From the Pastor's Study
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You have heard it said that there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. I’m here to add a third certainty to life: temptation. Temptation exists everywhere because we still have sin within us. Its power has been broken by our putting our faith in Christ and having the Spirit living inside us. This means that we don’t have to sin every time temptation comes along like we did before Christ. But we aren’t away from sin’s presence yet. And if there is anything we learn about temptation is that it is persistent, usually more so than we are. Joseph’s case turned out to be different than a lot of ours. Despite the constant temptation, Joseph, quite impressively, resisted it. One theologian thought that Joesph’s ability to rule himself was more impressive than running the country of Egypt (Matthews). How do temptations actually work? How did Joseph resist them so well? How can we learn how to resist temptations better? Do things always go better when you resist temptation? We will try to answer those questions as we look at our two points today: Temptations want your loyalty, yet only God will be loyal to you. Temptations want your loyalty How does temptation work? My basic definition of loyalty is “love without leaving.” Usually, this concept is applied to relationships like a marriage. One cannot be loyal to one’s spouse if they leave for the embrace of another. If their love goes elsewhere, they aren’t loyal to their spouse. We can see this concept even in the companies we buy from. Some of them will give you a discount if you only use their services or buy their products, but only as long as you maintain an exclusive relationship with them. The key to loyalty is exclusivity. Now, temptation works as a loyalty test question, and that question is, “Who or what do you love the most right now?” How did Joseph resist temptation so well? Let’s look at Joseph’s story to see what is at stake in our temptations as Christians. Here Joseph has attracted unwanted attention from the master’s wife. She has a persistent proposition for Joseph that he steadfastly refuses. How does he do this? Joseph begins by laying out where his loyalties truly lie. One commentator notes three steps to Joseph’s argument. He begins by pointing out that Potiphar trusts him completely. For Joseph to do this would be a betrayal of that complete trust. Second, he refuses to sin against the master, and third, he refuses to sin against God (Matthews). Joseph clearly understands the consequences of sin. It makes trust much harder to forge, it breaks relationships at the human level, and most importantly breaks the relationship at the divine level as well. Where his loyalty, his love without leaving, is very clear in Joseph’s mind. This is why he can answer her temptation with a “How could I do this?” He is so loyal to God and Potiphar that his reason isn’t, “Well, I could end up fired or dead, and that wouldn’t be very good for me.” That would be another form of self-loyalty. Instead, he couldn’t do this because he is loyal to others and God before Himself. As Dr. Ross points out, this is something that Joseph has clearly decided beforehand. When you enter the moment of temptation, it is too late to try to decide who you will be loyal to if you haven’t already. Temptation will make the decision for you. Rather, have it clear in your mind who you are loyal to before you face temptation (628). How can we learn to resist temptations better? This isn’t just an intellectual decision, a weighing of pros and cons that actually makes the resistance to temptation possible. The way Joseph beat temptation is by having a greater love. John Piper recently put it this way. He said, “too many people are fighting graduate level sin with elementary level education about God.” Now, he anticipated that people would think that all you need to resist sin would be knowing more. But people with Ph.Ds in theology still commit adultery. He said that you can read theology ten hours a day for forty years and still not know God—really know Him—as the source of all good and ultimate gladness in the world. And once you have grasped a hold of that, sin’s tempting power is greatly diminished. It is love, not logic, that moves away from sin. Logic and reason have nothing to do with sin. You’ll note that all of those reasons that Joseph laid out for her equally apply to her as well. But those reasons don’t seem to be working on her. Her loyalty is to herself, and she is dedicated. His loyalty, his love, is with Potiphar and God, and he is equally persistent. Joseph’s and our resistance to sin is proportional to our love for God. When you love God deeply, the reply to temptation is not, “Well, that’s probably something I shouldn’t do,” it becomes a, “How on earth could I even consider that?” This is something that you can build. You can think of it like the first time you met your spouse. You probably didn’t see them and immediately say, “Oh, I’ll never date another person!” before you even talked to them. Loyalty hasn’t had time to build up! Love takes time to develop. This is why when temptation to sin strikes, don’t try to reason with it. By saying something like, “Well, I shouldn’t do that because I’ll feel guilty; this never works out; I’ll get