[0:00] Please take your Bibles and open them up this morning to Genesis chapter 38.! It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adulamite, whose name was Hira.
[0:44] There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shua. He took her and went into her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan.
[0:57] Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Haseb when she bore him. And Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.
[1:09] But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, Go into your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother.
[1:24] But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he went into his brother's wife, he would waste the semen on the ground so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.
[1:39] 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.
[1:52] 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 Adulamite.
[2:03] And when Tamar was told, Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep, she took off her widow's garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Inam, which is on the road to Timnah.
[2:17] For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He turned to her at the roadside and said, Come, let me come into you.
[2:31] For he did not 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. And she said, If you give me a pledge until you send it.
[2:45] He said, What pledge shall I give you? She replied, Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand. So he gave them to her and went into her, and she conceived by him.
[2:57] Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil, she put on the garments of her widowhood. When Judah sent the young goat by his friend, the Adulamite, to take back the pledge from the woman's hand, he did not find her.
[3:09] And he asked the men of the place, Where is the cult prostitute who is at Inam on the roadside? And they said, No cult prostitute has been here. So he returned to Judah and said, I have not found her.
[3:20] And also the men of the place said, No cult prostitute has been here. And Judah replied, Let her keep the things as her own, or we shall be laughed at. You see, I sent this young goat, and you did not find her.
[3:31] About three months later, Judah was told, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality. And Judah said, Bring her out and let her be burned.
[3:42] As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant. And she said, Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.
[3:54] And then Judah identified them and said, She is more righteous than I, since I did not give to her to my son Shelah. And he did not know her again. When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb.
[4:06] And when she was in labor, one put out a hand, And the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, This one came out first. But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out.
[4:17] And she said, What a breach you have made for yourself. Therefore his name was called Perez. Afterward, his brother came out with a scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.
[4:29] Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there.
[4:40] The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands.
[4:54] So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house, and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.
[5:09] The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and in field. So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge, and because of him, he had no concern about anything but the food he ate.
[5:20] Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time, his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, Lie with me. But he refused and said to his master's wife, Behold, because of me, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.
[5:39] He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?
[5:50] And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her, or even to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me.
[6:08] But he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household, and said to them, See, He has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us.
[6:23] He came into me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled, and got out of the house. Then she laid up his garment by her, until his master came home.
[6:39] And she told him the same story, saying, The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came into me to laugh at me. But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me, and fled out of the house.
[6:52] As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, This is the way your servant has treated me, his anger was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.
[7:05] And he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
[7:16] And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. And the keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the Lord was with him.
[7:30] And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
[7:43] Father God, we ask now your blessing on the preaching of the word. Give us ears to hear, and fertile hearts, Lord. Fertile soil for the truth of the gospel. We pray in Jesus' name.
[7:54] Amen. You may be seated. I hope you prayed for your pastor this week. Preaching the way that we do, working through books of the Bible, does not give me the luxury of skipping over difficult text or hard subject matters.
[8:11] And it's sometimes shocking when we read passages like this, because this is not G-rated material, is it? This is an honest and raw, unfiltered look at the ugliness of sin.
[8:24] And the truth is, even though we are far removed from the context of Genesis, here are thousands of years removed, in a different place, in a different culture, in a different continent, not much really has changed at all, has it?
[8:39] We live in the same sinful world as Judah and Tamar and Joseph, and just like them, we live in a culture that openly celebrates and embraces all sorts of wickedness, especially sexual wickedness, which seems to be right at the center of our passage this morning.
[9:01] And when you realize that, it makes us ask, well, what is the hope for such a wicked and sinful people? And for God's people, the church, who live right there in the middle of such great wickedness, well, what hope do we have for resisting the temptations of the world?
[9:21] The hope that we have, and the hope for sinners of all kinds, is the gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ.
[9:32] And so as we take a look here at this difficult passage, and my goal here this morning is simple, is to help us see from these two ugly passages the power of the grace of God.
[9:45] And what we'll see as we look through this together is two works of God's grace. This will be our outline this morning. If you're taking notes, we'll see two works of God's grace. One, God works grace from the wreckage of sin.
[10:01] And two, God works grace for the war with sin. First, let's take a look at chapter 38, and we see here, God works grace from the wreckage of sin.
[10:15] And what I want you to notice here as we work our way through this chapter is the increasing wickedness of the people. The increasing spiral downward into sin and wickedness.
[10:27] And this has been the trajectory ever since the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter 3. Mankind has multiplied, and with it, sin has multiplied on the earth.
