The Lion of the Tribe of Judah

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 144

Psalm 144 ESV

Of David. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; he is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. O Lord, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow. Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke! Flash forth the lightning and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout them! Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you, who gives victory to kings, who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword. Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. May our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace; may our granaries be full, providing all kinds of produce; may our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields; may our cattle be heavy with young, suffering no mishap or failure in bearing; may there be no cry of distress in our streets! Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall! Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!

Advent reading 2

The second candle, also purple, represents faith. It is called the “Bethlehem Candle” as a reminder of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem.

So if this candle represents faith we should rightfully ask: what is faith? Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I could preach a whole sermon on just that one thought, but today, as we prepare for advent, I would like to focus on just two. The first is that included in faith is what we celebrated and remembered last week, namely hope. Hope is hope because it is not necessarily seen, it is, at best, on the horizon, in truth hope often feels further away than that. So we should remember at advent that faith comes in when hope is all you have. As the world long for and waited for a savior all we had was hope, but standing sure in the promises of God, in the promise to send a deliverer is what sparked that hope. That hope was in, part two here, things not seen. When the innocent and helpless child of may was born in a manger 2000 years ago, and angels proclaimed his birth and the magi brought him royal gifts and shepherds came to praise him, what was to come was not clearly seen. Then as he began his work thirty years later, as he ministered and called his disciples still not clearly seen was what this would mean. We just looked at this right before advent started, as Jesus, the one one who could see forward began to speak of his death and resurrection the disciples could not understand this. Then after his brutal death on the cross, though foretold the weight of it was not seen. Then as he rose in glorious might and power a plan, the work of God now came into focus. But still we don’t always see clearly, for the world rages around us, the trials and troubles of today become the tyrants of our minds. Ultimately, then, here is the hope and prayer: That in the light of this the second candle of advent you would have hope, but here this Sunday you would put your faith in Jesus Christ, he came once, he is coming again, Clearly seen he is the object of our faith!

Sermon:

Good morning Church! I was glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

Well as we mentioned before this is the second week of Advent, ad we are trying to answer this season the Question that Jesus put to his disciples in Matthew 16: Who do you say that I am? Knowing that there are many correct answers that we could give to this question, we are seeking to ascertain just a little bit what Scripture says on this subject. For Peter it was you are the Christ, the son of the Living God. Last week we saw that he is the second or last Adam, the one who saved a people and granted them his righteousness. This week we are proclaiming boldly that he is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

Most directly this is the name given to Jesus by the angel helping John in Revelation Chapter 5, but we are not going to go there yet, because for this name or title of Jesus we have to do a lot of work to get to the pay off. So if last week was hard because the passage we were going to was technical and tough and deep, this week is tough because my goal is to give you a quick survey of the whole of scripture, about as close to cover to cover as you can get.

As I prepared to get ready for this sermon I was reminded of what was said a preaching conference I went to many years ago. It was a expository preaching conference so it was focused on going through large portions of Scripture, all the pastors who were there had a strong conviction that this was the best type of preaching and I agree. But one pastor asked the facilitator in a Q and A if it was the ONLY, or if topical sermons were OK. He said something that I think is valuable for us all to understand. He said no, in fact he thought that topical sermons were good and could be great for the church, heres the problem he said: I am not smart enough or good enough to do them. Now of course that was tongue in cheek but here is the point, when preaching like we are going to TRY to today you need to be careful that Scripture is what speaks, that you hear form God and his word and that the pastor does not insert too much of himself in the Sermon. It takes a knowledge of the scope and breadth of Scripture that is difficult and the hope is that we don’t loose anyone along the way. So that is what we will endeavor to do today, but with such a project in front of us, let us begin with a word of prayer.

