Blindness, Exposure, and Grace: Judah’s Turning Aside in Genesis 38
Genesis 38 exposes Judah’s spiritual decline as he “went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adolomite” — a deliberate departure from the people of God. His compromise leads to generational corruption, seen when “Ur, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.” Judah refuses to give Tamar his third son because “he feared that he would die like his brothers.” Blind to his own guilt, he blames her instead of recognising his sons’ wickedness. God exposes him when Tamar presents his signet, cord, and staff: “Please identify whose these are.” Judah finally confesses, “She is more righteous than I.” The sermon shows how God chooses and transforms the repentant — Judah, not Joseph — to carry the lineage of Christ.
Genesis chapter 38. It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adolomite whose name was Hira. And there Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shuah. He took her and went into her and she conceived and bore a son and he called him Ur. She conceived again and bore a son and she called him Onan. Yet again she bore a son and she called him Shalaa. Judah was at Chezib when she bore him. And Judah took a wife for Ur his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Ur, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, go in to your brother's wife and perform the duty of brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother. But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he went to 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. Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, remain a widow in your father's house till Shilah my son grows up, for he feared that he would die like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father's house. And in the course of the time the wife of Judah, Shura's daughter, died. And when Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheep-sheers. he and his friend Hirat the Adalimite. And when Tamar was told, father-in-law is going up to Timna to share his sheep, she took off her widow's garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up and sat in the entrance to Inayim, which is on the road to Timna. For she saw that Shalaa had grown up and she had not been given to him in marriage. And when Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He turned to her in the roadside and said, come, let me come into you, for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. And she said, what will you give me that you may come into me? And 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.' He said, I will pledge. What pledge shall I give you? And 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. And when 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 Adalimite, to take back the pledge from the woman's hand, he did not find her. And he asked the men of the place, where is the cult prostitute? Who was it? And I am at the roadside and they said, no cult prostitute has been here. So he returned to Judah and said, I have not found her. 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. 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. 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 those whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff. Then Judah identified them and said, she is more righteous than I, since I did not give her my son Shalaa. And he did not know her again. When the time came, time for a labour came, there were twins in a womb. And when she was in labour, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread to the hand, saying, This one came out first. But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out, and she said, What a breach you have made of yourself. Therefore his name was called Perez. After what his brother came out, with the scarlet thread on his hand and his name was called Zira. Thank you Matthew, just pray with you, pray for you and then I'm interested to hear what you have to say. Father I do thank you for your word, it's challenges and I just commit us to you now and for Matthew as he brings to us your word and what you have given him. Let us be instructed from it for Lord we pray in Jesus name. Thank you very much, Rick. Beautiful. Again, good morning, everyone. Good to see you guys. I wanna ask you something. Isn't behold such a cooler word than the word look? Right? I've been asked by someone repeatedly at our Bible study, can you please tell Teach Marnie, don't say, look, teacher, behold. Isn't it just? there's thank you Jan, there's just something so much cooler about that word. Even think about this last song we just sang, we don't say look at the man upon a cross, behold the man upon that cross, just look at him. There's something magnetic about that word attractive, right? And the reality is, again, in connection to the communion message, so much of the gospel, so much of the Christian life is just seeing, just revealing, just look, just behold, just see this thing. I want to show you it now in 2 Corinthians 3. Sorry, it won't come up on there. But when you read from 2 Corinthians 3, the... many of you will know this passage in the... 17th verse says, the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unfailed faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So you see, that is just the definition of the Christian life. Is you looking at Jesus and somehow magically becoming like Him, right? You pray and say, I want to be like that. You read about and say, wow, he seems, that's awesome. That's the guy in me. And every day, slowly but surely, you become more like him from one degree of glory to the next. And then you'll see even a couple of verses later, it is the devil's main desire to stop you seeing this Jesus. in verse four of the fourth chapter, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. You see, what's the great goal of the Christian life? That you get