[10:38] We're coming out of a story of great wickedness. Joseph is just sold into slavery. He was betrayed by his own brothers. He's now in Egypt. But that spiral, it doesn't stop there.
[10:48] We get a little detour here, and we visit Judah, one of the brothers. Look there to verse 1, chapter 38. It says, Judah, one of Joseph's brothers, he goes to Hira, and he sees the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua.
[11:02] And what does he do? He takes her. He is intimate with her. She conceives. She bears a son. She names him Air. And then again, she bears a son and names him Onan.
[11:13] And again, she bears a son and names him Shelah. This is the first offense here in the passage. Judah is taking wives from the Canaanites. And haven't we already seen?
[11:23] That's a recipe for disaster. Hasn't Esau already shown us that that's a no-go here for the people of God? But also just notice here the graphic way that it describes how Judah goes about this.
[11:35] He is taking what his flesh desires. He's operating based on what the desires of his flesh are. This is the same pattern that we've seen ever since the garden. See, good, take.
[11:47] See, good, take. And that's how the sinful flesh operates. You see and you take whatever it is that you want and then you figure out the rest later. But it gets worse.
[12:00] Fast forward some years later. Now, Air, his oldest son, is old enough to marry. And verse 6, it says, Judah takes a wife for Air. Her name was Tamar. But verse 7, it says, Air, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord.
[12:16] And the Lord put him to death. Now, what in the world was he up to? Now, we're not told. We don't know exactly what Air was up to. But apparently, his wickedness was so great that the Lord puts a stop to it right then and there.
[12:31] And he puts him to death. But it continues to spiral and get worse. Verse 8, Judah tells his second son, Onan, to go and perform the duty of a brother-in-law and raise up offspring for his brother.
[12:45] But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. And so you can read the text. Do you see what happens? He refused to do what his father told him to do. And verse 10 says, What he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord.
[12:58] And he put him to death also. This is now two kids. Struck down, put to death by the hand of the Lord because of their wickedness. And I wonder, are we surprised by this?
[13:12] One of the kids came in to the grow class just a little bit ago and they asked this question about Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. If I lie, will I die?
[13:25] If we're shocked by this sort of immediate judgment of the Lord, I think one reason might be maybe we've lost our sense of the seriousness of sin.
[13:38] Maybe we've lost our sense of the holiness of our God. Maybe we've grown so accustomed to the patience of God that God's judgment and His wrath is what seems out of place.
[13:51] But isn't this what God told Adam and Eve would be the consequence of their sin? And the day you eat of it, you will surely, what? You will die. And doesn't Romans 6.23 say the wages of sin is what?
[14:05] Is death. Well, the fact is God takes sin infinitely more seriously than we do. And the hard, unpopular truth is that, yes, we deserve death for our sin.
[14:20] Will you die if you tell a lie? I'm not sure. But do you deserve to die? Yes, you do. We are guilty, all of us, every one of us, are guilty of sin against a holy God.
[14:34] We deserve hell for our sin. And the only reason you are not there right now is either because God has been gracious to you in saving you and redeeming you in Christ, or He is being patient with you in delaying that judgment that we deserve so that you might, by His grace, repent of your sin.
[14:58] Now, we're often surprised by the judgments of God, but the truth is we ought to be much more surprised by the patience of God towards sinners like us. And it still gets even worse.
[15:09] The spiral continues. Look to verse 11. Judah was afraid that his youngest son, Shelah, would grow up and die just like his brothers. Seems like a valid concern at this point.
[15:20] And so he tells Tamar to go back to her father's house and wait until he grows up. This is his last offspring. This is one last chance to keep the family line going. But look what happened starting in verse 12.
[15:33] It says, In the course of time, Judah's wife dies. And so he goes up to Timnah with his buddy, Hira. And when Tamar hears about it, she hatches a plan. Look what she does.
[15:44] And she takes off her widow's garments and she covers herself with a veil. No one can tell that it's her. She sits at the entrance to a name on the road to Timnah. And when Judah sees her, she looks good to him.
[15:58] And he goes and he wants to take what his flesh desires. And so what does he do? He goes and to put it politely, he asks for some of her time. And in response, she says, Well, what will you give to me?
[16:12] He says, I'll bring you a young goat from the flock. But she says, Well, if you give me a pledge, you give me your signet and give me your cord and give me your staff and then I'll take that as a guarantee, a sort of down payment that you're going to be acting good on your word.
[16:27] And so he does. Verse 18 says, She conceived by him. And now this messed up family has just got even worse, hasn't it?