caught,” you’ve already admitted that there isn’t love keeping you back. In fact, you’ve admitted that the only thing holding you back for that moment is love for yourself. And it will be love for yourself that will ultimately convince you to sin. The only way to fight temptation to sin is to fall deeper in love with God. The more you love God, the more you will do for Him. This is why we have to spend time with Him. Note that it isn’t time just learning facts about Him. That’s a start. You probably agreed to a date with your future spouse after learning a couple facts about them, but it wasn’t until you spend time with them over dinner, on walks, and in hard seasons did you really begin to love them. That is communing with each other. When you are communing with God in His word and prayer, that is where you begin to find your love for God. Reading theology is great, but it has to swell your heart, not just your brain. As you go about your day, ask yourself, “How is this helping me love God?” If it isn’t helping, stop. That doesn’t mean that we become monks, only reading the Bible and praying all the time. It does mean thinking more deeply about the why in your life and what God is calling you to. Colossians 3:23–24 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Do you work a job just to get a paycheck because that is what you are supposed to do, or do you work to show your customers how well a Christian works? Do you see the opportunities to present your faith at your co-op? Do everything for the Lord, and if you can’t see how what your doing grows your love for God or demonstrates your love for God, it is time to stop it. That can sound scary, but there really is joy on the other side of that decision. Love for God is what enables Joseph to not listen to her day after day and not do anything that would even be close to crossing the line. It is also his love for God that enables him to endure what comes next. Do things always go better when you resist temptation? In the third section of this chapter, we see the master’s wife literally seize her moment. Joseph, true to form, does the right thing and escapes as quickly as possible. He doesn’t stop to try to talk his way out of this, but he just jumps his way out of this. He isn’t slowing down to say, “Hey, look, I don’t want to make waves at work, what is the most diplomatic way out of this? Let’s not be hasty.” No, love compels him to high tail it out of there. Joseph has done the right thing, but it will not result in pleasant circumstances for him. The master’s wife sees that she has an opportunity to hurt him if she can’t have him. She invents this story that not only casts Joseph as the villain, but she casts her husband in the role as the enabler of that villain. In effect she says that this is ultimately Potiphar’s fault! You can only imagine how that must of played on Potiphar! The rest of the servants are talking about how disloyal he must be if he doesn’t do something. It’s another loyalty test. Only God will be loyal to you. Potiphar throws Joseph in prison. Now, put yourself in this situation. What is your prayer life looking like at this moment? If your love and loyalty is for yourself, you’ll have a lot of things to say to God. “Why is this bad thing happening to me? Have I not done what you wanted? I resisted temptation day after day, and this is the thanks I get? Why did I bother?” We can often be tempted to think like this when bad things happen. But this reveals where our hearts are. Unless you are saying something like, “Oh, am I experiencing the discipline of the Lord? Where have I gone wrong? Have I sinned in some way?” That sort of question isn’t mad about the circumstances, it is worried about why God might have sent them. More often than not, though, angry reactions to God for His plan in our lives shows our love is lacking with God. I’m not saying that just to make you feel bad if you’ve done this. I am saying this because I want to point you to the solution to your anger. The question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” assumes that if you are good, God will make your life easier. That’s how a store’s loyalty program works. That’s not how God’s loyalty works. You see, God is so faithful to you that He will work all things, even the hard things, for your ultimate good. God is faithful to Joseph in prison. He is with him there, too. And since Joseph loves God, he just keeps serving Him right where he is. It will only be in the coming chapters that we will see God’s providence ruling over even evil acts to bring about His good plan. We see the greatest example of this in the temptations of Christ. The devil sought to tempt Christ away from the cross by saying, “just worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth.” Jesus simply refuses saying, in essence, loyal worship only belongs to God. Satan, unable to tempt Jesus, decided to make it hurt as much as possible by possessing Judas (Piper). The greatest injustice was committed, yet the greatest good was worked out of it. Christ’s death meant the forgiveness of billions, and the establishment of the kingdom that will have no end. What might He do with your faithfulness to Him. So how do we apply this? Spend your time before temptation learning about God’s love for you. Let God’s love for you grow a love for