there at the end and who do you look like? Jesus, right? They put side by side and yes, you're not God, but in His humanity, you look exactly like Him. so how does that happen? Well, you're just looking at Him all the time. We're beholding His glory. We're seeing all that He is. And so the devil is desperate for us not to see Him at all. And so that's what we're going to be looking at today as we look at Judah. We kind of take this detour from the story of Joseph to look at this man Judah and we're going to be looking today at his blindness. And as I'm sure you'll know, he's not actually blind. He could see perfectly fine, at least as far as we're told. But what we'd be looking at is the spiritual blindness in which he walks. So, for starters, why are we deviating from the story of Joseph, right? Because last week we were reading all about his dream, he's been taken into slavery. And you know, if you're sitting there and you're watching a TV show, you're working, well, what's gonna happen to him in slavery? You click the next episode, and now we're with a completely different character and a different, it's not even the same story. What's going on? But you see, these two men, Joseph and Judah, will become the two main characters. We often think, yes, Joseph is the main character, but Judah actually becomes a very, very important character in the rest of the story. Because he's not the only one that has a character arc in this whole thing. But this story now here is one of the most important ones. And what it's really asking the question is Joseph seems to have become the leader of the family. We obviously know the end of story. He becomes the redeemer, right? He's the one that saves them out of the famine. But there is still one thing that he's not. He is not the legal heir to the promises. Because that is to give to give him to the firstborn. The firstborn was Reuben. What did he do? Because he screwed it up, right? He slept with his father's concubine, Bilhar. So God said, Not having that one. Simeon and Levi, we wrote about them in Genesis 36, probably a month and a half ago. That was with Dinah. They went in and slaughtered an entire town. And then at the very end, they said, we haven't done anything wrong. And so God said, no, you guys will not receive the inheritance. So where are we at? The fourthborn. And who's that? Judah. So all these fellows have lost this birthright of theirs. Now we're going to see, Judah any better? Will he be the one to finally hold on to it? And you know the funny thing? You're actually going to find out, as we've already read the passage, he doesn't seem to be any better than his brothers. But there is one key difference that we shall see as we come to the end. So four points we're going through today. The danger of turning aside, sin makes us blind. Our sin will come out. and then God chose Judah, not Joseph. So the first thing we want to look at, if you look in the first verse, let me just flip to Genesis 37, oops, I've lost my page. But you'll see in the very first verse, it says it happened at the time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain idolomite. Don't really know what that means, but they're a Canaanite basically, whose name was Hira. And we're focusing here in on that word, he turned aside, right? him heading down from his brothers. Now, Geographica is actually going to somewhere that is... He's kind of up on a plateau at the moment, but he comes down. Also kind of speaking of the fact that he's leaving the people of God and going down to the pagans to hang out with those that we're not meant to be making friends with. He ignores the historical pattern of all of his forefathers. Abraham came from a land outside and he didn't seek to settle in the land. and Isaac and Jacob, where do they get their wives from? Not from among the people, right? God said, no, no, no, no, you go back to your family, back to your own kindred, to the people of God and get a wife from there, right? but instead he turns aside and enters in and starts to intermarry with the Canaanites. You know, he takes a wife and then also we find later on he gets a wife for his brothers, sorry, sons. But you see the great danger in this. Just this one word. when you see scripture warnings against turning aside in other passages. Later on, probably looking back on this, Moses was writing this intentionally. And then as it gives the laws in Deuteronomy 5.32, you should be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you, right? Stay among the people of God. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. Or later on, then with Joshua, he gives the same exaltation. Joshua 23, six, therefore be strong to keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from neither to the right hand nor to the left. You see this turning aside is Judas departure from his walk with God, right? He's turning a slide. We have other words for right backsliding, falling away, right? and he's choosing to live in sin. Okay, so he's corrupting his own walk, but surely it just ends there, right? You know, we talked about a couple of weeks ago, sin just kind of stays with one person, doesn't impact anyone else. But then we read about his sons, right? Verse seven, Ur is married to Tamer, but then we see it says, but Ur, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord and the Lord put him to death. Don't know what he did specifically. We just know he was wicked. And as is God's right to do, he punishes the evil and he judges them. So he judges Onan, kills him. And so now Onan, the second born, is bound by a duty to continue the line of the first born. This was a thing back in the day. It was continued in the Levitical law, right? It was called Leverite marriage, where the brother was to take over so the line would continue. And also it would provide for Tamar because she would have a child, hopefully a son, typically back in that day, to be able to