[16:39] You have two sons dead because of their sin. You have one son that's still single. He's waiting on his dad to step up and provide a wife for him. You have one daughter-in-law that's waiting on dad to keep his word.
[16:51] And meanwhile, dad just got the daughter-in-law pregnant and doesn't even know him. This is more dramatic than any soap opera you're going to find on TV. Now, don't you love how realistic the Bible is in presenting the sin and the mess of the world?
[17:07] And when Judah does wind up sending the goat to pay what he thinks is the prostitute, no one can find her. She's not there. And so Judah, verse 23, says he just decides to cut his losses.
[17:18] He doesn't want to be embarrassed. Just let her keep the stuff and we'll just all move on, right? Fast forward three months later and now we have a problem.
[17:30] About three months later, Judah was told, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality. There's no hiding it at this point.
[17:41] And all of a sudden, all of his hidden secret sin is all about to come out. It says Judah is angry.
[17:53] And his daughter-in-law has done this unspeakable thing. He recognizes that this is a great sin. His daughter-in-law has been intimate with someone outside of God's ordained bounds of marriage.
[18:05] And moreover, she's pregnant. She's going to bring shame on the whole family. And so in what he thinks is righteous anger, he orders for her to be brought out and burned.
[18:17] He is about to judge her for her wickedness. But look what happens. As she's being brought out, she sends word to her father-in-law and says, By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.
[18:33] And what does she do? She holds out the signet. And she holds out the cord. And she holds out the staff. And she says, Tell me who these belong to. And Judah identifies them and says, Surely she is more righteous than I am.
[18:50] Because I did not give to her my son, Sheila. And he did not know her again. You see, his sin found him out. The bill eventually came due.
[19:03] And church, it always does. Sin has made a mess of this family, hasn't it? It is clear. Even many years later, after the Garden of Eden, sin's curse still remains.
[19:17] Sin's power still remains. Sin's presence is there, corrupting everything it touches. Sin's consequences still remain.
[19:28] It is wrecking this family. And you look at this story, and you just think, Man, this all just seems so dark, doesn't it? But we should be reminded that even in this darkness, church, God's promise still remains.
[19:43] Hasn't God promised blessing in place of curse? Hasn't God promised all the way back in the garden that He will send one who's going to crush the serpent and make all things right again?
[19:56] And it's in moments like this that make you ask, Well, God, when are you going to do it? Can't you come and act? How are you going to do this? This looks so bleak. I mean, your own people are no different than the world around them.
[20:09] What hope is there? What good could God possibly work out of a mess like this? Look there to verse 27. The unfathomable mystery here in this chapter is that our God has worked redemption.
[20:30] Out of this mess. Why is this story here? Don't you wonder? We're here in Joseph's story and we take this little rabbit trail here to just put Judah's sin out in the forefront and talk about him.
[20:41] Why is this story here? It's here to show us where our Savior came from. Look there to verse 27. It says, When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb.
[20:55] And when she was in labor, one put out a hand. The midwife takes it and ties a scarlet thread on his hand and says, This one came out first. But he comes back and his brother comes out and they name him Perez.
[21:08] And afterward, the one with the scarlet thread comes out and they name him Zerah. What is the point? If you flip ahead to Matthew chapter 1, and I think you'll see it.
[21:21] You know, so often we just skip past these genealogies and I don't blame you. There's a lot of names. A lot of them are strange. But pay attention to what Matthew shows us here in Matthew chapter 1.
[21:33] He says, This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The son of David. The son of Abraham. Why is he naming those figures? He is anchoring the promises that God made to David.
[21:47] The promises that God made to Abraham. And he's saying this Jesus is the heir of all the promises of God. And then he traces the family tree.
[21:57] He says, Abraham, he was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.
[22:11] And Perez, the father of Hezron. Hezron, the father of Ram. Ram, the father of Aminadab. On and on it goes down to David, the king. And then from there all the way from David all the way to Jesus Christ.
[22:25] Do you see what God has done? Out of this incredibly ugly mess of sin and brokenness from this act of sexual immorality and foolishness, what has God done?
[22:41] God has brought about the birth of the Savior of sinners. Out of the wreckage of sin God has worked redemption for sinners.
[22:53] What man meant for evil, God meant for good. Jesus Christ is a descendant of Judah from Tamar.
[23:05] You see, our Lord was born into a line of sin. Jesus came right into the experience of our wicked world yet without sin.
[23:16] You see, Jesus stepped right into our mess. No other religion talks about their God this way, by the way. Do you realize that? No other religion talks about their God like this.