Him. Kids, I want you to know that your parents love you. And God loves you even more than that. They have provided for you everything you need, maybe not everything you want, but everything you need. Do you thank them for that? Do you say, “Mom, Dad, and God really love me.” It might not mean much to you at first, but the more you think about that, the more you will love your parents and God, too. Then, as time goes on, when you are tempted to do something you know they won’t like, you will be able to say, “I’m not going to disobey them. I love them. I don’t want to hurt them.” I’m not going to say that makes it easy. It also isn’t something that changes quickly. But the more you do that, the easier it will be. Adults, same advice. Along with regular intake of Scripture and outflow of prayer, just sit and think of how God has been faithful to you. Take a couple minutes a day just picturing in your mind your favorite memory or two. Dwell there for a minute, and then thank God for that experience. I’ve heard it put well that Satan is way more experienced of a tempter now than he was in the garden (Neil Stewart). You can’t afford to take him on with logic. You must take him on with love. Keep short accounts. I heard an illustration that calls us to imagine a sign that says, “This way to abandoning God.” Every sin we commit is taking a step on that path. Repentance from sin is taking a step away from that path and towards God. Spend the time with Savior who bled and died for you. That is one of the many benefits of communion that we are about to partake in. We are not only reminded of God’s love for us and hatred of sin, but we are also, by faith, having dinner with Jesus. This is a cup of blessing, for how can you be in the spiritual presence of Christ and not benefit? Let the reality of His love for you sink in. He could have chosen someone else. But He picked you. Let the awe of that statement bring you low, and then rocket you upwards in praise of such glorious grace that would be loyal to a sinner such as I.
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What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase, “God will be with you”? For many, I think, this is a phrase that has been heard so many times, it has lost its meaning. It has become part of the Christian language that we actually stopped thinking about a long time ago. What does it really mean for God to be with you? How does that make a difference to your life, particularly when things are going well? What difference might it make in other people’s lives that God is with you? We will explore these questions as we take a look at this chapter over the next two weeks. Today I hope that you will be convinced of our main point, that God’s presence in you impacts your world right where you are. God’s presence in you impacts your world right where you are. As Christians, we are often confused about how our actions fit into God’s plan. When we answer this question theologically, we say that God is the one who executes all things, and take it to the point of making us almost totally interchangeable with literally any other human being. However, when we are trying to sleep at night, we anxiously feel like God is actually quite far away, and His plan for our family rests entirely, exclusively even, on our shoulders. The truth has to be somewhere inbetween, but where? Let’s start with the first question, are you, you specifically, needed where you are? After all, couldn’t God just use anyone in the places we occupy? Like most good lies, there is an element of truth there. Yes, He could use anyone, but the situation is that He chose you to be here right now. As an example, God could have picked anyone to be the pastor of Knollwood right now, but, like it or not, He chose me! He has put me in my place. And the same thing applies to you. No one is where they are by accident. Even if it feels like one. Look at how this was true in Joseph’s life. We pick up where we left off from chapter 37. Joseph, as you recall, was sent by his dad to go check on his brothers. Off he went, wrapped in his coat of many colors that provoked such jealousy. Once he arrives, his brothers, after a short debate about killing him directly, does the movie bad guy thing, and instead sells him into slavery. We find the end result of that here in chapter 39 verse 1. In contrast to Judah, who “went down” from his brothers, Joseph is “brought down” to Egypt by force. This wasn’t Joseph’s plan or Jacob’s plan. This “wasn’t supposed to happen.” It doesn’t sound like the start to a success story. This is more the story of a victim. This seems like an accident that you have to recover from, rather than a purposeful plan. When I got my first ministry call to Brewton, I was fresh out of seminary ready to help this church out with their youth group. How hard could it be? On my literal first day on the job, on the way to Sunday church, I got into an accident that totaled my car. Then after driving around the youth van for a couple weeks, rumbling along with the crumbs, smells, and questionable vehicle maintenance of several ski trips from ages gone by, I got to meet, really meet, my youth group. Forty kids, virtually all of whom grew up entirely differently than I did, most of them having no other connection to the church other than Wednesday