Family Failures

We have already seen the family of Abraham have some serious moral flaws.

Deceivers

Prideful

Adulterers

Unfaithful to God

Today we are going to talk about the importance of our choices. The last few weeks we have asked some really tough questions about ourselves. Why do we wrestle with God? Why do we deceive others? Why don’t we reconcile when we have made mistakes?

Today we are going to talk about choices. We all make thousands of choices everyday, most of these choices are simple. What am I eating for breakfast? What shoes am I wearing? Where am I going to sit at school? We have other decisions that take some thought but that we know how to make. Then we have hard choices.

When I was in high school I had a small choice but a dumb choice, I threw my drink at one of my friends car while they were driving. Someone told the principle and I got in trouble for it. Of course I thought it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was still a dumb choice, it wouldn’t have been hard to say “hey...maybe don’t do that”

I’ve also made choices in my life that I deeply regret later. We all do.

Today we are going to look at a tough choice and we are going to look at a much easier choice...sadly we are going to see the wrong response in both cases.

-Also, you may start to notice that although we see these “heroes” of the faith in Genesis. We see they make a lot of mistakes.

We are called to make choices faithful to God’s plan when dealing with challenging decisions.

What stops us from taking righteous action?

Personal security

Jacob is silent against the man who had abused his daughter. He was motivated by fear of men, ignoring the true justice that should take place in such a terrible circumstance.

He was also motivated by the father of Shechem that said he would give him land and possessions. But God had already promised these to Jacob.

Later we see Judah’s 2nd son Onan unwilling to have a child with Tamar. He is willing to marry her, and even to have relationship with her, but not to have a child with her. He gratifies his desires while ignoring his responsibility.

Then Judah tries to protect him and his last son by not marrying him to Tamar.

An unrighteous response to anger

Jacob’s sons are rightfully angry about this matter. They take a more righteous approach then their father.

-It says they were grieved over this crime, and they were angry. They realized that what had been done was “an outrage against Israel”

...the problem is they still don’t take an approach that honors God.

They in fact put their opponents in a vulnerable position and then take advantage of them in the same way that these men took advantage of their sister.

Furthermore they took God’s sign of a covenant with them, circumcision, as a means of vengeance

We can believe ourselves to be avengers rather than put it in the hands of God, who has authority to judge.

-There are many things we might be rightfully angry about, yet the response we take towards this anger is wrong.

-We can lie and gossip to make a person look even worse. We can try to physically hurt others. We can try and make the person “pay” for what they did.

-When we take justice into our own hands we often hand out a punishment that doesn’t fit the crime.

Captain America: Civil War. We have Tony who wants to sign the Sokovia accords, and Steve who wants to go save his friend. Both are confident they are taking “just” action, while ignoring the other realities in play. What happens in the end? They both play into the hands of the evil mastermind behind it all.

What choices do we make leading up to challenging decisions?

Associating with dangerous people

Not dangerous in the sense that they will hurt us, but dangerous in the sense that they will force us to make hard choices. Between doing the right thing and wrong thing. We might make the right choice with these people most of the time, but it only takes one bad choice...

Ignoring responsibility

Jacob had a responsibility for his daughter, but rather than act he allowed his sons to act in vengeance. When leaders don’t act, often the young and immature will take zealous action.

Being ruled by temptation

First, Judah marries a Canaanite woman, even though they were not supposed to. We see the result is that he has wicked sons. They have not been led to follow God.

Then we see Judah who is willing to enjoy the pleasure of other women while ignoring the daughter-in-law who he should be giving a child.

Why do we disregard God’s plan?

In the story of Tamar we see only one who is willing to see God’s plan through...Tamar. While the rest of the family is stuck in wickedness.

We often decide in our minds what sins the “good people” are allowed to commit and which sins we will decide to condemn.

Is deceiving right or wrong?

In the story of Jacob’s sons they are seen as taking an evil action...but Tamar takes a wise action. Why are these seen differently? Both desire justice in some way.

Tamar was seeking to fulfill God’s law, Jacob’s sons were seeking revenge.

Read Matthew 1:1-4

What do you notice?