On Judah
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Good morning. You know, the difference between being famous and being infamous is more than just two letters. Michael Jordan and LeBron James are famous. Last night in bed, my daughter Zoe asked if LeBron Jackson's face was on the $20 bill. I thought to myself, what have I done wrong? So many things. Now, Latrell Sprewell and Ron Artest are infamous.
Now, if you've heard of them, you're either an early 2000s sort of Eastern Conference NBA fan, or you vaguely remember that one of them choked his coach, and then the other one stormed into the stands to punch a fan, and then a few years later, ironically or perhaps not, changed his name to Metta World Peace. Another example, a guy named Bill Buckner. Raise your hand if you've heard of Bill Buckner. Okay, 5% of the room. He is infamous.
Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, Red Sox versus Mets. The bottom of the 10th inning, the Red Sox are one out away from their first World Series in nearly 70 years. A guy named Mookie Wilson hits a dribbler up the first baseline. What happens? It goes through Bill Buckner's legs. Boston loses game six and then loses game seven. Nearly 40 years later, Bill Buckner is infamous. Blamed for losing the World Series because he made an error, which honestly is revisionist history.
If you want to talk to me more about that, I'll be at the door. This morning, we're going to look at the life of an infamous man named Judah. Judah, first in biography, Judah is the fourth oldest son of Jacob. If you were here last week, you'll remember that Jacob is Esau's brother, that trickster who was also the son of promise, also the recipient of Abraham's blessing.
So Judah's great-grandfather is Abraham. The last chunk of Genesis, now Genesis doesn't have chunks or parts, But, you know, you sort of can flag them by when the genealogies show up. So the last part of Genesis, Genesis 37 to 50, focuses on Jacob's 12 sons. And it spends most of our time with a guy named Joseph. Joseph, I mean, he's incredible. He's a hero.
He's godly. He's wonderful. In fact, I would say he's one of, if not the, other than Jesus, most uncomplicatedly good characters in all of Scripture. You're like, why aren't we talking about that guy? Sorry, we're not. And as you read this last section of Genesis, 37 to 50, I think the obvious expectation is, of course, that the next sort of link in the chain of blessing is going to be this guy. We're talking about his brother, Judah.
We're going to focus on a few passages that give us the arc of this overlooked character. Before we get started, here's sort of the headline, the bottom line up front, as they say. The headline. What I want to try to convince you of this morning, simply this. People really can change because God's grace is real. people really can change because god's grace is real now from the jump i want to be clear i am not about to give you sort of a sermon on self-focused self-improvement oh goodness no if that's what happens shame on me what we're going to talk about this morning is grace-driven, God-focused, God-glorifying change that happens when human beings, image-bearers,
people encounter the very real grace of God. Okay, so this sermon is not about how to improve your life, how to be a better person. This sermon is about the wonderful news that people can change because God's grace is real. Three points this morning. We're going to talk about how it started, how it changed, and how it all ends. How it started, spend most of our time there. How it changed, a little bit less time there, and how it all ends, not very much time at all.
How it started. You'll definitely need your Bibles open because we're going to be hopping around those last 14 chapters of Genesis. So please open your Bibles with me. And as you do, it's quite obvious that first impressions are both illuminating and hard to overcome. So I think of Star Wars Episode 4, which somewhat confusingly is the first Star Wars, A New Hope. What's going on in the beginning of the movie? So, you know, C-3PO and what's the little blue guy's name? Thank you, R2-D2. You know, they're sort of like, they're beeping around and like scurrying around like lasers are flying by them.
And then suddenly, the music changes. It gets ominous. Smoke is coming through the hallways. And this guy shows up in a black outfit. well who is it? Darth Vader, the children, thank you, amen, Wendell. You can hear, I'm not going to do his breathing, but all you can hear is his breathing for the most part. You get who he is from the jump. It's not complicated. He's a bad guy, or at least a scary guy. How does Moses introduce this guy, Judah? What's our first impression of him? We're going to look at two stories, the two stories that introduce this man. So again, open your Bibles, please, to Genesis chapter 37. Genesis chapter 37. As I said, Judah is one of 12 brothers. His father, Jacob, has a favorite son. I wonder where he learned that. Of course, from his father, Isaac.