nights. They were mostly there because of one faithful woman who loved on them and the fact that we had a basketball gym at the church. They didn’t really know anything about the Bible, and could fist fight to the point where the youngest of them probably could have taken me down. They had burned many bridges with people who had tried to volunteer for Wednesday nights, and many times I was so stressed (mostly needlessly, as it would turn out) about fights my heart rate would fool my Apple Watch into thinking I was exercising two hours before any would show up. I often, to my shame, thought I was in the wrong place. Do you know why I thought I was in the wrong place? Because things were hard. I was personally uncomfortable. Because I was having a hard time, I thought God should have sent someone else. Could He have sent someone else? Sure. But He sent me. That was clear. Every other avenue closed. Sometimes it felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, but feelings are often a poor interpreter of reality. I know God sent me because that is where I was. He had something for me to do, and that’s why He put me there. And my role isn’t to question God’s decision on that. My role is to be faithful to His command and serve the people right in front of me. That’s what Joseph does here. That’s what you need to be doing here, too. You need to be a blessing to those who are around you. Look at what happens with Joseph. Yes, he is very far away, yet everything is going really well for Potiphar. The finances are in order, the crops are coming in like they never had before, and it seems like the more he gives Joseph to do, the better it goes for it. The word that is used for “left” is different than the usual Hebrew word for “gave” but has the connotation of abandonment (Matthews). Potiphar is so sure of Joseph’s God that he practically drops everything knowing Joseph is going to pick it up. Why is everything going so well? Is it because Joseph is such a capable administrator? Well, he certainly works hard, but we find the real answer in verse 2: the Lord is with Joseph. Despite all odds, Joseph becomes the ruler-slave, and he has only God to thank for it. Obviously, Joseph worked hard, but verse 3 is pretty clear that it is the Lord who caused things to succeed. God worked through Joseph’s place and Joseph’s work right where he was when he was. You can think of it like a battery powered drill. What puts the screw in the wall, the drill bit or the battery? The answer is yes. The battery provides the power for the bit. It wouldn’t spin on its own, it desperately needs the battery. God is ultimately behind Joseph’s success, but God chose to work through Joseph to bring blessing to the Egyptian house. It was blessed because Joseph, specifically, was there, and God, specifically, was with Him. There isn’t a point in debating where the work of one ends and the other begins, because God has chosen to use the work of His people where they are. Both are necessary. God has chosen to bless and bless for Joseph’s sake. It’s all grace. Is that how things continue to work today for us, or was that just Joseph? After all, Abraham’s children get the covenant blessing which includes being a blessing to nations that bless them. We certainly see that for Joseph, but what about us? I think the answer is the same. I’ve got a bit of odd text for this, but it is 1 Corinthians 7:13–14 “If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” In other words, Paul is saying that there is an effect that a believer has in their relationships. This isn’t saying that people are automatically saved by being close to a Christian, but there is obviously some sort of blessing attached such that Paul tells believers not to separate from an unbelieving spouse as long as they are willing to stay. I think that being around someone who has the Holy Spirit living inside them has an impact. How practically does that work? Look with me at 1 Peter 3:1. Once again, the topic is mixed marriages, and listen to Peter’s counsel: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,” How are people won? Seeing your conduct. How is your conduct transformed? The power of the Holy Spirit in your life. How is the Holy Spirit’s power manifested to a group of people? Your presence in their lives. Where you are matters, because you are bringing Jesus with you, as evidenced by a transformed life. Where you live matters because of how you live. But we cannot forget that it is God that makes the work prosper, when He wants it to. This is often why Christians are so bad at taking complements. We just want to point to God and say, “He is the One who made this work.” Any spiritual benefit that you receive from my sermons isn’t because I’m clever. It is because the Holy Spirit is applying it to your life. Now, it’s true that preachers are necessary. We see exactly this in Romans 10:14 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” Your work isn’t unneeded. But God is always the One who brings impact to that work, as we see in Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Hearing, and the faith it produces, doesn’t come from preachers, but Christ’s words. Does this not bring significance to your daily life? When you go to the grocery store, you are bringing the Holy Spirit with you. The words you speak and the