provide for her in her old age. So then Onan, bound by this duty, goes into Tamar, right? Goes to sleep with her. But then, in selfishness, says, but I'm gonna be raising, paying for, feeding, disciplining a child that isn't actually mine. Right, it might be mine genetically, but in name and inheritance and everything, it's us who's passed away, right? anything, that child was actually going to receive the promises even though Onan was now the firstborn. And so out of selfishness, he says, well, I'm just not going to get her pregnant. I'm going to go into the details. You guys know how it works. Right? And so he refuses to impregnate her, deliberately preventing it. And then God strikes him dead. Because again, in his evil, he's chosen, chosen to betray his brother, to make it all about him. And so you see, God has struck all of them dead. And so do you see now, the evil ways of Judah has passed on to His children, right? Oh, they're just impacting me. I'm just turning aside for a little while. No, your children have learned from you, And they're doing the exact same thing. They're refusing to obey God and to love others. And so you see, Jesus talked about this exact same thing, that there are two paths before us at all times. That the Christian walk is a walk, a journey, right? He says in Matthew 17, sorry, seven, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter it are many, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. One of the hardest things to accept is that the Christian life isn't about just getting a ticket, hopping on an airplane and then you just arrive at your destination, right? No one really likes plane rides, but one of the benefits is you don't have to do anything. One of the hard things about plane rides is How do I kill the time? I'm so bored, right? But that is not the Christian life. There is, trust me, there is plenty of things to stop you from staying bored. There is lies, trials, constant temptations, all these different things, right? It's more like driving through Brisbane along the highway and there's just billboards everywhere. You know, it's better yet when they have the billboard saying, make sure that you don't swerve in your lane. You're like, well, don't put billboards up there, right? But honestly, there's always these things causing you to deviate from this path, this narrow path you've been set on, because the devil is always there on the right and on the left saying, come over here, come over here, come over here. And so Judah, he has fallen for this advertisement. Don't know what lured him, but later on you see it's Hira, this man he's hanging out with, is referred to as friend, right? This is a good man of his. They seem to get along, they have some common interests, right? Maybe he's just someone with a similar personality. You know when you find someone with the same personality, same sense of humor, and it's just great, you just get along. They could be like the worst, it could be a murderer, but if they've got the same sense of humor, you just connect. And so he's connected with this pagan. And he just sees it harmless compromise. It won't matter. It's fine. Yeah, I might be the one with the inheritance now, but it's okay. I'm not like my other brothers. And so here is a warning for us as well. We need to be very careful about who we actually form close bonds with, right? I'm not saying, we can be friends with anyone. If we're talking about friend in the term of association, hanging out with, like you can do all those things. But when there's that friend, that friend that, you know the one you call, right? In the middle of the night, when everything's broken down, when nothing's going well, that person you call, when you really need help. The actual friend. Who's that person gonna point you to? This friend of yours that you call. Hopefully most of us do have close friends who are Christians, people that we can call upon. And that's good because they're gonna point you to the thing you need. They're gonna point you to God. They're gonna point you to the gospel. And look, we can get along amazingly by the grace of God with people who don't even care about God at all. But when you actually go to them for help, why would they point you back to the God that you actually need? Right? It's going up to a blind person and ask him to help you find your brown dog. Right? He can't. He's not equipped. He doesn't know what to do because he's blind. They're the wrong person to go to. And also, because then we need to be careful because we associate too closely. And they say, you know, oh mate, I'm just having a hard time. And he's a, you know, opium addict. He's going to say, you don't need God. have some painkillers, right? They don't go to God for their help. And so I'm not saying don't be friends with people in the world, definitely do. We need to evangelize, but we need to be careful about who the closest bonds are with. We need spiritual companions, friends who are gonna help us and point our gaze to the person we need to be looking, who can help us see the person we need to see, which is Jesus. And now we need to be careful because maybe some of us in a predicament, we have a really, really close friend, someone we really, really trust, and they're not Christian. Or we're just hanging out with people and we do find ourselves actually deviating down a path we shouldn't. Then comes the part, the real focus point of today, will be the blindness of sin. And particularly now turning aside, we refuse to admit that we are actually turning aside. So what do we do? You're not actually blind. You don't actually think you are. So what do you need to do? You need to convince yourself that you can see. So you need to rationalise what you're doing, right? We can come up with so many different ways to make what we're doing good, right? We can take anything in our lives. We spend every day doing this. We're professionals at it. We have