[23:29] Every other religion tells you to clean yourself up, make yourself better, improve yourself so that you might inch your way closer to God, that you might climb the ladder and make your way to God.
[23:41] The good people make it up top, right? That's how most world religions work. Not the gospel of God's grace. Undeserved blessing to a sinful world.
[23:55] Unmerited favor to a sinful people. Jesus comes from a long line of messed up sinful people just like us. And when he came, what did he do?
[24:06] He went straight to the messed up and straight to the broken and straight to the sinners and the tax collectors. He ate and drank with sinners and he told everyone else, don't you understand?
[24:19] The healthy don't need a physician. The sick need a physician. I came to save sinners. This is grace at work, Christian.
[24:33] When we see the gross immorality of the world in which we live, we see the way that our culture embraces all sorts of wickedness and when it seems dark and bleak and you just wonder what in the world can we do?
[24:49] We should remember our God has already provided the answer. It's the gospel of his grace in Jesus Christ.
[25:01] This passage is here to show us how God works grace out of the wreckage of sin but that's not all. Second, we should also see that God gives grace for the war with sin.
[25:15] Here we look to chapter 39 and now the attention is shifting back to Joseph. We're veering back on course here. Look there to chapter 39. He reminds us Joseph had been brought down to Egypt and Potiphar an officer of Pharaoh the captain of the guard he bought him from the Ishmaelites and he put him in charge of everything.
[25:38] Verse 2 says the Lord was with Joseph and even there in captivity he became a successful man and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. Even in Egypt the Lord is blessing and prospering Joseph.
[25:52] It says his master sees that the Lord was with him and he understands that the Lord is causing all that he does to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him and he made him overseer of his house.
[26:06] He put him in charge of all that he had and the Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake. You see already through Joseph God is already making himself known in Egypt.
[26:18] You see how the nations are already getting a taste of who this God is and how he works through his people. We're already seeing the blessing of God to the nations through the people of God.
[26:29] It's all coming to pass but there's a problem here. It says Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. I've never really had that problem. Maybe you have.
[26:41] But the reason why that's a problem is because Joseph is living again right here in the middle of this sexually confused sinful flesh driven world where people act on their impulses and ask questions later.
[26:55] So verse 7 it says that after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and invites him to lie with her. Think about this with me for a minute.
[27:08] In theory the setup seems pretty simple doesn't it? She probably knew the best times to come and to go and she knew when that opportunity would be right.
[27:21] She knew when her husband would probably have no idea what was going on. Potiphar trusts him. He has no reason to suspect that Joseph would be up to anything with his wife.
[27:32] If Joseph wanted to do this he could do it. The opportunity is right there in front of him and he has a decision to make doesn't he? Verse 8 look what he does.
[27:45] Verse 8 says he refused and he says listen my master trusts me. He's put everything that he has in my charge. He's not greater in his own house than I am and in fact the only thing that he's kept back from me is you.
[28:02] And look what he says he says how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Joseph in contrast to Judah is aware of sin's dangers right away.
[28:20] Right away the temptation comes right away he says no and why? It's because he's seeing things rightly. He's not acting on impulse he's not acting on the desires of his flesh like Judah he sees the danger here that this is a sin against my neighbor my master how could I wrong him and more importantly than that he sees this ultimately as a great sin against the Lord.
[28:49] As she spoke to Joseph day after day after day he would not listen to her to lie beside her or even to be with her.
[29:00] She continues to present him with the opportunity to sin day after day after day after day but day after day after day he does not even listen to her.
[29:14] He won't lie beside her he will not even be with her he gives her no opportunity whatsoever for her to prevail in her temptations to sin against his master and ultimately against the Lord.
[29:28] See this persistent temptation is met with persistent resistance and I wonder church do we fight temptation like this? Do you flee from temptation like Joseph?
[29:42] Or do you follow after the desires of your flesh like Judah? John Owen in his work overcoming sin and temptation which by the way if you have the time that is a worthy read overcoming sin and temptation he says sin is always acting always conceiving always seducing always tempting don't you find that to be true?