His favorite son is the guy we talked about a second ago, Joseph. And Joseph, well, Jacob makes it extremely obvious that Joseph is his favorite son. He gives him a really fancy coat. He kind of makes him, even though he's the second youngest, he basically makes him like the boss of his brothers, the go-between. And so, unsurprisingly, they hate him. They hate their favorite brother. Now, Joseph doesn't do himself many favors. I said he was good. I didn't say he was always wise.
And so Joseph has a dream. In fact, he has two dreams. And he goes up to his brothers one day, and he's like, hey, guys, you'll never believe it. I had this dream. You know what happened in this dream? You guys all bowed down to me. In fact, it happened not just once but twice. How did he think that was going to go? So these guys have had enough with them. They hate him even more. And so what do they decide to do? They decide to chuck him in a pit to leave him for dead. They're sick of Joseph's antics.
Let's pick up the story in Genesis chapter 37, beginning in verse 25. This is what they're doing after they've kidnapped and left their brother for dead. Verse 25, Genesis 37. Then they sat down to eat. Clearly they don't feel guilty. And looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh on the way to carry it down to Egypt.
Then Judah, this is the first thing he does, said to his brothers, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, for he's our brother, our own flesh. Oh, he's so sanctimonious. Let's keep going. And his brothers listened to him. Then Midianite traders passed by. They drew Joseph up, lifted him up out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver.
Then they took Joseph to Egypt. What happens next is that the brothers sort of take the fancy coat. They put some blood on it. They take it back to their dad, Jacob, to trick him that Joseph is dead. Now, again, if you were here last week, you realize the poetic justice in that, right? The man who tricked his own father with a fake garment is now tricked by a fake garment himself. That's lovely. That is poetic justice. That's not the point of what we're talking about.
But Jacob's heart is broken. And here we meet Judah. What's he like? Man, he's awful. He's a self-serving guy who knows how to keep his conscience clean, to be superficially more righteous than the people around him, even as he engages in absolute unambiguous wickedness. He manages to keep his hands clean of blood. We don't want to kill the guy, but at least we can make a buck.
Moses lets the camera linger on this guy, Judah. The other brothers recede to the background after this. Let's look at Genesis 38. We're not going to read the whole chapter, but I'll read you the first few verses, and then we'll read a little bit more. It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adulamite, whose name was Herah. There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua.
He took her and went into her. Okay, let's stop. We've seen enough, hopefully already, to make an illuminating comparison. Who does this remind us of from last week? Esau, excellent, well done, you get an A+. He takes a foreign wife. He is absorbed not only into their region, but into their religion. Now I'm going to summarize a little bit of what happens next. Judah has three sons. Okay, three sons. The first one is Ur, the second one is Onan, the third is Shelah. Ur marries a woman named Tamar. What happens to Ur? Well, you can look down at verse 7, chapter 38, verse 7. Ur, he just, he dies. Doesn't tell us much detail. Ur dies because he was wicked.
The Lord put him to death. So this leaves Tamar, his wife, now widow, alone, childless, vulnerable, alone, childless, vulnerable, but not hopeless, not hopeless. You see, because in Israel, the Lord gives instructions to his people about what should happen in moments exactly like these.
In other words, he gives a duty to the brother of the deceived. Now, at this point in Israel's history, sort of it's their early history, their proto-history, this is just a social custom that's not yet been written down. It does get written down in Deuteronomy 25. And I want all of us, because if you don't understand this, you're going to be super lost. So turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 25. If the Bible in my office is the same as the Bible in front of you, that's page 166. Deuteronomy 25. Deuteronomy 25. Deuteronomy 25, I'm going to read verses 5 to 10.
And when you're there, just, you know, look up at me so I know I'm not sort of outpacing my listeners. A few smiles, thank you. Deuteronomy 25, we're going to read verses 5 to 10. Surely you'll see why. If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, think like Ur, the wife of the dead man, think Tamar, shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.
Her husband's brother, in this case that would be Onan, shall go into her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother. Again, think Ur. That his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And if the man, Onan, does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife, Tamar, shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel.
He will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me. Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he persists saying, I don't wish to take her, then his brother's wife, again, Tamar, shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. Hopefully you see how shameful that's supposed to be. She shall answer and say, so shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.