to invent excuses to maintain this idea that what I'm actually doing is right. It is actually good. And so we're gonna see that part of why we turn away so easily is that sin blinds us and comes up with the excuses for us, which leads us onto our second point, that is sin makes us blind. Because just think about this right. Sin never presents itself as evil, right? It's never gonna say, hey, come and do this. Why? And I'll say, because I'm morally wrong. Because this is actually gonna end in your death. It's never gonna tell you that. It lies, it deceives, and it thrives in the darkness, right? Just even look at the rationalization. Go back to Genesis 3. What did Adam say when he was confronted about his sin? She made me do it, right? Oh, he's not really to blame. Look, she did it. What does she do? It's the snake. He did it, right? Shifting the blame, rationalizing, it's actually okay for me to do it because... They told me to do it, I'm actually not to blame, right? human nature always defaults to justifying itself and shifting blame. That is just what we do. And so now I want you to see Judah's blindness as God. So now if you look at verse 11, let go down. Both of his sons have passed away. He still has a third one left and by legal right, he has to give Sheila, that being the name of the third born son, to Tamer. Obviously, Sheila's a bit young still, so he has to grow up. But what's the real reason he sends her away? He's scared. He doesn't want his third born son to die. so he saw Tamar as cursed. She's the reason this is happening to my family. You see, right? He's blind to the reality of his sons, that they were evil not because of Tamar, but because of him. Then you go down to verse 21. Sorry, verse 15, 14. There we go. You see there, it says that Tamar, that she realized about Sheila. See, she took off her widow garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself and sat at the road to Timna. For she saw that Sheila was grown up and she had not been given to him in marriage. So you see, he was deceptive in what he was saying, right? He was lying. he feared that his son might die. So he withholds her from her legal right. And then you go down, so one, he's disobeying the law of the land right now at this moment. And what would one day become God's law? And then you go to verse 21. After this whole encounter has happened, right, he's going up to shear the sheep. It was party time. That's what normally happens when you shear the sheep. You're getting all the money in, right? And so he's walking along, probably a little bit drunk, sees a woman on the side of the road and chooses to sleep with her. Then he sends payment via his friend, Hyra. And he refers to her as what? And he asked the men of the place, where is the cult prostitute who was at Inam at the roadside? They obviously say there's no cult prostitute here, that there's no one here that does that. Now for starters, what's a cult prostitute? Back in that day, Canaanites had this practice where they said, how are we going to incite the gods? How are we going to make them happy? And they thought they could make them happy by having these prostitutes that people would then go and sleep with. And when the gods looked down and saw them sleeping with each other, they would be like, hey, us gods should sleep with each other and then the land would be fertile. I know, bit weird, right? But that was what they believed. And... Judah's been hanging out for long enough with these guys. He would know that is exactly what they believed. He would have seen this woman on the roadside and never be gone, oh, she might be one of those cult prostitutes. I'll sleep with you. So what's he doing there? He's part of the people of God. He's literally the one Jesus is gonna come from and he is worshipping another God. He's left Yahweh behind. sleeping with a woman who worships another god, apparently. but then you turn. And look and see how he reacts when Tamar is found out to be pregnant. You see it in verse 23. He says, bring her out, let her be burned. Now burning, very extreme punishment. Normally people were stoned to death if they committed adultery back in that day. Burning was for very extreme cases. But you just see, he's just got this holy zeal apparently because of this injustice that's been done. You killed my two sons and now you've gone and slept with someone else? He has this deep zeal. He's blaming Tamar for all his troubles. You've brought all this suffering on me and now you bring this dishonor to my family? Who's caused all these problems? Right, it's Tamar. Tamar's the problem. Look at her, I'm blaming her. But who's actually the problem? It was Judah. He made his sons that way. He taught them that way. Who got her pregnant? As he will soon find out. Him. And so we have to see and understand this. There's one thing about ourselves, right? Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things. We actually can't see ourselves accurately, right? It says in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, right? We said, you know, the devil is blinding the mind of unbelievers. That doesn't mean he's suddenly stopping once you become a Christian. He might not be able to fully blind you. But you know how when you sit out there on a sunny day, and you can see exactly where the sun is and where a shadow is, right? You can see clearly. But suddenly then a cloud comes over and especially if it's a really cloudy day, you actually can't tell where the shadows and where the sun is. The sun suddenly seems like it's everywhere, right? Because it's being blocked out. In many ways, the same way as a Christian, we can still see the sun, we can see the light, but we can't see where the shadows are anymore. We can't see our blind spots, right? Our heart is deceitful and it's continually fighting against us. Our sin doesn't want to be brought out into the light. Just think about it. You read through the