Shameful Past, Glorious Future

0:31Then Jacob called his sons and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come. Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob. Listen to Israel your father. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity, and preeminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence. Because you went up to your father's bed, then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Weapons of violence are their swords.

1:14Let my soul come not into their counsel. O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger. For it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. 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 is a lion's cub.

1:52From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples, binding his fold 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.

2:27His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth wider than milk. Zebulin shall dwell at the shore of the sea, he shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall be at Sidon. Issachar is a strong donkey crouching between the sheepfolds. He saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant at forced labor. Dan shall judge his people as. as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path that bites the horse's heels, so that his rider falls backward.

3:11I wait for your salvation, O Lord. Raider shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels. Asher's food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies. Naphtali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful fawns. Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring. His branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely. Yet his bow remained unmoved, his arms were made agile, by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob.

3:50From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. By the God of your Father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you, with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breast and of the womb. The blessings of your Father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey, and at evening dividing the spoil.

4:30This is God's word. You may be seated. Many of you are probably familiar with John Newton. John Newton is known to most as a faithful pastor, as the author of the most famous song ever written, Amazing Grace, and as an abolitionist for the slave trade. But the majority of his early life couldn't have been any different. In fact, if you had met John Newton in his early days, you would have never suspected that he would become a Christian one day, much less a pastor.

5:09After his mother died when he was seven, John was directionless and he was angry at the world. He made a series of very terrible decisions. He alienated almost every one of his employers, and he distanced himself from almost anything having to do with Christianity. Here's what John Newton said about himself at one point. I was exceedingly vile. I not only sinned with a high hand myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others upon every occasion.

5:46And this is no exaggeration. If you've never read a biography of John Newton, I would highly recommend one by Jonathan Aitken. It came out about 10 years ago. It's an excellent story. It's called From Disgrace to Amazing Grace. The biography of John Newton. Newton. Newton was engaged in almost every kind of sin imaginable, and every part of his early life could have only been described as shameful. But through a series of providential circumstances, John Newton came to faith in Christ.

6:15He was almost killed at sea in a terrible storm, and then God providentially put all kinds of people in his life that pointed him to Christ until the Holy Spirit won him over and he was saved. He then went on to write all of those great hymns, including Amazing Grace. He became an abolitionist, and he led two growing churches to greater faithfulness and fruitfulness in gospel ministry. God had redeemed his shameful past for a glorious future.

6:43Friends, last week we saw Joseph adopt and bless Ephraim and Manasseh, who is Joseph's two sons. And this week he's going to meet with all of his other sons, the remaining twelve, one final time in order to bless them before he dies. But the reality is many of them made choices that made it impossible for him to pronounce blessing on them. The things that they had done earlier in their lives had set the course for their future and the consequences that were to come. And friends, when we think about our own lives, many of us can relate to those brothers.

7:19Though it's to varying degrees, all of us have a shameful past because all of us were born sinful. All of us have said things and done things, thought things. That we're not proud of. Our past is also filled with shame to one degree or another. But the good news of the gospel that we're going to see as we go through Genesis 49 today is that in Christ, God redeems our shameful past for a glorious future. So let's think about the text together here in Genesis 49.

7:54You see at the outset of the chapter that Jacob calls his 12 sons together, and according to verse 1, he calls them together to tell them what shall happen to them in the days to come. Well, if you read ahead to verse 28, it says after this section that he blessed each one of them with a blessing that was suitable to them. So the question is, which is it? Is he simply telling the future, this is what's going to happen to you? Is he prophesying?

8:23Or is he blessing his sons in the sense that we would think of blessing? Is he telling them, these are the good things that I'm hoping and praying for you, that I hope that God will do in your life? Well, friends, the reality is that to some extent, each son had determined what was going to be happening in his life, whether he would be blessed or not, by the choices that he made earlier in his life. And this is a theme that we see all through the scriptures. Look at Ecclesiastes 11 on the screen.

8:56Solomon says, Rejoice, O young man, in your youth. And let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. So many, both in Solomon's day and in our day, live as though today's choices aren't going to have any real impact on future blessings. They live as though today's choices aren't going to have any real consequences for the future. And we know both from Scripture and from our own experience that the younger a person is, the more likely it is that he or she believes that.

