Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

It is not often we associate a deathbed with Advent, but that is where we find ourselves this morning.

Jacob, the grandson of Abraham—who we spent time with in Genesis 12 last week—has come to the end of his life.

He is handing out blessings to his sons from his bed.

This is why Genesis 49:2 says, “Assemble and listen, O Sons of Jacob...”

He is calling them near and pronouncing the destinies of his children over them and the destinies of the tribes they represent.

But most of this is not future-telling prophecy.

We are not really talking about predictions.

The most prophetic portion of the text is the one we are looking at this morning.

Instead of predicting prophecies, blessings from the patriarch of the family would have been seen more as statements that should be taken seriously.

Statements that they would expect to have some bearing on the future.

But this is not future-telling the way we saw in Isaiah 9 a couple of weeks ago.

We also can’t miss the location of Jacob’s bed.

Last week, we saw how Jesus ultimately fulfills the promises made to Abraham in the Abrahamic Covenant.

He will fulfill the covenant by giving us the new heavens and the new earth to dwell in for eternity.

But in the immediate, the promise was about the land of Canaan.

And yet, as Genesis is ending, Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, is not dying in Canaan.

He is not surrounded by flowing fountains of milk and honey

He is dying in Egypt.

Forced out of the Promised Land because of famine.

So how will the Abrahamic Covenant be fulfilled?

Is God’s plan not on track?

That is the tension hanging over the deathbed blessings of Jacob over his sons.

We will focus on verses 8-12 this morning because for the purposes of Advent, that is where we find the hope of the Messiah.

That is where we find hope that God’s plan is not deterred, despite Abraham’s people being stuck in Egypt.

That from Judah, there will come One who makes all things right for His people.

READ Genesis 49:8-12

PRAISED BY HIS BROTHERS (v.

8)

There are five statements we can make about Christ from this prophetic blessing this morning.

Those statements will serve as our teaching points.

We start with the beginning of the blessing in verse 8.

Judah, you brothers shall praise you… & your father’s sons shall bow down before you.

Teaching Point #1: Christ will be praised by His brothers (v.

8).

When we think of one of Jacob’s boys being praised by his brothers, we don’t think of Judah.

We think of Joseph.

Joseph is the one who had two dreams about his brothers bowing down to him.

In one, he and his brothers are binding sheaves in the field and his sheave stands upright and all of his brothers sheaves go prostrate before his

In the other dream, the sun, moon and eleven stars are bowing down to him, foreshadowing how his father and mother and brothers would all bow down to him.

And all of that happened in Egypt when there was famine in the region and Jacob and his family had to flee and they found Joseph and the food they needed down in Egypt

But this blessing is not pronounced over Joseph, but Judah.

It is surprising because Joseph is a faultless character in Genesis.

We know he was not a sinless man, but we don’t see him sin in the actual story of Genesis.

Some say that he is arrogant toward his brothers, but you have to read that into Genesis.

Moses portrays Joseph as beyond any blame in the Genesis narrative—a true shadow of the blameless One to come in Christ.

But this is not Joseph.

This is Judah.

Judah is kind of a mess.

In Genesis 37, he helps sell Joseph, his own brother, into slavery.

In Genesis 38, Judah’s wicked son, Er, dies and leaves his wife, Tamar, as a widow.

Judah tells his son Onan to take her as his wife, but Onan schemes his way out of that and God takes his life.

This leaves Tamar with no husband and no one to speak for her, so she is sent back to her family’s household.

She should have been married to Judah’s third son, but instead, he just dismisses her.

Years later, after Judah’s wife dies, he travels to Timnah.

Tamar hears about it and goes there and poses as a prostitute in order to sleep with Judah.

It works.

He doesn’t know it is her, sleeps with his daughter-in-law and she is impregnated by him.

When he hears of her getting pregnant outside of marriage, he demands for her to be burned, until he realizes he is the father.

It’s not a great sequence for Judah.

His lack of compassion and hot-headedness and hypocrisy is all on full display

And it is that sort of behavior that makes it surprising for us to hear this blessing about his brothers bowing down to him

But here is the thing—this really isn’t about Judah.

It is about the One who will come from Judah’s line.

In the immediate, the sons of Jacob will bow down to Joseph.

But in the long run, the tribes of Israel will praise Judah’s name when they praise the Messiah born from his line

What we really have being prophesied in this blessing is the praise of God’s Messiah coming from the mouths of His people

The joy of God’s people over the Messiah begins before Jesus is even out of the womb

Luke 1:39–41 (ESV)

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,

And then, as you go through the narrative of Jesus’ life, you see Him continuing to be praised by the tribes of Israel

Whether it is the shepherds at His birth, or the sinful woman pouring out her alabaster flask on His feet, or the disciples after He calmed the storm, or the throngs of people shouting Hosanna as He entered Jerusalem—Christ is being praised by descendants of Jacob’s sons.

This praise then expands as the Gospel crosses the boundaries of Judea and invades Samaria and the ends of the earth

In Acts 2, you see the Jewish disciples speak in tongues as they receive the Holy Spirit

In Acts 10, a non-Jewish man named Cornelius comes to Christ and speaks in the same tongues, showing that Cornelius is being saved and is receiving the same Spirit as the Jewish disciples

And what that shows, is that God has brought Gentiles into the covenant and is making one new spiritual community in the place of the old

This is the New Testament Church—Jew and Gentile, brought together as one body, under the blood of Christ

So then, when you and I get together like this and sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to Jesus, the son of God from Judah’s line, we are seeing this prophetic blessing be fulfilled.

Every time you sing Holy, Holy, Holy with the local church—the prophetic blessing is being fulfilled.

Every time you belt out your favorite worship song or hymn in the car—the prophetic blessing is being fulfilled.

Every time you sing nighttime praises with your children before bed—the prophetic blessing is being fulfilled.

You have the faith of Abraham, which means you are a part of Abraham’s family, by faith in Christ.

So every time you bow down in faith to worship Christ, the Messiah from Judah’s line, the blessing is coming to pass.

This should motivate us to worship even more.

To be even more committed to gathering with the saints

What will that look like for you in 2022?

Maybe God is calling you to go beyond Sunday mornings and commit to attending Midweek this year, doubling your weekly worship time with the gathered church.

I don’t think there will be bad results from that

Or maybe God is calling you to go deeper in your daily worship

To go beyond “a devotion a day keeps the devil away,” and to truly have a plan for daily worship in your Christian walk

We have actually created a resource to help you with that.

We will talk more about it at the end of the service.

But the bottom line, is the words “your brothers shall praise you,” is a prophetic blessing that you should be a part of bringing to pass every single day.

Until one day, the Lord returns, and He will gather His people into His Kingdom, and the prophetic blessing will come to pass as every redeemed soul spends eternity in the perpetual praise and service of Christ the King.

DEFEATING HIS ENEMIES

But how will that ultimate peaceful praise come about?

What will come of all this sin and depravity that is around us? What will become of evil people doing horrible things?

What will become of those who reject the Lord and the rule of His Son?

This brings us to the rest of verse 8 and our second teaching point this morning:

Teaching Point #2: Christ will defeat His enemies (v.