You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.
It strikes me as, well, it struck me as I was listening to them.
You guys are really excellent. You know that?
And I tend to, I think I take that for granted.
I mean, I've only been here for a couple of years, and James is really good.
And he organizes people around him that are also really good.
And I'm proud to call you a friend, James, and I'm grateful every time you get to be up here and lead us in worship.
Will calls people out because he's playing a long game.
And as the junior member of the pastoral staff, he likes to remind everybody else that they're getting older,
and he looks like he's staying the same age.
And I'm grateful for you, brother.
Not for you calling me out, but I'm grateful for you in general.
This morning we're going to continue in our summer series, Redemption Stories,
the Gospel According to the Old Testament.
Last week, young Will preached about our hero, King David,
as a foretaste of our true champion, King Jesus.
And this week we're going to take a further step back in time
and examine the life of Jacob's son, Judah,
who's the namesake of the tribe from which the Messiah comes, David and the Messiah.
We're going to cover a rather large swath of Scripture, pretty much chapter 37 of Genesis through 45.
But we'll focus our reading in two specific areas,
on two specific scenes within the context of the rest of the story.
So I'll be doing a lot of storytelling this morning.
Raise your hand if you get lost.
I'm happy to stop and go back.
What I'm going to encourage you to do, though,
is to think of the Gospel reflections and implications of the Scriptures
as we're going through them.
Will reminded us last week, none of these characters are the Christ.
And that's a little easier to see this week than it has been in other weeks.
But our Heavenly Father seemed fit to use these people
and to use people like you and like me to accomplish His purposes on the earth.
Most importantly, His purpose to reconcile all things to Himself through Jesus.
So let's pray together, and then we're going to get into it.
Gracious God and Heavenly Father,
I can't help but be led this morning to confess my own willingness to think too much of myself.
We know we actually can't think anything of ourselves at all.
You don't call us to dwell there and to be mashed into the ground like worms,
even though we can be compared to that.
Because you've made a way for us.
You've given us your Son, our King Jesus.
As we go through this text today,
I pray that the meditations of all of our hearts,
the words of my lips will be pleasing to you.
I pray that we will learn more about the gospel,
learn more about the love that you have for us,
that you've shown us.
Your servant, the writer of Genesis,
picks and chooses these things to communicate a greater story about you
and about who you are and how you love your people in actual time and actual space.
And this reflects upon us.
I pray that we would see how big the gospel is and how far reaching your story goes.
Thank you for loving us.
And thank you for our King Jesus.
In his name we pray.
Amen.
Not much on reality television,
but the most intriguing piece of reality television that I've probably ever seen in my life
is the 2005 NFL Draft.
And for those of you, you can chuckle.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about,
long before he was a future Hall of Famer and a sure-fire future Hall of Famer,
Aaron Rodgers left college a year early,
assuring everyone that he was going to be the number one pick in the NFL Draft.
And he knew and said loudly to anyone who would listen to him
that he is going to be the key to whatever franchise he was going to join.
Mel Kuyper and the other people who also seem ageless.
They may be robots, though.
They knew that he was unorthodox in the way that he operated.
There were chinks in his armor and widely,
and this was the reason that Mike Nolan,
the then coach of number one pick San Francisco 49ers,
said he was just arrogant.
He was just hard to be around in that way.
And so football being a fraternal game,
any of the 11 guys on the field are no more important
than any of the other guys on the field.
If they don't all pull their weight and do their job,
nobody is going to be successful.
And so there's a certain kind of arrogance that can work,
and then there's a certain kind of arrogance that's just not going to work.
So that's the state that Rogers was in,
but as it led up to the draft, the media,
especially ESPN, who was hosting the draft on television,
said, hey, you're going to be one of the six people we bring here
because you're probably going to be the number one pick,
and we know it.
We want you to be here to go up on stage
and wear the hat and the jersey and all that kind of stuff.
Well, as a viewing audience, it was very interesting.
We watched at home with empathy,
with interest in the beginning,
then empathy, then sympathy, and then just sadness.
My wife still can't watch any replays of that
because we remember watching it in 2005 and just thinking,
oh, this is so painful to watch.
Unfortunately for Mr. Rogers,
the climax of his draft was with the number one pick
because with the number one pick,
the San Francisco 49ers chose not Aaron Rogers.
