Genesis 38:1-30 - When we fail, God is still faithful.
Genesis • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Happy Father’s Day!
The epidemic of our day is fatherlessness.
When men don’t step up, children and families suffer tremendously.
We are so grateful for the work of you fathers.
Research shows that when father’s are actively involved in their child’s lives, children are:
2x more likely to go to college
80% less likely to spend any time in jail
75% less likely to experience teen pregnancy
The roles of a father are critical in a child’s development.
But something that every dad fears and feels, is failure.
The expectation is that we are to be the strength and power of the family.
We are to be the head of the house, and if the head fails, the rest of the family suffers.
It is hard for dad’s to feel like there’s hope through failure, but what our passage is going to reveal to us today is:
Big Idea: When we fail, God is still faithful.
Big Idea: When we fail, God is still faithful.
Context
In Genesis, the role of the father was critical in the family.
Far more active than we see even today.
This passage continues the story of Jacob’s family.
The camera pans from Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers to Judah, his brother.
Stand to read
1 It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, 3 and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 4 She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 5 Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him. 6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. 8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also. 11 Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, till Shelah my son grows up”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house.
Leader: This is God’s Word
Everyone: Thanks be to God
This is weird, isn’t it?
Judah fails to do his part in extending the seed of the woman and marries a Canaanite woman.
He has three children by her.
The first is wicked and the Lord puts him to death (v. 7)
Judah tries to ratify the situation by appealing to their culture.
He’s trying to do a good thing in telling Onan to give a child to Tamar in his brother’s stead.
He’s trying to do right by Tamar.
Onan recognizes that if he gives this woman a child for his brother, then that child would have the first right to Jacob’s inheritance because he’d be considered Er’s.
That child would be the benefactor of the inheritance.
This selfishness ultimately led to his death too.
Two out of the three of Judah’s sons are dead and he’s thinking it’s because Tamar is a black widow.
He has no intention of truly offering his youngest son to her.
Then Judah withholds his youngest son from Tamar, which leaves the future of his lineage hanging in the balance.
God had promised Abraham “I will make of you a great nation… In you all the families of the world will be blessed” (Gen. 12:2-3).
So there’s a massive tension on God’s covenant to Abraham here.
Transition
Now, it’s up to time.
12 In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage.
Tamar recognizes that Shelah is now old enough, but Judah has disregarded her.
She has been victimized by this family for so long.
So she sees that he’s going out of town, so she devises this plan.
She takes off her mourning clothes as a widow, and covers her face as a prostitute would, and she just went and waited.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?”
Judah buys her services.
Oftentimes, Bible teachers will give us this idea that Tamar is an adulterous woman.
Notice that she only made herself available to him.
She didn’t go to up to him.
Judah came up to her and initiated everything.
She asks him, “What will you give me..?” This is a play on the reality that Judah has not given her the son he said he would.
17 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—” 18 He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 19 Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood.
He promises her a goat, then gives her sort of earnest money in the signet, cord, and staff.
These things make it easy to identify him.
She knows he’s not a man to be trusted.
He essentially gave her his wallet, driver’s license, and social security number.
Later on, Judah sends his buddy Hirah with the goat payment.
Hirah asked the place, “Where’d the cult-prostitute go?”
This tells us about Judah’s relationship to God at this point.
This is as much a religious act as it is a sexual one.
“No cult prostitute has been here.”
Now the pressure is on.
He determines to let her keep his stuff, lest the scandal go public and he lose his reputation.
He feels the weight of not wanting to be caught, not true conviction over his own brokenness.
Through deception and counter-deception, the line of the seed of the woman continues.
Since Tamar deceived Judah, the promise that God made to Abraham will continue!
Church,
God works through our failures.
God works through our failures.
Some of us have convinced ourselves that we are unworthy to be used by God or that somehow God can’t use us to do great things through us.
There was once a woman who did everything in her power not to show her face in public.
She had to go to a well to draw water, and she went at the hottest part of the day so that no one else would want to come there at that time.
She carried her past with her everywhere she went.
People gave dirty looks and whispered about her because of it.
She had five husbands, and had a live-in boyfriend.
She bumped into a man, who offered her a different kind of water (Living water)
She asked him to give it to her, and he told her to get her husband.
“I don’t have one.”
“I know, you’ve had 5.”
He reveals who He truly is for her, that He is the Messiah and He told her all she ever did.
Then, she leaves her water jug and the woman that wanted nothing to do with anyone goes into town to speak to EVERYONE saying,
John 4:29
Her moral and sexual failure was now put on display to show how great God is because He is able to use moral failures like us to accomplish His plan for the world.