Bible, you look at the biblical figures and you think, wow, how didn't Adam and Eve get there? How did David fall for Bathsheba? This is just obvious. We can look at them objectively. Understand, you look at yourself subjectively. You do not see yourself accurately. And so what does this look like in us? Well, I would say, beware if you often find yourself getting angry at the sin of others and never at yourself, right? Because that is exactly what Judah is doing here. That is what his sins pushing him to do to cover up his own guilt, right? In his heart of hearts, in his conscience, he knows this is wrong. But he's saying, well, it's not that bad because look at this woman. She's the one doing all this to me. And in his anger, he doesn't see his own sin. We lash out at other people when our sin is brought up, right? Someone brings up your sin to you. How does it often go? Well, what about you? You you do this and you do that. Anyone's been in an argument with a spouse, that's the first instinct, right? What about all the things you don't do? One of the worst things we can do is sit during a sermon and then say, wow, this is definitely something the person beside me needs to hear. That's normally a good sign. you're actually the one that needs to hear it. Because that's the devil's lie going into your brain right there. And so, we need to be aware of this. Oh, wow, I'm really angry at the moment. Where did this anger come from? Incited by the devil. And so also, I would encourage us as Christians, in terms of associating with people, be aware of associating with Christians who see all the flaws in others and never in themselves. You know the best Christians that hang out with? The ones who see themselves as failures, the one who sees their flaws and yet rest in the grace of the gospel. They say, I'm imperfect. Yeah, I don't have it all right. They're not that fussed. Those are the kind of people we want to be hanging out. But you see, we understand, right, we, all of us have blind spots. Every single one of us, till the day we die, you'll think, I think I see myself pretty clearly, wait till judgment day. You'll see it all. But now we turn and see how God gently bears with us in our kindness. He's not going to expose all our sin at once. He actually bears with you slowly but surely through possibly 80, 90, 100 years, slowly revealing your sin bit by bit. But He will bring our sin out into the light. So this comes to our third point. Our sin will... So God rules, right? He is sovereign over all of this mess that Judah has created, but He will not leave Judah trapped in the darkness. Exposing the sin in our lives is one of the most important markers to see that God loves us, because He's not leaving us in the pit, He's pulling us out and we shall see the love He has for Judah. we know it is love, for it says it, Hebrews 12. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives. If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. God is about to bring a reckoning and an exposing on Judah, but it is done in love. How does he do it? We see that Tammar is holding on to the identity. This is like the driver's license, his cord, his signet and his rod. This identified him. She produced it, told him to identify himself. He is the one. He is the man who has done it all along. And what is his response? This is the most important part. The standard human response, shift the blame, get angry, lash out. What does he do? Verse 26. She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son, Sheila. The Lord has finally shattered his blindness, right? Brought him to conviction, genuine conviction. And that is what he does with those he loves. Sometimes he does it very painfully. Sin technically is always painful. It's exposing those parts of us, parts of us we might love. even sometimes publicly, He will bring it out, as you'll see with Judah. This is being broadcast before the entire town in which He lives. But we have to bring sin into the light to allow it to be purified, cleansed, and to actually enjoy true fellowship with the church. And so we talk about bringing it out into the light. But what is that light? Let's read from John 3, 19, 21. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. So what is the light in this instance? If you go back a couple of verses, John 3.16. For God so loved the world that He sent what? His one and only Son, His only begotten Son. He is the light. He is the one who exposes our sin. He is the one that if we come to, we won't be able to hide. You see, it is His death on the cross that exposes our sin. When you look on the cross, you see, even my righteous works aren't good enough. Even they couldn't save me. Nothing in me is good. Better yet, as we talked about last week, I'm the one that put in there. But yet I also see His immense love, the love that He has for me in exposing my sin and cleansing it. And so that's why it says, but whoever does what is true comes to the light. As Christians, when we come into the light and it says our works have been carried out in God, it doesn't mean all the works are good, but it means when you bring your sin out to God, He actually uses it for something good. He will actually cleanse it and purify it. And so the devil is desperate for us to not see the cross of Jesus, for us not to see His resurrection, for us not to see Him. That is what we talked about in 2 Corinthians 4.4. But the true Christian exposes himself. He comes out into the light. He confesses it to God. He confesses it to others and says, I'm imperfect. Shower me with grace, please. They want to be humbled. because then we are closer to God. So we confess it to God, we confess it to others. And we keep this always in mind as Christian, Proverbs 521, for a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all his paths. God sees your sin already, but if you choose to keep it in the darkness, well then don't be surprised when you're