And for the next five hours,
that guy sat there in the green room
as pick after pick after pick went.
And they could keep it interesting for a little while,
but after a while, it just got really painful.
You see this guy there sitting by himself
as pick went and pick went,
and by the 10th pick, all the other five guys were gone,
and there he sat.
In fact, the problem with Aaron was his arrogance.
He thought way too much of himself.
He was unwilling to learn,
some people thought about that, or about him.
But finally, with the 24th pick,
the Green Bay Packers said,
well, hey, we'll take him.
And so there was this dude who had told everybody
about how he was the best,
and he was going to be the number one pick.
He was the key to any franchise,
rebuilding it, stabilizing it, whatever.
And instead, he goes, number 24 overall,
five hours later,
to be a backup quarterback
for somebody else who was already
a surefire Hall of Famer in Brett Favre.
It's quite a difference a little bit of time can make.
He thought too much of himself.
He probably thought too little of the weaknesses
that he showed,
and thought that he didn't need to learn anything.
I wish that was just Aaron,
but like me, and probably like most of us,
he lacked some self-awareness
to understand how vulnerable he actually is
and was,
to understand all of those things.
And unfortunately, like most of us,
it took a pretty dramatic event
to get his attention,
and to make him realize
that he probably needs to learn.
Of course, that worked out well for him, right?
He's gone on to do a couple of things.
I wish that my greatest weakness
was my arrogance and athletic talent.
I really do,
and I don't mean to make light
of Aaron's situation,
but unfortunately for me,
my greatest weakness is thinking
that I'm capable of growing
to the point that
I no longer need God.
I function that way every day.
It shows itself in many ways for me,
but the bottom line for me
and probably for us
is that we just overestimate who we are.
As people,
we define a purpose for ourselves,
and then we pursue it,
not wrong in and of itself,
but we think that we have it all figured out
and we need to teach others
about how we've had it figured out.
We feel like we understand
pain and suffering
and that we can grow to be immune to it,
and we live as though
the person and work of Jesus,
the very cross we come to remember today,
are just nice pillows
that we can rest on at night
and don't have any bearing
on the rest of our lives.
The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ
is that God already knows this about us.
This sinful behavior,
these sinful thoughts,
our sinful inclinations,
they've already been taken into account
and why we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
I'm thankful for that.
As we go through this,
Judah is going to show us
that he committed
these same types of sins,
many of them much worse,
but they actually have the same root cause
and the same degeneration
of the heart and mind.
But the same grace
that's drawn us together
in this place
to celebrate our Savior
at this table
is a grace that God has shown
to Old Testament believers,
and we'll find that out today.
So let's get into it.
We're going to jump into Judah's story
in Genesis 37,
and we'll find him and his brothers
in the midst of another famous narrative,
but Judah and his brothers
have gone away from home.
They're having some issues at home,
and he and nine of his brothers
decided to take their flocks
and go out,
and so they went out
to this place called Shechem,
and then they decided
to go a little bit further.
They decided to go down to Dothan,
which is an actual place in Canaan.
They didn't go to South Alabama.
They got new jobs,
building tires,
and they were really happy
with their lives.
So they're on the plains of Dothan
with their livestock together,
and one of the things
that they were trying to escape,
they see coming over the horizon
at them.
They are sons either
of Jacob's wife's handmaids,
or else they are the sons
of Jacob's wife Leah,
who was not really the wife
that Jacob loved.
If you remember the story
of Jacob and Laban,
he went in and he saw Rachel,
and Jacob said,
hey, I want to marry your daughter,
and Laban said,
hey, no problem.
He worked for me for seven years,
and you'll get to marry my daughter,
and he says, great.
So he works for him for seven years,
and the night of their marriage
to consummate the relationship,
Laban sends his oldest daughter,
Leah, into the tent,
and they consummate their marriage,
and when he wakes up,
he realizes this isn't Rachel at all.
This is his sister.
And Laban says, hey, I'll make it right.
You worked for me for another seven years,
and I'll also give you
my daughter, Rachel, for marriage.
I'm making sure in my mind
I don't have Rachel and Rebecca
mixed up in my head.
At any rate,
I'll give you her for marriage as well.
Well, this is insane in two reasons.
One, as a pastor friend of mine
infamously says,
one woman is enough for any sane man,
and one man is enough for any sane woman.