obedient life you try to live will have an effect on those around you. That is the power of the Holy Spirit living inside you. When things go well, you give glory to God. If things go poorly because of your sin, repent to God. And if things go poorly even though you did the right thing, you trust in God. We will explore that more next week. So how do you get to enjoy this presence? One, you have to spend some time thinking about it. In these days of being everywhere all the time, many of us just don’t stop to think about life as it really is. So maybe this afternoon you spend some time reflecting on the on the fact that God hasn’t placed you where you are randomly. I know it feels that way sometimes, but God doesn’t make mistakes nor is He haphazard in how He does things. He purposefully put you there to be a blessing to those around you. You may say, “Yes, I have accepted that, but you don’t understand, I am wildly unqualified to be the blessing in the situation God put me in.” You’re right! That’s why after knowing you are here for a reason, you, secondly, realize that you aren’t the only factor in bringing blessing to your situation. Finding success in where you are doesn’t come from looking deep in your heart to find the potential. That’s what we see in all the movies, right? “Just believe in yourself!” Hogwash! The drill bit doesn’t need to believe in itself, it needs to be connected to a battery that will turn it. God will bring that blessing, and you have to remind yourself of that daily. Pray for that help everyday. Stay in His Word. Make sure that you are feeding you soul what it needs and not always giving it things that make you less obedient to what He wants from you. What might this look like? Kids, let me talk to you more specifically for a second. Most of you in here have siblings. God gave those siblings to you. They are supposed to be there. You are supposed to be there. But they aren’t always easy to get along with, are they? They take your toys and invade your rooms! Sometimes in your worst moment you think, “I wish they weren’t here!” But that’s wrong. God doesn’t make mistakes. He put you right where you are supposed to be. So when your siblings make you mad, take a deep breath, and then say to yourself, “God put me here.” Then pray, “Jesus, help me be a blessing here.” And then do what your parents have told you to do. That’s your job. This is especially true if you are an older sibling. Your younger siblings are looking to you. They are watching how you act. Be a blessing to them by following Jesus. Who knows? They just might follow Jesus, too, because you are. Adults, this applies to us, too. How often do your friends or even you children hear you complain? What are you really saying by doing that? Complaining is a fancy way of saying God made a mistake. I made this mistake all the time in Brewton. Poor Abby had to listen to my sinful heart Wednesday night after Wednesday night after youth group. I was focused on how my situation should be blessing me rather than how I could be a blessing to the situation. Its exhausting to be around. And ultimately untrue. I learned so much from Brewton, that it was, looking back, one of the greatest blessings to my pastoral life. Anything I do well today is because of what I learned there. Instead of complaining, pray. That’s what Jesus does in the Garden before the cross. He was honest about His heart, nevertheless He prayed, “Your will be done.” Then He stood up and did what God’s plan was, which was to die for your complaining. Face your situation, remind yourself that God has you here for a reason, pray for Jesus’ help to be a blessing, and then get onto doing His will. Even if you are where you are because of sin, remind yourself that God has brought whatever consequences are happening. Then pray for the power to do what is right, right now. Finally, remember that you won’t always be in this situation. A day is coming in which all that is mysterious, unfair, and hard will vanish. Your life is a vapor, and even more so is your trouble. Many of our troubles are short-lived even by our own lifespans’ standards. How much more in the light of eternity? Trust God’s plan where you are, and live out the conduct He wills, and you will be a blessing right where you are because God is right there with you. Jesus promised just that in Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” He wasn’t kidding. He is with you. And He is there to bless through you. 
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Genesis 38 doesn’t get nearly the respect and love it should. Many look at this chapter as an unnecessary and disturbing interruption to the story of Joesph, a generally positive story of redemption. Looking at the content of the story, it is easy to see why people think that. We all have some section of our lives we regret, and it would seem that we are looking at Judah’s season of regret here. Why dwell on the gross sins of one of the brothers when we could be focusing on the more positive portrait of Joseph? After all, this doesn’t describe most of our lives as good Presbyterians, so what is there even to learn from here? But this is actually a critical chapter for the story of Genesis, our Christian lives generally, and even contributes to the overall story of Jesus. Genesis 38 is critical to the