9:39That the choices that we make today don't really affect our futures in any kind of meaningful sense. But the Bible teaches something very different. It teaches that our choices do have consequences. It teaches the principle that we will reap whatever we sow, whether that's good or it's bad. We will reap whatever we sow in this life or in the next or both. And so when it comes to Jacob's twelve sons, we know that about half of them made choices that would have serious and significant consequences, not just for them, but for their descendants. About six of his sons made those kinds of choices. And the result is that although Jacob, like any father, wants to bless his sons, he wants to pronounce good things on them and he hopes good things for their future. The reality is that so many of them had made choices that made good things coming in the future an impossibility in some sense. Now, we know little information about most of Jacob's sons, and so we are left to wonder about his predictions for several of the boys. So, look at verses 14 and 15 when he's talking about Issachar.

10:52Why is it that Issachar is going to become a servant despite his great strength? That question isn't answered for us in the book of Genesis. Look at verses 16 and 17 concerning Dan. Why is Dan described as a viper that bites horses' heels and causes riders to fall backward? Again, that question is not answered in Genesis. Verse 19, when he's talking about Gad. Why is Gad's tribe going to be raided? And why will they become raiders in return?

11:30These questions are largely unanswered in the book of Genesis, even though when we read into Exodus and then into Joshua and Judges and beyond, we see that all of these predictions come to pass. All of these prophecies prove true. But when we look at Jacob's first three sons, Reuben and Simeon and Levi, it's not any mystery to us. There's no question why he speaks to them the way that he does. Look at verses 3 and 4 again.

12:00Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and pre-eminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed. Then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. You see, as Jacob's firstborn, Reuben was entitled to all of the rights and all of the privileges of the firstborn. He would have been the family's leader after Jacob's death. He was supposed to receive the double portion of the inheritance.

12:37But Reuben forfeited his rights as the firstborn because of his actions on the way to Ephrith. He went and he committed adultery with Bilhah, who was Rachel's servant. Now, at the time, Reuben may have thought that he had gotten away with his sin. He may have thought that there was no real consequences for what he did. But we see here that years later, there were serious consequences. He forfeited his rights as the firstborn son for a few moments of pleasure decades earlier. There's no way that Reuben now looks back on that instance and says, that was worth it.

13:21And yet, all of us are familiar with the temptation. Some of us have fallen into similar sin because we believe. That same lie. This is worth it. These few moments of pleasure are worth it. The consequences, if they ever come, won't be as bad as the goodness of the pleasure that I'm about to receive. Many of us, all of us at some level, have believed those lies. But look at what Proverbs 6 says on the screen.

13:52He who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. Just look at the wisdom that we get from Proverbs 6. He who commits adultery lacks sense. It doesn't even make sense. It doesn't even make sense. And all of us know it, either by experience or through seeing what it does in the lives of other people. You talk to people that have fallen into this sin and you see it on the news as politicians or famous athletes or other people confess that this is what they've done and it's destroyed their lives. And you see time and time again them saying something to the effect of, I don't know what I was thinking. The Bible says, yes, that's exactly right. You don't know what you're thinking when you do that because it makes no sense. He who commits adultery lacks sense. And Reuben looking Back on this instance, now that he has lost all that was his by virtue of being the firstborn son, he would say the same thing: I've destroyed myself for a few moments of pleasure.

15:16You look at verses five through seven, and we're reminded of Simeon and Levi's sin. Simeon and Levi are brothers, weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their counsel. O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

15:50You may remember back several months ago when we looked at Genesis chapter 34, Dinah, who was Simeon and Levi's sister, she was seen by this man named Shechem when they were living in the area that his family ruled, and he wanted to be with her, and so he seized her and lay with her. He violated her. And the result was that Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, lied to the men of the area. They said, If you want to marry Dinah, then you've got to be circumcised as we are. We can't allow anyone into our family that has not been circumcised. But the whole thing was a ruse because after they had the operation, they went. And they fell upon them. They killed all the males in the city. They plundered the whole city.

16:37And if you remember back, we talked about the fact that at the time, they probably felt their response was justified. They probably felt like vengeance needed to be taken, that this could not go overlooked, that they needed to be the hand of justice. And yet we see here that years later, these sons, who would have been next in line to receive the double portion of the inheritance, all the rights of the firstborn, they forfeited it as well because of their anger, because of their sinful response to being sinned against.