The Bible is not saying here
that it's okay to be polygamous.
But the other problem is,
he's got these two wives,
and he's been tricked into this situation.
And Leah had four sons first.
Reuben is the oldest.
Jacob was, I'm sorry,
Judah was the fourth,
who we're going to be talking about today.
And then he had more sons by the concubines,
or the wives,
or the handmaids of his wives,
who he treated like concubines.
And then finally,
much like it happened to Jacob's mother,
his beloved wife becomes pregnant,
and she bears him two sons.
And that's where Joseph and Benjamin come from.
So he gave Joseph a pretty gaudy robe.
You may have heard about this.
And Joseph comes walking over the hill,
and his brothers see him.
And unlike the song that we just heard them singing,
the opposite was going through their heads.
When they looked into the face of their brother,
they saw their enemy,
and they decided they were going to kill him.
And Judah was at the forefront of this
and was pretty much okay with it.
Reuben, the oldest brother,
said,
no, you can't kill him.
Throw him into one of these pits.
Well, the pits that are around there
are these cisterns
that are usually filled with water.
But they found a dry one.
And I'll read from Genesis 37,
starting in verse 24.
Well, I'll start in 22 or 23.
When Joseph came to his brothers,
they stripped him of his robe,
the robe of many colors that he wore,
and they took him and they threw him into a pit.
The pit was empty.
There was no water in it.
And then they sat down to eat.
And looking up,
they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites
coming from Gilead
with their camels bearing gum, balm, myrrh,
on their way to carry it down to Egypt.
Then Judah said to his brothers,
got an idea, guys?
What profit is it if we kill our brother
and conceal his blood?
Come on, let's sell him to these people.
And let not our hand be upon him,
for he's our brother, our own flesh.
And his brothers listened to him.
Then Midianite traders.
Midianite is interchangeable with Ishmaelite there.
Think in your minds.
We would call Arab people,
appropriately Arab people,
and then there are nationals.
Our nation's inside of that, correct?
Then the Midianite traders passed by
and they drew up Joseph
and they lifted him out of the pit
and they sold him to the Ishmaelites
for 20 shekels of silver
and they took Joseph to Egypt.
Then they decided they had to go tell their dad something.
And if you remember about Jacob,
Jacob did something pretty ornery in his early days.
His father was going to give his birthright
to his big brother Esau.
And Jacob did what?
He went and found a goat and he killed it
and he put the goat pelts on his arms
and he went to his dad and his dad felt his hairy arms
and said, well, you must be Esau.
I'll give you my birthright.
And he tricked his father out of his birthright.
Well, these brothers do something interesting.
They go and they also find a goat
and they slaughter it
and they tear Joseph's robe up a little bit
and they pour blood on it.
And then they send it to their dad
to tell him about what had happened.
And commentators are a little mixed up
as to whether or not they sent it ahead
because they didn't want to physically be present
when their dad got the news
or if they brought it to him themselves.
Either way, they were lying to their father
and they'd just gotten rid of one of their brothers,
one of their father's favorite sons.
But even through that ruse,
what the brothers didn't realize
is that the Midianites had taken Joseph to Egypt, right?
And they'd sold him into Potiphar's house.
The way Jacob, I'm sorry,
Jacob responded to seeing it,
the torn robe was first of all
in disbelief to his sons.
He thought they were liars.
He found them to be bad people.
But he also began to weep and mourn.
And in Jewish cultures,
it's not strange to have set periods of time
that you weep and mourn.
But Jacob says,
I'm not weeping and mourning for a set period of time.
I'm weeping and mourning until I die,
until I see this son again.
He couldn't be talked out of it by any of his family,
any of his daughters,
any of his wives,
any of his brothers.
Nothing could stop him from it.
And in that moment,
the sons realized a little bit more
about what they'd done to their father.
My work with students has revealed
that they tend to react in a few different ways
to a potentially new member
joining their group.
A particularly malicious way,
which is something that is not allowed
at any high-life events,
is the pack mentality
of seeing a new person coming in
and the group decides
at the sight of this new person
that they are not going to allow them in
no matter what.
And the interesting thing
that happens to them mentally
is that they actually pit the group
against the person.
And they convince themselves
that they are actually the ones
who are in the right
and this person is in the wrong.
