I am My Family's Breakthrough!

It is very interesting when you encounter new people in life and realize that your life is either not as bad as you thought it was or it was worse than what you thought it was; but whether it was better or worse compared to someone else’s upbringing, it was the life that shaped who you are today. Many people have horror stories when they look back over their life and some people have nothing but great memories and for both we thank God, but if we can be honest alot of us have at one time wished things would have been different. As we mentioned last week, some of us come from dysfunctional homes but because it was the only life we knew dysfunction was not a concept until we saw the lives of some of our friends or we saw the scripted family on TV. (Full House ‘slamming doors’/ Family Matters ‘stomping up the steps’) My sister tried that stuff and lost a door for a week and twisted her ankle and my dear sainted mother waited until she was done yelling at her before my dad got home and finally called the ambulance. (But it’s too late to report her). Some people would tell you to search the scriptures to find out the original construct of the family and see how God designed it in the beginning with one man and one woman coming together to create offspring and yes this is the way a family is made and Children are told to obey their parents because that is the only commandment with a promise connected to it, but if one thing I could not find while studying for this message was the model of a ‘perfect family’ and I know I’m not the only one in here who has an idea of the perect family and it looks nothing like your family, and the poetic side of it is that you can’t choose your family so you must accept them for who they are, you must love them flaws and all but sometimes you were upset when they picked you up from your friend’s house because the food was somehow better, there was no arguing, they let you stay up as long as you want, and now you goin back home to rules and regulations and now you wish you had someone else’s life but tell somebody I didn’t choose them, but that’s my family.

A Patriarch of the people of Israel Jacob surely has had his share of family drama from the time he was born, you must understand he is the one who grabbed on to the heel of his brother as baby trying to beat him in the race into this world, he then later with the help of him mother manipulates his dying father into giving him the birthright that belonged to his brother, and now he must flee from his family because his brother is seeking to kill him only to end up at his Uncle’s house being tricked into working for him for 14 years to have the hand of the one he loved named Rachel and eventually having having 12 sons and a daughter named Dinah who ends up running away from home because he brothers killed the man she was in love with, but thats for another time, Jacob eventually makes peace with his brother Esau after he has an experience with God because you do know that God has to change some of us just so we can realize that we are the reason there is dysfunction and maybe you need to go apologize, maybe you need to go make it right, because your apology just might be what brings the family back together AND YES IT TAKES ALL OF THAT!!! Tell somebody humble yourself!

He is now at peace and now here we are getting closer to our text and Jacob has his 12 sons but there is one who he loves more than the others, somebody say dysfunction, he has a son by the name of Joseph that he treats better than the others because he is the son he should’ve only had in the first you see he is the son of the woman Jacob was willing to work 14 years just to have as his wife, Rachel because how many of us have produced out of obligation and duty because other people needed us but our heart wasn’t really in it and once you are able to produce something that comes from your passion, you treat it differently, you’re more cautious with it and you don’t let anyone mess with it. This is the dilemna we find here in the beginning of chapter 38 because the dreamer Joseph is having dreams and it’s nothing wrong with having dreams you just have to be careful who you share it with. You must learn the difference between a dreamcatcher and a spiderweb… some of you all are just putting your dreams out there on social media in the beginning stages and when you find a dream-catcher they will get behind you and support you the whole way, but when you thought it was a dream catcher and it’s a spiderweb, you’ll be casting vision and wondering why nothing is manifesting, why no one is coming, why no one is excited and it could be because your dream is caught in a spiderweb the sucking the life out of it by the minute, but can you tell the person next to you imma catch your dreams, I want to see you make it, just let me know where you need help, and if not ill just pray about because i want to see you walk in every door you can, cause I’m a dream catcher. And I’m so excited about your dreams I’ll praise God not for my dreams but your dreams, can you take 15 seconds and thank God in advance for your neighbor’s dream.

So because of his dreams, his brothers come up with a plan to kill him, and it is very interesting how the course of events are so relative to us because it was Reuben’s idea to put him in the pit but it was Judah’s idea to get him out of the pit and this is relative to us because the name Reuben means ‘promise’ and the name Judah means ‘praise’ in other words sometimes God will give you a promise of greatness but that promise will sometimes cause you to fall into a pit, people walk out on you, your family don’t understand you, you don’t even know what’s going on because of this new place, but it was a praise that brought my mind back and got me out of the pit, it was when i decided to worship God inspite of my pit mindset that depression had to let me go, and peace like a river attended my way. My promise put me in a pit, but my praise brought me out....

Now we are at our text and Judah has left his family and went to his friend Hirah’s house and while he is there he finds a woman by the name of Bath-shua and she conceives 3 sons by him, Er, Onan and Shelah, and the oldest Er is evil therefore God just kills him, some of you ought to thank God for grace and mercy which are the only reasons God didn’t strike you down with your nasty attitude and disposition, so God takes him out and Judah comes to Onan who is next in line and tells him he must carry on Er’s name by laying with Tamar and raising the offspring for his dead brother, Onan sees a problem with this because he would be putting in work and producing and a man who was so evil he couldn’t produce will get the credit....therefore he spills his seed on the ground and God takes his life as well. So Judah comes to Tamar and says ‘don’t get married and move in with your father until the youngest Shelah grows up’ and she realizes there is a cycle and says im nervous that he will die like the others, in other words ask someone ‘do you not see the pattern’ every relationship ends in divorce, every friendship ends because of loyalty issues, we get evicted from every house, all of our cars get reposessed, somebody must stop the cycle, some of you are in college and no one in your family has never finished college, tell somebody I’m breaking cycles, some of you will be married than your parents, shout im breaking cycles, some of you will start that business, shou im breaking cycles, you will be financially secure, shout im breaking cycles!!

So time goes by and Judah’s wife dies but because he’s a man he finds himself right back to Hirah’s house (let’e talk about Hirah), some of you need to stay away from Hirah....

But what happens to Tamar who has been waiting for years to finally be able to get married and bear children, what happens to the ones who obeyed and it seems like they’ve been forgotten, what happens to the ones who have received a promise and it seems like its taking too long to come to pass, but someone comes to Tamar and tells her, ‘ Judah is going to Timnah to shear his sheep’ and she removed her widow’s garment and covered herself with a veil, in other words she realized that her time had come and she could no longer where the clothes of the last situation but she now must dress for where she is going, some of you are wearing the same clothes you wore last season which is why in your mind your going nowhere but if you can take off the widow’s garment, if you can take off you old label, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, tell somebody change you clothes (thats another message in itself) put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand against the wiles of the devil, tell somebody change your clothes.

She goes and stands at the gate like an escort so providentially which means by God’s design, Judah sees her and chooses her not knowing who she really is.