book as a whole because Joseph is not the only character in this section of Genesis. Judah’s roles is arguably equally important. Rather than just focus on God’s redemption of Joseph’s circumstances, we are seeing in this chapter, the beginnings of God’s redemption of Judah’s character (Matthews). We can’t see how far God brings him if we don’t know where he started from, and this chapter shows us that sinful starting line. Hopefully, this will give you hope for what God can do in your life. This chapter is critical because of what it has to say for your Christian life today. Because of the sexual misadventures aplenty we see here, we tend to focus on those and not look at all the foundational sins that actually lead to those moments. There are many “smaller” sins that are actually quite common to us all shot through this passage that we can learn a great deal from. Hopefully, this will make us more grateful for Jesus’ sacrifice for those sins after seeing them in their proper light. Finally, this chapter is critical because of what it tells us about Jesus’ family. We are going to tie all of this together under our two points, Little sins are big obstacles to family commitments, yet Jesus has died for the little sins, too. Little sins are big obstacles to family commitments Chapter 38 takes place over the better part of twenty years (Matthews). After all, we see three sons born all of which make it to marriageable age in the course of this chapter. We aren’t just looking at a bad week in Judah’s life, but we are see what Judah has been doing in contrast to the next several chapters in which we see what Joseph has been doing. These men will lead very different lives, yet as the story unfolds, we will see how God uses both of them. However, back here in chapter 38, we see the troubles begin immediately in verse 1 where Judah leaves his brothers to live with the Canaanites. He finds a wife and has three sons by her. I’m sure those early years were great. He has found himself a good friend in Hirah, he’s found a wife with whom he has sired up three sons, three sons to carry on his legacy and ensure the retainment of the wealth that he builds. What else could you want in the ancient world? But what has he given up? He has forsaken godly family. Now, you may reply, “What godly family? The last time we saw those brothers they were trying to kill Joseph. Don’t even get us started on Jacob. Isn’t Judah better off with the Canaanites?” Well, as we will see in this chapter, no. While certainly his family isn’t the best, they were in the land of promise where God promises to bless. They were among the people that God approved for marriage. And Judah forsakes all of that. Many today make that same mistake. They can legitimately point to flaws in their family, church, or otherwise and rather than stay to work things out, they just leave. Yes, there are appropriate times to leave a community, but then seek out a godly one. This isn’t what Judah has done. He has taken his obvious leadership gifts and taken them to a place that God has commanded he not go. It is easy to think that we can find a place where the fit is perfect, but it doesn’t exist. Every community requires change, the question is will it require godly change or not. Be careful of who has maximum influence in your life. This doesn’t mean we don’t have non-Christian friends. We need people in our lives that we are working towards bringing them to Christ, but we need to make sure that those who have maximum influence on us are believers. If you have that, praise God for it! As we move into the next section (6-26), we can see that leaving your family isn’t the only way to forsake them. It is easy to get distracted by all the more heinous sexual sins that occur here that we miss the fact that all of this mostly boils down to selfishness. Er gets executed by God for some unnamed sin (though some scholar think it might be idolatry, as the punishment is worded similarly to other people who were killed for idolatry), and Onan is given the job to produce children by Er’s wife, Tamar. This is the concept of Levirate marriage. The point of it was two-fold, the dead brother’s name wouldn’t die out with him, and his widow would be taken care of. This would be a sacrifice on the surviving brother, because if an heir is produced, than the inheritance is divided up. If there is no heir, than the surviving brother gets his dead brother’s portion of the inheritance (Belcher). Onan is selfish in many ways here by being willing to take advantage of Tamar for pleasure, but making sure not to provide for her future needs or his brother’s legacy. After many incidents of this, God strikes Onan dead as well. Despite what some groups would say, God isn’t striking Onan down because of birth control per se. He is striking him down for refusing to do the right thing in bringing up children for his brother and the rest of the family. Now, we obviously don’t have this concept of marriage anymore because the society that made it necessary (one where women had very little economic opportunity outside of marriage) isn’t here anymore, nonetheless, we can draw some lessons here. Often the things that we are called to do to serve our families are far less sacrificial than what Onan was called to do. Onan was basically told to go live his brother’s life