We all have a past, yet God uses us for His glory.
Transition
After three months go by, this issue surfaces.
24 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.”
Her pregnancy is found out and it’s obvious that this is of sexual immorality because she isn’t married.
He is about to pronounce this judgement on her in total hypocrisy.
This is an excess-kill judgement.
The sins that we are usually most against are the ones we’re trapping in ourselves.
25 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 whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.”
Mic drop.
“Before you burn me, you should know this.”
Judah was demanding for her death, but then she presents this evidence of his own sin.
As it turns out, her coming children are his.
Can you imagine the look on Judah’s face?
He comes face-to-face with his own sexual sin in a manner that his profoundly humbling.
26 Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again.
One of the most important things about us is how we respond to our own sin.
Do we overlook it or own it?
Judah’s eyes are opened recognizes what he has done and the depth of his hypocrisy.
He doesn’t sweep it under the drug. He was ready to burn her to death, but now he is burned with a sense of conviction.
He not only engaged in cult prostitution, but he didn’t uphold his commitment to honor and provide for his daughter-in-law.
He’s a liar. An adulterer. A hypocrite.
He confesses all the way back to the his first sin with her.
“I didn’t give her to my son Shelah (v. 26)
He confesses her innocence and his guilt and keeps with repentance as “he does not know her again” (v. 26).
This is a turning point for Judah.
He makes a 180 from this self-righteous indignation to convicted to the point of a total turn around.
Church,
Confession gives us hope of redemption
Confession gives us hope of redemption
I think confession has been misunderstood
We hate the idea that people have dirt on us.
We view confessing our sin as willful vulnerability.
Which is exactly what it is.
So to combat that, we try to save face and bury it.
We desensitize ourselves to our sin, making us numb.
This is a dangerous place to be, because you get to a point that you don’t recognize it.
I live at about 100mph any given day.
If I’m ever late to something, I’m usually coming from something else.
This type of go, go, go does not allow for much time and intimacy with the Lord.
I was on the phone with Mike the other day and he could hear it in my voice that I was deflated.
I’m going through a job transition and I wasn’t handling it well.
Then through talking with Mike, I recognize that I hadn’t prayed for that position at all.
I hadn’t sought the Lord.
I didn’t really even care.
I was numb to the presence of God and was totally overwhelmed.
I needed to go spend time with the Lord and confess my sin to Him, so that I could receive His grace.
The Bible commands us to confess our sins
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Do you hear this? If we confess our sins—He forgives our sins and cleanses us!
Confession leads to freedom!
Confession is the act of calling our sin into the light so that it can be forgiven by Jesus!
Judah is confronted with the weight of his sin and he confesses it to the Lord.
Transition
Okay, but why is this story here?
We went from Joseph being thrown into a hole and sold into slavery by his brothers, to this big, hot, steamy interruption.
This is an essential inclusion in the Scriptures because God works through Judah’s corruption to prepare the way for His Son to come and save the world.
Tamar has the babies, and there’s an struggle at birth, similar to Jacob/Esau.
27 When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb. 28 And when she was in labor, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” 29 But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. And she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore his name was called Perez. 30 Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.
This baby, Perez, would be the next link in the lineage from Abraham that will bring about the lion of Judah: Jesus.
Judah and Tamar are not thinking about the future Savior of the world when they commit this deception and sexual immorality.
However, God is going to use this brokenness to bring about His promise of total restoration.
God used this vulnerable woman to make a way for Jesus, and now Jesus makes a way for the vulnerable to find hope and healing, and become valuable members of the family of God.
How? Because He’s a good Father to us.
Gospel presentation
He sent His Son through a lineage of broken people like us
Jesus experienced our brokenness although He was not broken.
Jesus lived perfectly according to God’s will.
He laid His perfect life down on the cross to take your sin and your shame.
God raised Him from the dead to show that despite your unfaithfulness to God, He is continually faithful to us!
He provided a Savior who would redeem us if we simply confessed our sins and trust in His finished work on the cross to forgive us.
Perhaps you’re still healing from the brokenness and failure of your earthly father.
Your heavenly Father has made a way for you to be welcomed into His family.
Would you confess your sins to the Lord, trust in Him alone for salvation, and walk in the Spirit of freedom?
You can start by taking a next step
Take the Next Step
Take the Next Step
Believe: God can redeem you and give purpose to your life
Do: Confess your sins to the Lord.
If you’re a Christian, daily repentance is a way of life.
We continually come back to Him.
(Re)turn to Jesus every day.
God works through our failures and when we humbly confess them, He will forgive us and restore us.
Invitation to receive, repent, and respond