thrown into the darkness. We must bring our sin out into the light. And so we see, Right, we're blind, we're in the darkness. All of us have blind spots, all of us are imperfect. But then we come to the best part of this whole passage, the last couple verses that we read about the birth of the two sons. When the time of her labor came, Tamar's, were twins in her womb. When she was in labor and one put out the hand, the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread in his hand saying, this one came out first. But as he drew back his hand, behold, the brother came out, 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, his name called Zerah. Now, this is going to answer our last point for us. Why did God choose Judah and not Joseph? Now, what do I mean when I say God chose Judah? Rick has already alluded to it for us. For Matthew 1,1, Perez's name is referred to again. the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers and Judah the father of Perez and Zerubi, Tamar. Super important thing when you read through the genealogy of Jesus and Matthew, pay attention to the women that are mentioned. He mentions all the ones from the worst stories of the Bible. Rahab, Tamar. the incest and the prostitutes. But then also Judah is in there through the line of Perez. And so why is Judah there instead of his other brothers, right? Reuben couldn't be restored, why? Because after he slept with the concubine, what did he try and do? He tried to save his brother, Joseph, right? But he wanted to restore himself to the father with what? His righteous good works. Here father, I've finally done something. Will you accept me now? Will you put me back in that place? No. Simeon and Levi rejected. Why? Because they continued in their blindness. At the very end of Genesis 36, sorry, not Genesis 36, 35, I think it was, with the rape of Dinah, he sits there and he says, Jacob says to his sons, do you not see you have made me a stink to this land? That these people don't like me anymore? And they say, but shouldn't we have done something about our sister? She's been considered a prostitute? You see, they had rationalized their murder. They were still blind, but Judah comes to repentance. He says, I am the one to blame. But then we come to the question, why Judah instead of godly Joseph? Joseph is portrayed as incredibly godly. There is very few smears on his life at all. He just seems to be this person par excellence, right? the perfect man, almost like Jesus himself, but yet the Messiah descends from Judah. And this is why, 1 Corinthians 1, 27 to 29, God shows what is foolish in the world, shame, the wise. God shows what is weak in the world, the shame, the strong. God shows what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Joseph. in this story, in the next couple chapters, will represent everything that we should strive for as Christians. One, a man of faith, a man of obedience, a man submission to God's will amidst suffering. But he is the aim. What we see in Judah, what we see in the line of Jesus is the very kind of people that he chose to save. He represents the broken sinners, the lost, the blind. the failing who have been brought to repentance. See, God chooses the weak, the lowly, the sinful, those who acknowledge their desperate need for a savior. And so this is a great thing for us because I cannot emphasize this enough, all you guys are blind and the grace of God is so much bigger than your blindness. So much bigger. Joseph is the one who deserves the lineage by human standards, but God chooses the undeserving Judah. because He wants you to understand and see that He has chosen those who are blind for a reason, because He wants to extend His grace to the blind and He wants to help them see. He chose the man who did not deserve it, not the one who did. And so better yet, we walk as blind men and women, but God didn't choose you on the basis of the fact that you could see to start with. So the fact that you can't see now in many ways doesn't mean he's gonna let go of you now. He will always hold on to you. He chooses the helpless who own their failure and he will redeem them through grace, which means you don't deserve it. That is why he loves blind people. That he might work the miracle of revelation in them. And so, my friends, that's the message. You're blind, but now you can see. Jesus has worked the great miracle of giving you sight. you're still blind in many ways. Don't think you're not. But know that as you walk through this life, as God exposes your sinfulness, and I'd say lean into that, lean into the light, seek it in the Word, seek it in prayer, ask Him to expose you. But know that His grace is what swallows up all of your wickedness. It is not about you doing better. You will be better, but through His grace, not through your own striving. So let us wrap up in prayer and then we'll have our final song or Rick will come up and introduce it. I'm not sure. Dear Father. We are blind. Lord, we walk through this world with rose-tinted glasses. We don't see things clearly. We are always painting ourselves as the better person, as not the one to blame. Father, just like Judah, we are to blame. But just like Judah, would you work in our hearts that we might be brought to repentance? Would you discipline us? Would you not leave us the side, would you not reject us like you Reuben and Simeon and Levi? Would we be your chosen ones, Would we be the ones that you give sight to, that you reveal yourself to? And Lord, most of all, would you keep our faith strong? Strong in the grace that swallows up all our darkness and the faith that knows that one day everything shall be made light when you come and return again? Our sin shall be exposed so that it may be no more and it shall be raised to death and put to death forever. So Lord give us this hope and help us to continue fighting against the devil with the power that you give us. Jesus name we pray, Amen.