[30:12] Or y'all just more sanctified than I am maybe you are sin never lets up it is always acting and it's not just external pressures although those are all over the place it is inside of us we wrestle with the indwelling sin of our own hearts and so Owen goes on he says when we realize a constant enemy of the soul abides within us what diligence and watchfulness we should have how woeful is the sloth and negligence then of so many who live blind and asleep to this reality of sin there is an exceeding efficacy and power in the indwelling sin of believers for it constantly inclines itself towards evil we need to be awake then if our hearts would know the ways of God our enemy is not only upon us as it was with Samson but it is also within us church we have to constantly be on guard against the temptations of the enemy yes and also the weakness of our own flesh but the fact is none of us are strong enough to do this none of us are strong enough to resist the temptations of the enemy day after day after day after day we are not strong enough to fight against all that the world and the flesh and the devil would throw at us if you go into this battle in your own strength you will fail what then is our hope again it is not try harder it is not be better it is not ten steps to a better you it is the grace of
[31:59] God at work for those who believe the gospel teaches us that our God gives grace for the war with sin this is what the gospel has purchased for all who believe in Christ you realize that when you put your faith in Christ church you become a new creation and a new creation who is now set free from the power of sin over you so yes temptation will come and yes indwelling sin remains but in Christ you now have new resurrection power by his grace to wage war against sin that's power you've never had before that's new spiritual life that you've never had before you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked but God has made you alive together with Christ you have the power of his spirit in you it is God who works in you to will and to work for his good pleasure so now in
[33:02] Christ and only in Christ we can go to war with sin and temptation knowing that our God by his grace is fighting for us first first Corinthians 10 tells us no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape but we should also know church that if we do by his grace flee from temptation as Joseph does here then it may also come with a cost look there to verse 11 says one day he went to the house to do some work and none of the men of the house were there so the wife catches him by the garment and again says lie with me but he flees away and he leaves his garment in her hand he fled out of the house and so what does she do she fabricates this lie to tell all the men of the house to tell her husband that this
[34:13] Hebrew has come in here to laugh at me and humiliate me he's trying to seduce me and we see the picture here this is all a lie isn't it she has completely made up this story and now once again this is the second time now Joseph is a victim of a great injustice and the master hears about it and what does he do not surprisingly he takes him and he throws that man into jail Joseph's there in prison but even so look there even there in prison it says the Lord was with Joseph and the Lord showed him steadfast love and we're right back to where we started aren't we the Lord his presence is there with Joseph and even in prison now he's causing him to prosper and to succeed why because the Lord was with him after all of that Joseph's location has changed his circumstances has changed but look what hasn't changed the
[35:17] Lord was with him and the Lord prospered him four times in this chapter that phrase keeps coming up do you see that the Lord was with him the Lord was with him the Lord was with him the Lord was with him and for Joseph the Lord's presence with him is worth far more than the fleeting pleasures of sin and I'm certain that it's the Lord's presence with him that's strengthened him to fight the temptation to sin church is this true for you Christian do you realize that you have the same presence of the Lord with you and when the enemy would tempt you to sin do you remember the Lord is with you and when you suffer the consequences of living faithfully for the Lord and in a wicked world do you remember that the Lord is with you
[36:17] God's grace is at work here out of the wreckage of sin to bring about the great hope for the sinful world and church this is truly this is the story of every Christian in the room and every Christian in the world Jesus has stepped in and rescued you out of your mess out of the wreckage of your own sin God's grace has burst through in the gospel of Christ he's taken the wrath of God and the judgment of God that we deserve for our sin he's worked unfathomable grace towards you who believe but he doesn't stop there and God's grace also sustains us and equips us for the battle against sin you are not alone in the battle you see Joseph triumph over temptation and in this way he points us forwards through our
[37:19] Lord Jesus Christ do you see the picture of Christ here in this passage our Lord Jesus like Joseph in a way he perfectly resisted sin's temptation he himself suffered while being tempted like us he was tempted and tried in every way as we are yet without sin Jesus Christ perfectly resisted temptation not just for a moment but for an entire 33 year lifetime I love the way C.S.
[37:51] Lewis puts it in mere Christianity he says only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is after all you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it not by giving in you find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it not by lying down a man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply doesn't know what it would have been like an hour later that's why bad people in one sense know very little about badness they've lived a sheltered life by always giving in we never find!
[38:25] out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it and Christ because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means friend do you know the depth of your sin do you know the grace of God for you in Christ do you know what it means to resist temptation not in your own strength but in the strength of the Lord at work in you do you know the power of the gospel of God's grace let's pray father we praise you that even in moments when it seems dark and hopeless father yet there is hope in the gospel of Christ father as we look at our fallen world and see the wickedness that runs rampant father we pray that we would bring this world the solution that you have brought the world it's the gospel of
[39:37] Jesus and God as we see our own sin and our own inclination to to wander from you and we see the temptations that we face day in and day out we pray!
[39:55] of your grace at work in us we pray this in Jesus name amen