elisha

was taken

in a whirlwind

of chariots

and fire

up into

heaven.

Two different

types of

events,

but both of

them were

governed by

the will of

a God who

is also a

loving heavenly

father.

father.

And in

times of

suffering,

we're safe

to press

into God.

Think of

Jacob wrestling

with him.

Can you

imagine the

conversations

between Judah

and his

brothers as

they went

back and

forth from

Egypt as

it dawned

on them

that all

of this

was from

the hand

of God?

God has

fatherly grace

for suffering

sons and

daughters.

And this

picture of

Judah is

beautiful

because it

points to

the transformation

of a heart,

the turning

of a sinner

toward his

heavenly father.

Judah gets

it.

He's willing

to lay down

his life

for his

brother.

Hebrews 2

tells us

of how Jesus

knows this

in us.

Putting

everything in

subjection to

him, he left

nothing outside

of his

control.

At present,

we don't

see everything

in subjection

to him.

But we

will in a

little while.

Jesus

crowned with

glory and

honor because

of the

suffering of

death so

that by the

grace of

God he

might taste

death for

everyone.

For it was

fitting that

he for whom

and by whom

all things

exist in

bringing many

sons to

glory should

make the

founder of

their salvation

perfect through

suffering.

We don't

suffer alone.

This is a

picture of our

elder brother

made perfect

in suffering.

We can't

afford to

think very

much of

ourselves in

the face of

these types

of realities.

And if

you're here

today and

you don't

understand the

significance of

Jesus, listen

to just a

little bit from

Romans chapter

five.

through Jesus

we've obtained

access by

faith into

grace, into

the grace in

which we

stand and we

rejoice in the

hope of the

glory of God.

More than

that we rejoice

in our

sufferings.

Knowing that

suffering produces

endurance and

endurance produces

character and

character produces

hope.

And hope does

not put us to

shame because

God's love has

been poured into

our hearts through

the Holy Spirit

who's been given

to us.

For while we

were still weak at

the right time

Christ died for

the ungodly.

For if we, if

while we were

enemies we were

reconciled to God

by the death of

his son, much

more now that we

were reconciled

shall we be saved

by his life.

That's the

significance of

Jesus.

Without him we're

nothing but enemies

of God.

In Christ we're

made whole.

and we're able

to look to our

elder brother

whose glory, his

perfection on

earth, his

status as the

one through whom

all things were

created and

through whom all

things will be

reconciled to the

Father.

And that's the

significance of this

table as we come

to it today.

this represents the

love shown to you

not begrudgingly by

a son who had to

learn along the

way but by God

himself who knew

how to perfectly

obey the will of

his Father and

chose to come and

to intercede on

behalf of sinners

like you and like

me.

This is a table of

remembrance.

It can be a table

of sadness but

this is also a

table of celebration

for those who are

in Christ Jesus.

We get to come

practicing what we

know in eternity

will be the wedding

feast of the Lamb.

Hear these words of

institution that Paul

gave us from 1

Corinthians 11.

For I receive from

the Lord what I also

deliver to you that

the Lord Jesus on the

night he was

betrayed took bread

and when he had

given thanks he

broke it and he

said this is my

body which is for

you.

Do this in

remembrance of me.

In the same way he

took the cup after

supper saying this cup

is the new covenant in

my blood.

Do this as often as

you drink it in

remembrance of me.

For as often as you

eat this bread and

drink this cup you

proclaim the Lord's

death until he comes

again.

this is not Southwood's

table.

This is not the table

of the PCA.

This is certainly not

my table.

This is the table of

our Lord and Savior

Jesus Christ.

Please pray with me.

Gracious God we come

before you as sinners

claiming the blood of

our elder brother Jesus.

Jesus.

You have promised that

all who believe in

him and all who

believe that you

raised him from the

dead as the firstborn

among many that we

can come to you and

rest in you as our

heavenly father.

We're grateful for the

love that you show us

and we're grateful for

the perfection shown in

our brother Christ

Jesus.

Please bless this

simple bread and this

wine that we drink,

this juice that we

drink.

Set it aside for your

purposes.

We know that we're

doing more than just

remembering Jesus and

we pray that the

significance of this,

your sacrament, will be

shown to us and felt by

us and experienced by

us.

For the sake of our

King Christ Jesus,

amen.

For more information

visit us online at

southwood.org.

For more information

visit us online at

southwood.org.