Genesis 45 "Oh Brother (and Sister)"

[0:00] You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama. Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.

[0:12] 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.

[0:23] 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.

[0:44] 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.

[0:58] 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.

[1:15] 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.

[1:37] 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.

[1:51] 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.

[2:04] 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.

[2:22] 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.

[2:47] 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.

[3:02] 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.

[3:21] 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.

[3:44] 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.

[3:56] 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.

[4:14] 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.

[4:33] 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.

[4:47] 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.

[5:05] 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.

[5:18] 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.

[5:42] 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.

[6:00] 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.

[6:24] And for the next five hours, that guy sat there in the green room as pick after pick after pick went.

[6:35] 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.

[6:51] 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.

[7:03] 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.

[7:17] 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.

[7:33] 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.

[7:43] 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.

[7:59] 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.

[8:10] 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.

[8:34] 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.

[8:46] 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.

[8:58] 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.

[9:24] 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.

[9:39] 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.

[9:56] 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.

[10:08] 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.

[10:24] 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.

[10:38] 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.

[10:57] 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.

[11:11] 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.

[11:24] 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.

[11:40] 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.

[11:55] 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.

[12:11] 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.

[12:25] 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.

[12:41] And then finally, much like it happened to Jacob's mother, his beloved wife becomes pregnant, and she bears him two sons.

[12:52] 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.

[13:04] 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.

[13:16] 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.

[13:31] 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.

[13:43] 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.

[13:54] 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?

[14:07] 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.

[14:21] 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.

[14:32] 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.

[14:53] 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.

[15:03] 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.

[15:17] 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.

[15:32] 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.

[15:50] 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?

[16:07] 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.

[16:20] 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.

[16:31] 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.

[16:46] 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.

[17:05] 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.

[17:22] 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.

[17:36] 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.

[17:50] 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.

[18:02] 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?

[18:22] 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.

[18:40] 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.

[18:59] 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?

[19:15] 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.

[19:34] 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.

[20:04] 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.

[20:24] 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.

[20:39] 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.

[20:59] 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.

[21:12] 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?

[21:26] 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.

[21:38] 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.

[21:55] 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.

[22:07] 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.

[22:23] 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?

[22:39] 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.

[22:52] 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.

[23:06] 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.

[23:21] 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.

[23:38] 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.

[24:00] 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.

[24:26] 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.

[25:07] 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?

[25:22] 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.

[25:36] 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.

[25:48] 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.

[26:03] 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.

[26:19] 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.

[26:39] 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?

[26:54] 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.

[27:13] 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.

[27:29] 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?

[28:07] 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.

[28:28] 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.

[28:57] 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.

[29:17] 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.

[29:34] 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.

[29:52] 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.

[30:07] 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.

[30:20] 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.

[30:39] 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.

[30:56] 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.

[31:21] 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.

[31:35] 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.

[31:47] 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.

[31:59] 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.

[32:10] 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.

[32:24] 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.

[32:41] 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.

[32:54] 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.

[33:19] 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.

[33:34] 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.

[33:47] 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.

[34:00] 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.

[34:19] 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.

[34:33] 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?

[34:46] 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.

[35:01] 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.

[35:16] 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.

[35:38] 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.

[35:50] 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.

[36:08] 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.

[36:26] 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.

[36:47] 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.

[37:04] 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.

[37:30] 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.

[38:00] 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.

[38:13] 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.

[38:26] 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.

[38:40] 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.

[38:56] 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.

[39:10] Please pray with me. Gracious God we come before you as sinners claiming the blood of our elder brother Jesus.

[39:21] 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.

[39:43] 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.

[40:00] 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.

[40:16] For the sake of our King Christ Jesus, amen. For more information visit us online at southwood.org.

[40:29] For more information visit us online at southwood.org.