Our Father in Heaven, Holy and Precious is your name. I pray that you would be with us today. WE pray that you would speak to us according to your word. that as we seek to grasp and understand thoughts that are higher than us, and see you work in ways that are too marvelous for us to fully understand that your Spirit would be with us and bring to us understanding. Help us to see your son clearly this morning to see who he is and what he has done for us. he has washed us saved us made us new and for this we are grateful. Thank you for your grace and mercy that is with us in all that we do and so we pray that would would be with us this morning. in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

So then to fully understand what is going on with this particular name for Jesus we need to first ascertain WHERE IT STARTS

Where it STARTS

Where does this idea of the Lion of the tribe of Judah begin in Scripture? And Jesus he comes to us in Matthew. Well, at least in the flesh that is, as we work through the Bible the first time we see him unambiguously, but wait, you should be thinking, Weren’t there a whole bunch of prophecies? and yes. there were, that is really where we need to start.

But when I say prophecies you think f the prophets. You are thinking of Isaiah Jeremiah, lamentations Ezekiel and Daniel and then the 12 Minor Prophets. But in fact we have to go way way way back before then them to Genesis 49.

When I was a youth Pastor… NOAH’S ARK STORY

I bring this up because Genesis, The way I taught them Genesis I said that the best way to understand this, as you read and begin to know the Bible, the way that you should understand Genesis in Scripture is to see that “GOD HAS A PLAN” God has a particular plan, and how it will work is seen here. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and his plan for us begins there. But we see that God has a plan most clearly in passages LIKE Genesis 49.

To give us a little bit of context before we read this, Jacob, renamed Isreal calls his sons. There has been his huge ordeal with Joseph and his brothers. They hated him, threw him in a well, sold him to slavery in Egypt. There is Joseph, potiphar, potiphar’s wife, the interpretation of dreams, Joseph playing a trick or two back on his brothers. Many of us have herd these stories, but now as we get to Genesis 49, that drama is mostly faded, and now Jacob is getting old, he is going to die, we are getting ready to have an eye towards Exodus and are stetting the stage to know how these people ended up in slavery and captivity in Egypt. What i going on with all of this? so we are wrapping up all the Genesis stories to get ready for the exodus ones and Jacob/Isreal calls his sons to him his 12 sons who will become in their descendants the 12 tribes of Isreal. and it starts this way

Genesis 49:1 ESV

Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

He calls his sons t him to prophecy over their lives. And he begins talking to them, telling them what will happen. He starts with Ruben, the firstborn. Ruben, you are my firstborn, sorry for this tribe, it might not be as great as you would expect for the oldest, firstborn, usually given a position of preeminence. Not here. Ruben, though you have might and power you are, verse 3 unstable, so you shall not be given the position of preeminence. There is some sin there you can read about it in Genesis. Then we move to Simeon and Levi who are violent brothers.

Then verse 7, just remember, he is dying and he calls his sons to give them their final words from their father, to prophecy over them and he says this: Cursed will be their anger. verse 7. I will divide them in Jacob. I Will scatter them in Isreal. So as we are working our way down the sons this has not been the positive and encouraging meeting they might have wanted. But then we get to Judah.

Genesis 49:8 (ESV)

“Judah, your brothers shall praise you;

your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;

your father’s sons shall bow down before you.

Judah, you will be the king. The ruling son. The things that you would think of When Ruben wanted preeminence the Glory that was withheld from Simeon and Levi that it turns our will go to Judah. Judah will be the ruler. He s, we just read, the conquering ruler. again: your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. He has position of honor over even his brothers as his fathers sons will bow down before him. (we could note that this very thought God Joseph sold as a slave… but that is a story for another day…) But we get to the payoff here picking up in verse 9

Genesis 49:9-12.

When Jacob calls his sons this is the prophecy given to Judah. And while there is a lot going on here I want to pull out a few thoughts for us to understand. One: The Lion is the picture of ruling and triumphing over prey. But also note verse 10 he will receive the obedience of THE PEOPLES. This is a sort of powerful global rule being prophesied over Judah. How do we know this is rule and not just honor or something? well look to the language.

verse 10 talks about the scepter. The scepter shall not depart form Judah. The Scepter is the symbol of kingly power. it is the picture of the king with his powerful scepter in his hand. The verse continues. the Rulers staff shall not depart from between his feet. Again he is seated on the throne and his staff and scepter are with him as they bring him, TRIBUTE.

and so as we think through why it is important that Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah is important we have to start here, with seeing where these thoughts start. It starts in knowing that from the tribe of Judah would come a powerful ruler. a ruler who will devour his enemies. who would go up ad crouch down like a lioness waiting to pounce on its prayer. That he would be so terrifying as to have no one rouse him, no one would dare rouse him. This ruler form Judah reigns in power. It is a completed sort of reign. But we can also begin to ot this here too:

In verse 11 we see it might not be a peaceful or easy rule, but it will be total.