17:14Look on the screen at Romans 12. Paul says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. We talked about the fact that when we are sinned against, there's nothing that we can do, no vengeance that we can take that's ever going to make that sin go away. No matter how we try to punish the people who sinned against us, whether they ruined our reputation or hurt our family member or hurt us in some way, physically or financially or emotionally, there's nothing that we can do to them that's going to make that sin go away. Go away.

18:03Our only options are to live in bitterness forever, or to try to carry out justice ourselves, or to absorb the cost of their sin, and to look to Christ, who absorbed the cost of our sin and who promises us that he will take vengeance at the right time. But Simeon and Levi either didn't believe that or they forgot that, and they took vengeance into their own hands. And as a result, they too lost the inheritance. And so, Jacob's sons, the sons through whom all of God's promises were going to be realized, we see they had a shameful past. And this is without even reflecting on Judah and his sin against Tamar. This is without even reflecting on the fact that all 12 of them were guilty because they conspired against Joseph to sell him into slavery. And then they conspired together to lie to Jacob their father, not just one time, but for 25 years.

19:08They had to lie to him day after day about what really happened to their brother. And as we know, their guilty consciences were on full display when they stood before Joseph finally, remembering what they had done to him all those years before. So, friends, Jacob's sons had a shameful past. It was marked by grievous sins. But you and I are no different. See, some of us have pasts that look more like Reuben's, Simeon's, and Levi's. We have a past that was filled with sins that were very public. They carried serious consequences at the time or maybe even going forward.

19:52Some of us have committed murder, theft, adultery. We've told lies. And some of us even have criminal records to prove those things. But others of us, our past looks more like the other brothers. The sins are more private. They're not as well known. Maybe they're not known to anyone but you. They didn't carry any immediate consequences. Perhaps they've carried no consequences for you even to this day. But it doesn't change the fact that whatever your past is, when we've sinned against God and we've sinned against others, no matter how many people know about it and no matter how many consequences there were at the time, all of that represents a shameful past that would disqualify us from receiving God's future blessings. We've sinned against him and we've sinned against others and we deserve just punishment. Look at what Romans 3 says on the screen.

20:55None is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

21:35And so, as Jacob gets through the first half of his sons and he's pronouncing these prophecies, these predictions, these blessings, you come to verse 18, and look at what he says. He cries out in verse 18, I wait for your salvation, O Lord. And the question is, why is that there? Why there in the middle of this whole section where he's dealing with his sons and their future? I think Jacob at this point becomes overwhelmed as he reflects on the sins that his sons have committed and as he reflects on his own sin, his own shameful past.

22:18And friends, when we reflect on our lives, the sins that we've committed against God and others, it can do nothing but point us to the reality that all of us need a Savior. All of us stand in need of the grace of God. But where is the salvation going to come from? Well, as we'll see, this salvation is going to come from God through Judah, a sinful but redeemed man, which reminds us that God redeems our shameful past for a glorious future. Look with me now at verse 22 as we start to reflect on our glorious future as God's people.

23:02He talks to Joseph in these verses, and he says, Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring. His branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved. His arms were made agile by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel, by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above.

23:37By this point, most of us are very familiar with Joseph's story. How he was sold into slavery by his brothers, how, although he was promoted in Egypt, he was lied about and thrown into prison and left there for years, although he had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve that. We're familiar with Joseph's. Joseph's story, and so Jacob reminds him and reminds the other brothers and reminds us today that God never once left Joseph. Although he was attacked and shot at, his bow remained unmoved. His arms were strengthened by God. Despite years of sufferings and setbacks, God had been his stone and his shepherd and would bless him with blessings of heaven above. And he says here later in those verses, they're going to exceed even the blessings that Jacob received from Isaac his father and from Abraham his grandfather.

24:37You see, great blessing was going to come to Joseph in spite of all that he suffered. And Joseph's life is a reminder to us that no matter what we suffer in this life, whether that suffering is brought about by our own sin and folly or whether that suffering is at the hands of others, no matter how much suffering we endure in this life, God has promised a glorious future for those who love him and serve him. God has promised great blessing to his people. And we see that most clearly in what he says to Judah. So back up to verse 8 now and look at this with me.