And the name of his house shall be called in Israel the house of him who had his sandal pulled off. Now, listen, friends, I understand that what we just read is weird, okay? I understand that it's weird. But it's not hard to understand. Like, it's not hard to get what's going on there. So Genesis 38 takes the case law of Deuteronomy 25 and sort of snaps it into reality. We can suddenly see the people who this might affect. Again, Onan had a duty to Tamar to give her a son that would be biologically his, but legally Ur's, his brother.
Well, why? Well, so that his brother's name could propagate and so that Tamar, who will never marry again, so that Tamar could be protected and provided for. Do you understand? This is hugely important to understand Judah's story. The goal, again, is to protect widows. The problem you could see for wicked, self-interested people is it seems like a bad trade.
Why would I have a child, give him to my brother's widow, and not receive a dime of what this guy produces? What's in it for me? Why would I do that? And if you don't care about obeying the Lord, there's no point. So what does Ur's brother do? Again, I'm not going to read what happens, but I'll explain it to you. He doesn't want to be shamed and spat on.
That sounds pretty bad. I think we can all agree. He doesn't want to have his sandal taken off and spat in his face by his sister-in-law. So he engages in kind of superficial participation in coming together with his brother's widow. But he makes sure that his participation cannot lead to a son. This superficial obedience, this superficial self-centered righteousness provokes the Lord's wrath.
So what's he do? He puts him to death. Judah. So far, he's got two wicked sons. And they both get put to death. if only the story stopped there if only Judah saw what was happening and he said to himself man I don't think we're doing this whole like life thing right I think we should stop stiff arming Yahweh and maybe start listening to him. Flip back to Genesis 38. We're going to start in verse 11.
Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in your father's house till Shelah, my son, grows up. For he feared that he would die like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father's house. In the course of time, the wife of Judah, she was daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheep shearers. he and his friend Hira the Adullamite.
And when Tamar was told, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep, she took off her widow's garment, she covered herself with a veil, wrapped herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enayim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she hadn't been given to him in marriage. In other words, Judah lied. Superficial righteousness again. Oh, yeah, yeah, go home to your father, and when my third son is of age, I'll give him to you.
And Moses tells us already, he's not going to do that because he thinks maybe she's a witch, maybe, I don't know. But his sons keep dying. He has no intention of doing that. So where does she go? She knows exactly where to go to get this man's attention. Verse 15, when Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she'd covered her face. He turned her at the roadside and said, come, let me come into you, for he didn't know that she was his daughter-in-law.
She said, what will you give me that you may come into me? He answered, I will send you a young goat from the flock. She looks at him, she's like, you don't got a goat? So she says, if you give me a pledge until you send it, he said, what pledge shall I give you? She replied, your signet, your cord, and your staff that's in your hand. So he gave them to her, 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 of her widowhood.
What happens next, I'll skip a few verses, is that Judah sends his buddy to give the goat to Tamar, or who he thinks is a prostitute. And he asked around for her, and he's like, where's the lady who was here? And they're like, I don't know who you're talking about. Because she's gone back to be a widow at her father's house. Verse 24. About three months later, Judah was told, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral. Moreover, she's pregnant by immorality.
Judah said, bring her out. 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. She said, please identify whose these are. The signet, the cord, and the staff. All right, we can stop there. Again, it's not hard to understand what's going on. she caught him. Judah is stuck. He is guilty. He's guilty. So what kind of man is Judah?
I mean, seriously, ask yourself that question. Let some adjectives sort of rise to the top of your mind. What kind of man is he? Well, he's conniving. He is self-righteous. He is heartless. He is wicked. He is hypocritical. Do you know, did you see how quickly he turned? Say, well, she's done something bad. She should be burned. You know, legalists are often so hard on other people's obedience. So light on themselves. He's awful.
He's morally bankrupt. What do we make of Tamar? Well, that's a tough question. My best answer, what I understand Moses to be teaching us when looking at the evidence, is yes, that Tamar is desperate. And yes, she has her back against the wall. She didn't get what she was owed. She didn't get what she was owed by the brother. She didn't get what she was owed by Judah. But I think we can add another adjective.
I think Tamar is righteous. I think we're supposed to agree with verse 26. Look down again at 38, verse 26. She's got proof of his crimes. Then Judah identified them and said, She's more righteous than I, since I didn't give her to my son, Sheila. And he did not know her again.