Genesis 49:11 ESV

Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.

As we thin about that our mind should begin to contemplate the savior that WE know. the idea of garments being washed in wine the BLOOD of Grapes. It is evocative of many things.

and here we have the foundation of why we would NEED a lion of the tribe of Judah, it starts here in this prophecy. Given before there was even the law. Given before there was even a nation of Isreal. Note that this is given when the “nation” of Isreal is the family of Isreal in Jacob and his twelve sons. The whole nation fit into this one room. But even here we can begin to look forward to what God is gong to do.

This helps us understand the next thought. WHAT IT MEANS

What it MEANS

In your outline there are two blanks there. I apologize, i changed this in my hand written outline I forgot to change it on the digital one, so that is on me, so sorry

But lets talk about what it means. if it will drive you insane the original two blanks answer is what hope it gives, but as I wrote this i realized that this is bigger than hope. But lets turn to see this in Isaiah 31:4-5.

It is interesting to me to note WHERE in Isaiah we are flipping to here. It comes to us in, if we remember back to our time in Isaiah, it comes in the woes to his people. And if you remember we landed on saying the real issue that Isaiah was dealing with and what his message ended up being at its heart was “WILL YOU TRUST GOD?” Instead of trusting your own might your ow plans your own thoughts your own schemes your ow power. Instead of trusting in those things, Isaiah was asking his people: will you trust God? and as we noted over and over and it felt like over again in Isaiah the people wouldn’t. they would rather trust powers and might all around them. and in particular they began to trust in Egypt. In Genesis i said, as we are wrapping up genesis our thought is how and why d God’s people become a people, and how do those people become slaves in Egypt. and Egypt then becomes an important figure in all of the Old Testament. Because Egypt becomes, in many ways a symbol of what it means to NOT trust God. It is sort of the pagan world pout there. If we remember back to the time of wandering in the desert. There is this idea of like, HEY Maybe instead of trusting in God, who is giving us mana, giving us quail, leading us with a pillar of fire and smoke, Meeting with us, giving us his laws as we come to his mountain, MAYBE instead of following God lets just go back to Egypt. And there is a recurring thought of those who will not trust God will probably trust in Egypt. “You know, even though we were slaves, at least we were fed slaves.”

And so Isaiah 31 starts with this:

Isaiah 31:1 (ESV)

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help

It turns out it is bad news to trust in Egypt. Because Egypt can’t really help you. Only God can.

Isaiah 31:4–5 ESV

For thus the Lord said to me, “As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey, and when a band of shepherds is called out against him he is not terrified by their shouting or daunted at their noise, so the Lord of hosts will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill. Like birds hovering, so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it; he will spare and rescue it.”

When we speak of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, this is what it MEANS. WE are talking about GOD coming GOD protecting GOD saving GOD delivering GOD with his mighty strength and mighty arm coming to deliver his people. SO do look to Egypt, don’t look to the world, don’t look to anything else. Look to God. and in particular look to God as the Lion.

When we talk about what it means to talk about the Lion of the tribe of Judah we are talking about the salvation given to us by God. It is seen in his rule and reign as he sits there with his scepter and the staff of his rule betwen his feet. It is seen here as he comes down to defend his people. To protect deliver spare and rescue his own. When we speak of Jesus being the lion of the tribe of Judah we are speaking of Jesus fulfilling this role spoken of in Genesis, beautifully painted for us and growing in scripture. Reaching here in Isaiah a sort of fevered pitch of this thought of God will protect us, for he is a strong and mighty lion. Which leads us to the beauty of seeing where it ENDS.