for him. He was to take care of his widow and raise up his children. If he is successful at this task then he get less inheritance after all that. His selfishness wasn’t pleasing to God, so punishment ensued. Where is selfishness impacting your family? Often enough you can trace it back to whatever is the thing that causes the most fights in your house. Selfishness is what breaks a family. We have been told in our culture that the individual is the most important. Instead of looking at the family as a whole, an entity unto itself, that God enters into covenants with, we have boiled down the family to a loose collection of individuals. Beware selfish habits that reinforce this. If things must always go your way for there to be peace in the home, something is wrong. Once you get used to selfishness, you will find that there will be almost no limit to what you will consider to please yourself. We begin to see that process work out in Judah, and Tamar for that matter, in the next section (12-26). Judah has become frightened that his sons keep dying while being married to Tamar. He obviously blames her for the deaths, because he withholds his last son from marrying Tamar. He sends her back to her father’s house, something that would have been a social shame for Tamar, yet he still holds some sort of power over her disallowing her to marrying someone else (Matthews). He has effectively put her life on indefinite hold, a reality that becomes clearer the longer he withholds his third son. Tamar hatches a plan to pretend to be a prostitute to trick Judah into siring an heir. This is a plan that he would obviously not consider for himself. This is why she wears the face covering, and gets a hold of his identifying stuff. It shows itself to be very important later on. This revisits a theme of deception via clothing in the family of Jacob (Ian Duguid). While we can look at what Tamar is doing as a desperate woman out of options, we still have the moral clarity necessary to judge that this isn’t the right approach to this. Yes, she is trying to do what is best for the family, but this is still a sinful way to go about it. Judah, on the other hand, is just looking to satisfy a cheap urge. He is so willing to do so, he hands over the equivalent of his driver’s license and credit card as collateral until he can send her payment. Once the evidence comes out of her pregnancy, Judah is ready to have her executed. He hasn’t been willing to provide what is necessary to preserve her life, but he seems pretty quick to do what is necessary to end her life. However, to his credit, when the evidence is produced of his part in the pregnancy, he admits his wrong and doesn’t press the charge as it were. In his saying that “she is more righteous than him” doesn’t mean that what she did was right. It only takes the proper responsibility for the position he put her in. No one has won here. Judah’s selfishness both in withholding his third son and in hiring whom he thinks is a prostitute has resulted in a perverse pregnancy. Tamar yes has her future secure as far as that goes, but in trying to preserve the family name she has forever played her part in sullying it. Selfishness has only grown larger. Jesus has died for the little sins, too. It is hard to imagine how God is supposed to redeem this situation, especially when we see the contrast with Joseph in the coming chapter. Joseph is put in a similar situation to Tamar and Judah at the same time. He is alone in another country with an opportunity to satisfy a longing and solidify his place in Potifer’s house. It’s the boss’s wife, what else is he supposed to do? He does what is right. Here with Judah and Tamar, no one is doing what is right. Yet God will redeem it. As we see, twins have resulted from this union, one of which is named Perez. He will eventually be in another list of names, the genealogy of Christ. So if you find your family resembling this chapter, there is hope. Not through further sin and selfishness, but by coming back to the God who redeems. Maybe you are here today running from family that is trying to guide you towards Christ. This is your moment. I’m not saying that it will be easy, but I am saying that it is right to return. Jesus came from a family with a past, as we can see here. But He didn’t run away from them. He claims them right at the beginning of the gospel! He numbers Himself with the sinners, Judah and you included. He became sin who knew no sin so that you and Judah can have the righteousness of God. You can be brought into a new family, have your identity firmly with the last name of Jesus. Run to Him. Put your trust in Him not to make your family perfect, but to cling to Him even when they aren’t. Maybe it is you who have stayed close to God while everyone else ran away. Continue to be a prayerful peaceful presence in their lives. Pray for an opening to talk about the things of God without forcing it. Maybe you’re at the start of your family journey and the whole thing seems unbelievably daunting. It is. You need to stay close to Christ. Make the Word and prayer common culture around your home. It won’t just happen, but it will be worth it. Honor your family by honoring Christ in your family. Faithfulness in little things often means blessing in much. |
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