25:13He says, 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 is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down. Crouched as a lion, and as a lioness, who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

25:50As we noted before, Judah committed grievous sins against Tamar. He withheld justice from her, he committed adultery with her, and then he was going to have her stoned for her sin, all the while pretending to be a righteous person. He was a hypocrite of the worst variety. And when we think about Judah and his sin, we're reminded he is no better than Reuben or Simeon or Levi. What's the difference here? Friends, the difference is that Judah was clearly repentant for his sins. And Judah demonstrated his repentance when he stood before Joseph and he said, I am willing to take Benjamin's place. Don't enslave my brother, enslave me for the rest of my life. I'm willing to take his place. Judah demonstrated that by the grace of God, he was a completely different person, a changed man. God had redeemed his shameful past for a glorious Future. And now we read at the end of Jacob's life that God is going to use Judah to bring blessing not just to Jacob's descendants, but to all the peoples of the earth. You see in verses 8 and 9 that Judah's hand is going to be on the neck of his enemies, that his brothers are going to bow down to him. Judah would rule as a lion rules in the wilderness. And at first glance, when you look at those verses, it just sounds like Jacob is saying that Judah is going to be powerful, that his brothers are going to respect him and bow down to him, that his enemies will be defeated, he will be victorious over them. That's all it seems to be saying.

27:42But it becomes clear as you read on that there is so much more at work here. Because in verses 10 through 12, Jacob says this: the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. So, in other words, Judah is not just going to rule over his brothers for a short period of time. He's not just going to rule his enemies for a short period of time. He's going to rule forever. And more than that, he's just not going to rule over his brothers and his enemies in that immediate territory. He's going to rule all people forever.

28:24But that's not possible if it's simply talking about Judah and one of Judah's descendants. You see that in the next verses. It says that he's going to be able to tie his colt to the most productive vine in the vineyard and to wash his garments not merely in clean water, but in wine. Look at what Baldwin has to say about this. The man who can, without a thought, bind his mount to a vine and wash his garments in wine is living in paradise. This poem is looking forward to the day when food shortages are no more, harvests are abundant, and wars have ceased because everyone gives allegiance to God's king and enjoys the sheer bounty of his provision. God's intention for humanity is nothing less than paradise restored.

29:23I want you to reflect on that last line for a moment. God's intention for humanity is nothing less than paradise restored. What a beautiful statement of hope. But friends, for that statement to become reality, God first has to restore paradise in his people. Paradise has to be restored in us before we can be placed back into paradise. He can't simply put fallen people back into paradise. You remember when we studied Genesis 3 to Together. Adam and Eve fell into sin when they chose to believe the serpent rather than the word of God. And their rebellion left them, along with all of their descendants, dead in sin and alienated from God.

30:14And since God ruled over not just the Garden of Eden, but will rule over the new paradise that he is creating, then God has to change his people from the inside before he can place them back into paradise. Paradise has to be restored in us first. In other words, God is going to have to redeem our shameful pasts to give us this glorious future. And he's going to accomplish that through Judah's descendant, Jesus. In Matthew's Gospel, an angel appears to Joseph and gives him a message. Look at Matthew 1:21.

30:55It says, She, Mary, will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. See, Jesus was a descendant of Judah, and he came to defeat our greatest enemies, sin and death. The very enemies that caused us to be banished in the first place from the Garden of Eden, the original paradise. And the same enemies that would prevent us from entering into the The paradise that God is creating in the new heavens and the new earth. That's why Jesus came. You see, unlike us, Jesus lived a perfect life of obedience to God. He did nothing shameful, nothing unrighteous. And at the end of his ministry, he entered into Jerusalem and all of the people bowed down to him, just as the prophecy about Judah said.

31:55But just a short time later, all of the people condemned him. He was condemned to die as a criminal. Before he was crucified, soldiers mocked him. They put a purple robe around him, they put a reed in his hand, they twisted together a crown of thorns and they pressed it down on his forehead. And they said, Hail, King of the Jews. Pontius Pilate, the governor over the area, nailed a sign above Jesus' head that said, Here is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, in three languages.

