God's Chosen People
Joshua reflects on the lives of Judah and Joseph, and encourages us to look to Christ, the perfecter of our faith.
"I will never be like my parents."
Have you ever said or thought this in your life?
I know I have! Especially when my parents do things that are uncool.
For example, when I was in high school, every Saturday my Dad would always eat the same food for breakfast. He would come from Chinatown with a packet of roast pork, a container of chicken feet and he would eat them both with a bowl of noodle soup.
My Dad would eat the same breakfast every. single. week. I remember thinking to myself: “How boring, I would never want to be like my Dad. When I grow up and choose my meals it’ll be something different and exciting every week.”
Fast forward many years later to just earlier this week. I was getting lunch for myself at my local hawker center. There’s a plethora of choices but I choose to go to my regular cai fan store. I got pork belly and egg with spinach—the exact same thing I got the last time I visited this stall. In fact, I got the exact same lunch the previous week…and the week before that.
Whether I like it or not, I am like my parents. We all have the natural tendency to be like our ancestors, it is part of our natural disposition.
For Christians, we are God's chosen people, just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were. Therefore, the book of Genesis can be seen as a historical account of our ancestors. Israel's history is in fact our history.
Just a few weeks ago, we heard about the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38. The sins of Judah are obvious:
Judah does not take responsibility to do the right thing by Tamar
Judah lived a life driven by his own desires
Judah is judgemental and unjust when he sees the sin of Tamar
As I continue to reflect on this story and observe Judah, I see these exact same sinful tendencies in my own life. I am just like Judah in so many ways. I have often neglected my responsibilities, resorting instead to live in passive ignorance and forgetfulness of the things I am called to do. Many times I let my own desires take control. And I hypocritically judge the sins of others, seeking justice for the wrongs they have done against me.
I wish that the story of Judah and Tamar wasn’t part of our history because it shows me how much I am just like Judah. The sins that Judah committed back then are the same sins that I also struggle with today. My sinful nature is the same as their sinful nature.
However, thankfully the stories of our ancestors also include stories of righteousness. In the very next chapter there is the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Joseph’s triumph over sinful sexual desires is in stark contrast to Judah’s sexual immorality. He resisted sexual temptation and acted righteously, showing us that it is possible for us to live a righteous and pure life. Hebrews 4:15 says,
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.
There was another Joseph who perfectly resisted temptation and sin and remained absolutely righteous and pure. Jesus Christ is the better Joseph who knows how to resist temptation. Despite how righteous Joseph was, he was not perfect in resisting all sin, but Jesus is. He is our perfect example of what it means to live righteously.
Jesus is the one man who we do want in our history. Jesus shows us that there is a way to live righteously and resist our natural sinful tendencies. It is through faith in Him. Because Jesus has gotten victory over sin by dying on the cross, in Christ we can have a new heart, one with holy and righteous tendencies. I am thankful that we have a perfect model of righteousness in our history.