And they begin to make up
all of these ways
that this person is wrong
and the group is right,
therefore that person cannot be accepted
into the group.
And you can deal with them
by any means necessary.
This happens for a few reasons.
Scientifically, we can say that,
well, teenagers' brains
are being rushed with hormones
and their prefrontal cortex
is underdeveloped
and therefore until they're 25, 27,
maybe 30,
they're not going to be able
to deal with emotions
and reasons perfectly
at the same time.
And therefore,
things like this happen.
Some people are just jerks.
That's another explanation.
That's my favorite one.
Even though I've studied the other.
But I just can't imagine
as I look at them,
can you imagine,
I mean, I can't,
can you imagine being arrogant like that?
Can you imagine being so self-absorbed
that you could ever treat
another human like that?
Well, unfortunately,
I feel like I witness it every day
in civil discourse,
in the so-called civil discourse
in the United States
on political issues.
and they actually give way
to something completely other.
If I say the phrase,
President Donald Trump,
it tends to evoke
an emotional reaction
from many people.
People who are against him
will give you one chance
to be on their side,
and then they quickly chastise
or chide you
for your ignorance
or worse,
right?
People who are for him
will give you one chance
to be on their side
or they will chastise you
and chide you
for your ignorance
or worse.
This really shouldn't be
at all
the way that we deal
with each other.
And we've developed
this pack mentality
on issues such as politics,
on issues such as religion,
on issues
like economics
and things like that
that break down
any reasonable discussion,
any reasonable ability
to relate to other people.
I asked James
to sing that song,
Brother,
for three different reasons.
One, I really like it,
and Hosea listens to it
every night
as he goes to sleep.
Two,
we played it a few weeks ago,
maybe months ago now,
during a sermon of Wills
when we were discussing
ideas of seeing your enemy
and recognizing yourself
with them.
I wanted to show
kind of the other side
of that this morning
and consider who we are
as brothers and sisters
in Jesus
and what our role is
to the world,
to a watching world especially.
The arrogance
and self-absorption
that we show
in civil discourse,
so-called civil discourse anymore,
has poisoned our brains
into thinking that
a person's worth
is wrapped up
in their political affiliation,
their religious affiliation,
their whatever.
Whatever is not us,
it's them,
and that's how they are defined.
This type of idolatry
is what an unbelieving world
simply finds unbelievable.
When you look at Christians
and you see that way
of interacting with each other
and with other people,
how can you even think
that they're offering you
a taste of the kingdom?
And that's exactly
what we're supposed to be,
a taste of the very kingdom
of God.
But we allow our conversations
to betray our source of hope
in the face of many
different situations.
We seek safety
in those around us
rather than running
to King Jesus
for safety,
knowing that image bearers
are waiting desperately
to know about
their heavenly father.
The hens of this idolatry
of the brothers here
have come home to roost
when they see the impact
of their decision on Jacob.
He can't respond
with any measure of grace.
He's completely torn apart
as a person.
Thankfully,
our God doesn't receive us
this way.
He is certainly torn apart
by our sin,
even this idolatry,
this pact mentality
that I'm talking about.
But he bridges the gap
on our behalf
because for those of us
who run to Jesus
in faith,
believing in him,
he welcomes us.
Remember way back
in Luke 5,
two and a half years ago
when we began our series
on Luke?
Way back in Luke 5,
when he was calling
the disciple Matthew,
Jesus said to Matthew,
Levi,
those who are well
have no need
of a physician,
but those who are sick do.
I haven't come
to call the righteous
but sinners
to repentance.
And that's good news
because somewhere
in the story
that I just told,
you should probably
be able to identify yourself.
And thankfully
for you and me,
our heavenly father,
knows these things
about our hearts already.
We run to him
and King Jesus
and we find
fatherly grace
for self-righteous
sons and daughters
like you and me.
And maybe even Judah.
We'll find out.
Let's keep going.
Judah wasn't quite done
learning his lesson.
This guy,
I don't want to get
into the events
of Genesis 38 here,
but we can safely assume
that the lordship of God
was not manifest
in his life.
It was not in the forefront
of his mind.
I can identify with that
practically speaking.
What happens
after that,
we get some stories
of Joseph
and Potiphar's wife
and everything
that happens to him
as he raises up
and in Genesis 43,
we begin to see
that Jacob
is understanding
what's going on
around him.