Where it ENDS

This Is why Revelation 5 is such a beautiful passage.

WE do not have time to sort of unpack ALL that is going on here in Revelation 5. But as we think about this in terms of how this ends, why this is a critical name for our savior this is important.

Revelation 5 is in some ways the beginning of the book of revelation. Everything through chapter 4 was really just the “to whom it may concern” kinda. The way Revelation flows is that we are introduced to John and Jesus, and Jesus has a message for seven churches. In 1-3 the individual churches are given small notes to them in particular. these were real churches dealing with real issues and they needed to hear from their savior. But then in chapter 4 to the end what is happening is the letter is broadened to ALL the churches. This becomes the global and the big message for all the seven churches and by extension all the churches for all time everywhere. john is in chapter 4 taken up to heaven. SO we know that this is now a prophetic thought and Being taken up to heaven, Ike Isaiah in chapter 7 of Isiah or Ezekiel, this shows the heavenly approval of the divine message given to John. And he begins to see worship in heaven. there are elders and angles and crazy things going on as he sees heaven. Then Revelation chapter 5 starts.

Revelation 5:1–4 ESV

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.

there is this scroll, it turns out is is the scroll of kind of God’s plan, but also his wrath, there is a lot going on here but there is this really important scroll and this biggest issue is it needs to be opened, but no one can be found who CAN open it. No one is powerful or worthy enough. and this is a huge problem. It is a tragedy, for if this scroll contains Gods pan for the world, for his people and really for all of creation, an if no one can open it what is going to happen. So it is as if, to John, the answer is RIGHT THERE, and yet no one can see or know it. So John weeps loudly. s this how the story ends? What is Going on here? Why even have a scroll? I mean, we looked everywhere. We looked over the earth, we looked under the earth, we looked everywhere and no one was found. No one there could open this scroll… well because the one who could was seated in heaven!

Revelation 5:5 (ESV)

And one of the elders said to me,

As a note, this is completely made up in my brain but as verse 5 opens on an elder talking to John, this is how I read this. One of the elders answering who it is that can ope the scroll reminds me up Peter answering the question “who do you say that I am”. Is it the same elder, no way to know, but eventually this elder gets the right answer.

John, Quit crying. You are so worried that no one can open the scroll that you ave forgotten the most important thought.

Revelation 5:5 ESV

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Jesus is the one who is worthy. the one who rules ad reigns. The one who fulfills the great plan of God starting all the way back in genesis chapter 1, and really truly started back before time was time or anything was made. Told to us in Genesis 49 seen in its fruition in Isaiah 31, See in his life death burial and resurrection., Seen in his glorious ascension. and now seen in this scene of heaven, as John is witnessing God’s plans for all of creation and salvation unfolding here it is, at the center of it all the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

He has conquered, he can open the scroll.

Revelation 5:6–10 ESV

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

All this because he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He receives worship and praise because he holds the scepter of his rule. It shall not depart him until, remember back to Genesis 49 until ALL PEOPLES BRING HIM HIS TRIBUTE and here is is in verse 9 his tribute is people from every tribe and language and people and nation singing his praises. His tribute is worship for all eternity in heaven.

Continuing in verse 11

Revelation 5:11–12 ESV

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

The Lion of the tribe of Judah. The lion who is the LAMB who was slain.

This advent week, as we celebrate this second week of advent is the week of faith. and I would exhort you to see with faith

When Jacob prophesied over his sons, when there were just 12 people in this whole nation, how could they know what this would all look like? The writer of Hebrews tells us it was through faith.

When Isaiah would speak of God coming to save ad deliver his people. That god Like a lion would save and deliver his people, how could they know what that would look like? again, by looking with eyes of faith.

And so now we who with eyes of faith have seen the savior, but wait anticipation to know and see how this is all going to end, how do we make it thought this time where we have seen the first advent while waiting for his second coming? We look with eyes of faith. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah is worthy to receive our praise. he is our Lord our savior our king. Come to him with humble faith and find in him the perfect savior.

Lets Pray.