32:32And I think many of us don't reflect on how shameful the death of the cross was. But you think about times that you have been so sick or so injured, you don't want all of these people staring at you, you don't want all of these people watching you in your suffering, and yet Jesus, almost naked, is beaten to a pulp and then nailed to a cross. And the entire community is invited. Out to watch this man suffer for hours until he dies. The death of the cross was one of the most shameful ways to die, and Jesus died this death in our place according to God's plan.

33:16Look at the encouragement that we receive from Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 on the screen. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

33:59Jesus, for you and me, endured the cross. He despised the shame of it all. He said, the shame that I am experiencing right now, I am experiencing for the people that I love, that I'm giving my life for. He despised all of that as he set his eyes on the joy that was before him. He did that for us. He died a shameful death in our place, in your place and mine. Through faith in him, every single one of us is forgiven. Through faith in him, every one of us is justified. Through faith in him, we are adopted into his family and treated as sons and daughters.

34:46And so, friends, I think it's always true that anytime we gather together, people walk through the door, maybe you, who are dealing with an incredible amount of shame. You think back on decisions that you made 10 years ago, or two years ago, or a few months ago, or last night, and you think on the shame that you feel. And you convince yourself, there is no way that I could ever approach the throne of God because of what I've done.

35:24But, friends, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus took your shame on the cross. He died a shameful death so that you could approach the throne of grace with confidence to find mercy and find grace in your time of need. And so, if you are a believer in Jesus this morning, my hope for you is that you would believe the truth that Jesus Himself has taken away all of your shame. And that there's no penance you need to pay, no religious duties you need to perform in order to approach the throne of grace with confidence, knowing that you will be accepted by God because of what Jesus has done.

36:15Nothing can separate us from the love of God because of what Jesus has done. And so I pray that you would believe that in those moments that you are most tempted to believe your feelings, that there's no way you could be accepted. And for those of you who came in this morning and you are crushed under a weight of sin and shame, and you know you've never trusted in Jesus, but you also know that you feel so guilty and so oppressed by the things that you've done, I want you to know that there is hope in Jesus and in Jesus alone. I want you to know that he has taken your shame on the cross and that all of the benefits of forgiveness and being declared righteous and having your sin removed as far as the east is from the west, all of those things are offered to you in Christ if you will trust him. If you will turn from your sin and place your faith in Jesus, you don't have to carry around your shame anymore.

37:22And so, friends, when we read the book of Genesis or we read any book in the Bible, we're not just reading history. We're reading the story of God's people, which is to say, we're reading our own story. Jacob's family had a shameful past, whether those brothers sinned privately or publicly, in greater ways or in lesser ways. And in the same way, every one of us has a shameful past, whether we've sinned privately or publicly, in greater ways or in lesser ways. But the good news of the gospel is that in Christ, God redeems our shameful past for a glorious future. Let's pray.

38:12Father, the weight of the guilt that we have felt concerning our sin is crushing. And every one of us is there or has been there before, feeling crushed under the weight of sin and under the guilt that it brings. Just like the author of Proverbs 6, we look back on some of our choices and we say in agreement, what was I thinking? This decision makes no sense. It was not worth it. Sin did not deliver the pleasure that it promised or the prosperity that it promised.

39:19And so, Lord, we identify with these brothers who have a shameful past. But we celebrate the fact that in Christ, all of the weight, all of the guilt, all of the eternal consequences have been lifted off our shoulders and off of our hearts, off of our souls. And we can go about in freedom and in joy because Jesus took our shame. Thank you, Jesus. God, I pray for every Christian here today who still feels burdened, who still feels shackled by guilt and shame.

40:16I pray that as we will sing when Satan tempts them to despair and tells us of the guilt within, we would look upward. And see him there who made an end of all our sin. And Father, I certainly pray for those who have come this morning who are not yet Christians, who came here today, possibly because they were looking for answers, finding none anywhere else. All of the self-help books and all of the self-help hosts and everything else, they've all failed. All of the religion has failed them. All of the attempts to do more good than bad have failed. They're still saddled with guilt.

41:15I pray for them that they would lay it all at the feet of Jesus, believing that his life and death and resurrection was sufficient to pay for their sins, past, present, and future, and that they would be set free from guilt and shame today to live a new life of freedom in Christ. God, thank you for your word. And thank you for redeeming our shameful past for a glorious future. In Christ's name, amen.