There's a famine
on the land
and he needs
to send the boys
to Egypt
to get grain
so that people
don't die.
So you have
a mourning father
who is still
in mourning
and we'll find
that out later
who's also looking
at,
he's been greatly
materially blessed
and he's looking
at all of these people,
all of this livestock,
all of his stuff
and going,
oh man,
this is going to happen.
We're all going to die
unless something
happens here.
And so he sends
ten of his boys,
he keeps Benjamin
at home
and sends the other
ten to Egypt
where they run
into a guy
who they knew
from their past,
he knew them,
they didn't know
who he was
and he begins
to ask them
a bunch of questions
about their home
and he gives them
all the grain
that they were
looking for
and then he sends
them back on their way
to their father
but he says,
you have one condition
on this,
you all have
to leave somebody
here with me
and bring back
your younger brother.
And they said,
what do you mean?
Long story short,
Simeon stays behind
in Egypt
while they go home
thinking,
how in the world
are we going to
talk dad into this?
He doesn't want
Benjamin going anywhere
because of what
happened to Joseph
but Joseph
is testing his brothers
and he's tricking them
and he desperately
wants to see
his brother Benjamin
but they leave
Simeon there
in jail
waiting for them
to return.
It's funny to listen
to these stories
and to think about them
because they happen
so rapidly
and you could read
through all of this
in less than an hour
and digest it
and get what's going on.
I just did a Google Maps
thing from Jerusalem
to Cairo
and it's roughly
a 146 hour walk
continuously,
that's a little over
six days,
continuously from
Jerusalem to Cairo
somewhere in central
Canaan
to somewhere in
central Egypt.
Add on top of that
whatever you're
bringing with you
as far as
animals,
stopping,
eating,
all of that kind
of stuff.
The trip itself
took a long,
long time
and then they had
regular life to deal
with when they were
at home as well.
Simeon didn't just
go sit in jail
while they drove
the 10 hour drive
from Cairo
back to Egypt
and then came back
the next day.
Simeon was in jail
for maybe as long
as two years
where they were
waiting for him
to return.
So,
they come back
and they open up
their bags
and not only do they
have the food
that they bought
but they have all
the money that they
brought to purchase
it with as well
and now they're
freaking out
because they're
thinking,
oh man,
how did this happen?
We've stolen
from this guy
who can clearly
dictate our lives
and now they have
to figure out also
how in the world
are we going to
talk dad into this
giving us double
the money
because we have
this money as well
and giving us
Benjamin to go back
with him.
So,
what this is a picture
of in my mind
is sympathy
empathy versus
experience
and some of you
may know this
from your own
personal lives.
There are people
who tell you
that they feel
sorry for you,
I'm sorry,
it's a good thing
to say,
don't hear me
saying that that's
not a good thing
to say.
I'm sorry
or maybe there
is some type
of empathy
because there
is a related
situation between
you and them
that they've
experienced with you
but they have
not experienced
what you're
experiencing
and so their
attempt to
console you
often falls flat
because as people
we aren't very good
at keeping our
mouths shut
when we say
something
sympathetically
or even
empathetically
to somebody
and then they
respond in a way
that doesn't give us
a lot of confirmation
because sometimes
when we say stuff
like that
really what we're
looking for
is for them
to pat us
on the back
for noticing,
right?
When they don't
give us that
we keep talking
and we keep
digging a hole
and we get
deeper in it
and we get
deeper in it
and we get
deeper in it
and what's
happening with
the brothers
especially with
Judah,
he comes to
his father
and he's
saying,
hey,
send Benjamin
back with us
I promise you
hey,
I'm staking
myself on it.
Reuben
stepped forward
and said,
hey,
you can have
you can kill
my two sons
if something
happens to
Benjamin
and they're
showing some
kind of weird
understanding of
the situation
but they have
no appreciation
for the experience
of a father
who is sitting
there watching
everything around
him potentially
die from a
famine
and still
grieving the
loss of his
son.
There's nothing
that can pay
that back.
There's no way
you can give
him the assurance
that he needs.
We find out
in a couple
of chapters
that Jacob
is wrapped
up in
Benjamin
that their
lives are
basically
intertwined
together.
The same
word in
Hebrew
is what's
used to
describe the
relationship
between David
and Jonathan.