I think at this point we should be asking, is Judah beginning to change? Second point, so we looked at how it started. Second point is how it changed. How it changed. Two decades pass. Jacob and his sons, Judah included, endure a famine in Israel. So Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to get some help.
They arrive, and guess who they come across? Who's the guy in charge of Egypt's flourishing agricultural situation? Lo and behold, it's Joseph, their brother, the one they tried to kill and then sell. He's alive. He's gone from the pit to a prisoner to the prince of Egypt. Now, what's wonderful about the story, because there's so much tension, so much intrigue, is that Joseph recognizes them, but they don't recognize him. If you're not familiar with the Bible, you should just read Genesis 41 to 44.
I gave you just like 30 seconds on it. It's incredible. Joseph, what happens next is that Joseph puts his brothers through a series of tests before he tells them who he is. What's the goal of all this trickery? What's the goal? He wants to see if they've really changed. He wants to see if they've really changed. And so what he does, the way the whole thing culminates is Joseph more or less frames this youngest son of Jacob, a guy named Benjamin, who now that Jacob thinks Joseph is gone, Benjamin is his favorite son.
And so Joseph frames Benjamin to recreate the situation to see if his brothers will turn on this guy, leave him for dead in Egypt the same way that they turned on him 20 plus years ago. That's the situation. Flip in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 44. And we're going to just plop down near the end of a tense conversation between Judah and Joseph. Again, Joseph knows who Judah is. Judah does not know who Joseph is.
Joseph is threatening to leave Benjamin behind. And Judah's like, you can't do that. Genesis 44, verse 32. Here's what Judah says. for your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy that's benjamin to my father saying if if i don't bring him back to you then i shall bear the blame before my father all my life judah says now therefore joseph his brother please let your servant he's talking about himself remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord 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. So, friends, get this. The man who masterminded the plot to sell the guy he's talking to into slavery while keeping his sort of shaky, superficial conscience intact. The man who, with his lips, signed his daughter-in-law's death warrant with one hand, even as she is right in front of him holding proof of his wickedness in her own hand. The wicked, horrible, conniving, morally bankrupt, self-righteous, whatever adjective you attached to this man, he's the one who speaks up.
And notice, he's no longer greedy. He is animated by a desire to honor his father, to extend the life of his brother, even though his brother is his father's favorite son. He is willing to suffer and be left behind, perhaps even to die. He doesn't know who this guy is if it means he will keep his word and honor his father. My friends, people can change because God's grace is real.
And I believe that Moses wants us to believe that Judah experienced God's grace on that day in Genesis 38, his lowest day. when his daughter-in-law who will soon give birth to both his sons and grandsons held up proof not only of a bad decision but a lifetime of wickedness.
A lifetime of self-serving superficial righteousness. You see, Judah didn't see Tamar and run or use his powerful position to sort of concoct a story or to accuse her of lying. No, he saw her as righteous and himself as not. And so unlike Esau from last week, he was not marked just by temporary tears or a guilty conscience. Moses gives us the rest of this man's story, and it's clear it became a decisive moment in his life. My friends, people can change, because God's grace is real, and it changes people, and sometimes, maybe often, it arrests us in the most surprising moments.
Here's a stat I read recently. As of the first quarter of 2025, the global debt stands at $324 trillion. That's trillion with a T, dollars with a D. I don't really even understand what that means. Here's another stat. The global GDP, that is gross domestic product, is about $106 trillion.
So this means if you add all the economies in the world, you get $106 trillion. If you add all our debt, you get $324 trillion. Now, I'm not an economist. Some of my friends are like, what is he talking about? Like, I study journalism, creative writing. I hardly know what I'm talking about. But I do know that $324 trillion is bigger than $106 trillion. In other words, we owe more than we could possibly produce.
So much so that the whole human race could all band together as if it were possible and give everything that we create for three years. And we'd barely break even. In fact, we would only give back what we originally took in the first place. I'm no economist. But I am a Christian. And so this particular problem sounds quite familiar to me.
Oh, we owed more than we could ever produce. Our sin, whether your life looks like all-out rebellion like Esau, or whether it looks like superficial self-righteousness like Judah, it put us in inescapable, impossible debt. You know, Christianity tells a story that's almost too good to be true.