That there
is this
underlying
intimate
level
of
something
that allows
them to
be one
in essence.
the brothers
can't
understand
that.
They're
trying to
but they
can't.
And they're
pragmatically
walking forward
trying to
experience that
and trying to
get what they
need out of
the situation.
Eventually
Jacob
understands
what has
to happen.
He has to
send Benjamin
with him.
and so
they go
back
and
Joseph
is
just
over the
moon
to see
his
brother.
So much
so that
he had to
run out
of the
room.
Then he
comes back
in and he
says,
great,
I'm glad
you all
did this.
And he
decides to
test his
brothers one
more time.
He gives
them the
grain that
they needed
and he
sends them
back to
their
father.
And along
the way
they stop
and find
out that
they've been
chased down
because something
has been
stolen from
Joseph's
table,
which is
stealing from
Pharaoh.
And it
was a
goblet,
a cup
from the
table.
And whoever
sack that
that was in
was the only
one that was
going to get
in trouble.
And the
brothers are
like,
okay,
whatever.
Well,
they found
it in
Benjamin's
sack
because
Joseph had
planted it
there.
And he
calls all
of the
brothers
back to
him.
And the
most amazing
transformation
happens in
this guy
Judah,
who was
spearheading
killing his
brother,
then was
spearheading
selling his
brother,
then was
spearheading
lying to
their father,
had evil
sons,
defiled his
daughter-in-law.
And in
verse 18
starts one
of the most
amazing speeches
that you
can see
of
transformation,
God can
transform
people in
seven
chapters of
scripture.
We'll listen
to Judah
starting in
verse 18
of chapter
44.
Then Judah
went up to
him and
said,
Oh my
Lord,
talking to
Joseph,
please let
your servant
speak a
word in
my Lord's
ear and let
not your
anger burn
against your
servant for
you're like
a pharaoh
himself.
My Lord
asked his
servant
saying,
have you a
father or
a brother?
He starts
to lay the
facts out for
him.
And we
said,
my Lord,
we have a
father,
he's an
old man,
then we
have a
younger brother,
the child of
my father's
old age.
His brother's
dead,
meaning Joseph,
and he alone
is left of his
mother's children
and his father
loves him.
Then he said to
your servants,
bring him down
to me so that I
may have eyes
on him.
We said to my
Lord,
the boy can't
leave his
father because
if he leaves
his father,
his father
would die.
Then he said
to your
servants again,
unless your
younger brother
comes down
with you,
you won't
see my
face again
and ostensibly
you'll die.
Verse 24,
when we went
back to your
servant,
my father,
we told him
the words
of my Lord.
And when our
father said,
go again,
buy us a
little food,
we said,
we can't
go down.
If our
younger brother
goes with us,
then we will
go down,
for we can't
see the man's
face unless
our younger
brother is
with us.
Then your
servant,
my father,
said to us,
you know that
my wife bore
me two
sons,
you left
me,
or I'm
sorry,
one left
me and I
said,
surely he's
been torn
to pieces
and I've
never seen
him since.
If you
take this
one from
me also
and harm
happens to
him,
you'll
bring my
gray hairs
in evil
to Sheol.
Now
therefore,
as soon
as I
come to
your
servant,
my father,
and the
boy is
not with
us,
then as
his life
is bound
up in
the boy's
life,
as soon
as he
sees that
the boy's
not with
us,
he'll die
and your
servants
will bring
down the
gray hairs
of your
servant,
our father,
with sorrow
to Sheol.
For your
servant became
a pledge of
safety to
the boy,
to my
father,
saying,
if I
don't bring
him back
to you,
then I
share the
blame before
my father
for all
of my
life.
Now
therefore,
please let
me stand
in his
place.
Let your
servant remain
instead of
the boy as
a servant
to my
Lord,
and let
the boy
go back
with his
brothers.
For how
can I go
back to
my father
if the boy
is not
with me?
I fear
to see the
evil that
would find
my father.
Man,
how beautiful
is that?
The same
guy who
ruthlessly dealt
with Joseph
somewhere along
this journey
of suffering
and waiting
and wandering,
God got to
Judah's heart.
one of the
interesting things
about the
plains of
Dothan
where Joseph
was in the
well is that
that's the
same place
that Elisha
was taken
in a whirlwind
of chariots
and fire
up into
heaven.
Two different
types of
events,
but both of
them were
governed by
the will of
a God who
is also a
loving heavenly
father.
And in
times of
suffering,
we're safe
to press
into God.
Think of
Jacob wrestling
with him.
Can you
imagine the
conversations
between Judah
and his
brothers as
they went
back and
forth from
Egypt as
it dawned
on them
that all
of this
was from
the hand
of God?
God has
fatherly grace
for suffering
sons and
daughters.
And this
picture of
Judah is
beautiful
because it
points to
the transformation
of a heart,
the turning
of a sinner
toward his
heavenly father.
Judah gets
it.
He's willing
to lay down
his life
for his
brother.
Hebrews 2
tells us
of how Jesus
knows this
in us.
Putting
everything in
subjection to
him, he left
nothing outside
of his
control.
At present,
we don't
see everything
in subjection
to him.
But we
will in a
little while.
Jesus
crowned with
glory and
honor because
of the
suffering of
death so
that by the
grace of
God he
might taste
death for
everyone.
For it was
fitting that
he for whom
and by whom
all things
exist in
bringing many
sons to
glory should
make the
founder of
their salvation
perfect through
suffering.
We don't
suffer alone.
This is a
picture of our
elder brother
made perfect
in suffering.
We can't
afford to
think very
much of
ourselves in
the face of
these types
of realities.
And if
you're here
today and
you don't
understand the
significance of
Jesus, listen
to just a
little bit from
Romans chapter
five.
through Jesus
we've obtained
access by
faith into
grace, into
the grace in
which we
stand and we
rejoice in the
hope of the
glory of God.
More than
that we rejoice
in our
sufferings.
Knowing that
suffering produces
endurance and
endurance produces
character and
character produces
hope.
And hope does
not put us to
shame because
God's love has
been poured into
our hearts through
the Holy Spirit
who's been given
to us.
For while we
were still weak at
the right time
Christ died for
the ungodly.
For if we, if
while we were
enemies we were
reconciled to God
by the death of
his son, much
more now that we
were reconciled
shall we be saved
by his life.
That's the
significance of
Jesus.
Without him we're
nothing but enemies
of God.
In Christ we're
made whole.
and we're able
to look to our
elder brother
whose glory, his
perfection on
earth, his
status as the
one through whom
all things were
created and
through whom all
things will be
reconciled to the
Father.
And that's the
significance of this
table as we come
to it today.
this represents the
love shown to you
not begrudgingly by
a son who had to
learn along the
way but by God
himself who knew
how to perfectly
obey the will of
his Father and
chose to come and
to intercede on
behalf of sinners
like you and like
me.
This is a table of
remembrance.
It can be a table
of sadness but
this is also a
table of celebration
for those who are
in Christ Jesus.
We get to come
practicing what we
know in eternity
will be the wedding
feast of the Lamb.
Hear these words of
institution that Paul
gave us from 1
Corinthians 11.
For I receive from
the Lord what I also
deliver to you that
the Lord Jesus on the
night he was
betrayed took bread
and when he had
given thanks he
broke it and he
said this is my
body which is for
you.
Do this in
remembrance of me.
In the same way he
took the cup after
supper saying this cup
is the new covenant in
my blood.
Do this as often as
you drink it in
remembrance of me.
For as often as you
eat this bread and
drink this cup you
proclaim the Lord's
death until he comes
again.
this is not Southwood's
table.
This is not the table
of the PCA.
This is certainly not
my table.
This is the table of
our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.
Please pray with me.
Gracious God we come
before you as sinners
claiming the blood of
our elder brother Jesus.
Jesus.
You have promised that
all who believe in
him and all who
believe that you
raised him from the
dead as the firstborn
among many that we
can come to you and
rest in you as our
heavenly father.
We're grateful for the
love that you show us
and we're grateful for
the perfection shown in
our brother Christ
Jesus.
Please bless this
simple bread and this
wine that we drink,
this juice that we
drink.
Set it aside for your
purposes.
We know that we're
doing more than just
remembering Jesus and
we pray that the
significance of this,
your sacrament, will be
shown to us and felt by
us and experienced by
us.
For the sake of our
King Christ Jesus,
amen.
For more information
visit us online at
southwood.org.
For more information
visit us online at
southwood.org.