It's not do better, try harder. It's not be a better person. No, it's Romans chapter 8 verse 1. There is now, therefore, no, no, zero, I know that number, zero condemnation for those who are in Christ. It tells the story and makes promises like 1 John 1, verse 9, that says, If we confess our sins, He, that is God, the triune God, is faithful and just to cleanse us of our sins.
How can that be? It's because of Jesus. See, Jesus, the Son of God, he died and he rose again. And he calls us all to turn and trust in him. And when we do that, my friends, our impossible debt, well, it's canceled. And Jesus' infinite righteousness gets credited, this is the part that's unbelievable, it gets credited to us.
Here's the logic of Christianity. Everything that Jesus earned by merit, he deserves it all except for his death, becomes ours by grace because of his death. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. For our sake, he who knew no sin became sin so that in him we might live a better life. No, we might become, not have access to, not receive one day.
No, no, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Our lowest moments are real. They have consequences, sometimes significant. But they don't stick. They don't determine our destiny.
This isn't just the hope for really, really bad people like Judah. It's the hope of every Christian. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Who's sort of crawling around saying, well, I'm a little bit better wretch than you are? In a few moments, we're going to hear testimonies of two brothers who are getting baptized.
This is their story. Point three, how it all will end. Flip to Genesis chapter 49. Genesis chapter 49. Last week we spent some time with the blessings that Isaac gave Jacob and Esau.
Jacob, at the end of his life, has a similar task for all 12 of his sons. Judah gets six verses we'll read the first three so Genesis chapter 49 beginning in verse 8 Judah your brothers shall praise you your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies your father's sons shall bow down before you.
Judah's a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you've gone up. He stooped down. He crouched as a lion and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Again, you're reading through Genesis 37 to 50.
You think, of course, the next guy, I mean, he's amazing. Like, he's perfect. He's Joseph, right? Moses is a masterful storyteller. Because the whole time, he's hiding the ball. He's saying, listen, Joseph is a hero, no doubt. But he's actually the secondary. hero, the primary hero of Genesis' longest section is Judah, the one whose heir will not only have his mere brothers bow down to him. I mean, who cares about that? But he will be an everlasting king forever. The scepter will never depart from him until he receives the tribute, which is not, again, just the bowing of his brothers, but it's the obedience of all the peoples. Genesis 49 is a promise made. Revelation 5 is that promise kept. We read it this morning.
Cindy, you did such a lovely job. Thank you. I think it's worth reading again, at least a section of it. You see, Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. Look in your bulletin. We've read it already. I'll start Revelation chapter 5, verse 11. What happens after the lion of the tribe of Judah opens the scrolls? John records for us what will happen in the future. He says, then I look and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing and i heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and the four living creatures said just as everyone
will say one day, amen. Some of you came here this morning thinking that you've messed up your life so badly that you could never play a beautiful role in the story God is writing. My friends, that's a lie from the pit of hell. You see, what Satan and our flesh do before we sin is that they tell us that our sin is no big deal and God's grace is cheap.
And then after we sin, they change their tune. And they tell us that our sin is impossible to reverse. And God's grace is beyond our reach. I don't believe those lies. The infamous Bill Buckner died a few years ago. When he died, as ESPN often does, they have a little thing going on at the bottom of the screen, you know, the ticker, and it said, all-star slugger Bill Buckner, best known for his World Series error, dead at 69.
I mean, what a bummer. Even as they record the end of his life, his lowest moment rises to the top. A local Chicago newspaper, he played for the Cubs for a while, framed his life a little more positively. Here's what the obituary said. Bill Buckner, who won a National League batting title and was an all-star with the Cubs, dead at 69. But my favorite headline came from a small New England newspaper, The Lowell Sun.
Here's what the headline said. Bill Buckner, forgiven by many fans, dead at 69. My friends, if you're in Christ, you're no longer defined by the worst moment of your life. Instead, your life is defined by Christ's righteousness offered to you as a gift, Embraced by faith, shown by repentance, and as a result, you're forgiven.
Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for the even difficult passages of scripture that report to us true but difficult histories. God, we thank you for your grace that it is real, that it is on offer to us, and that it changes hearts.
Lord, some of us need to reckon with that. Some of us need to reckon with promises like Ephesians chapter 2, verse 32, which says, forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.