Redeemer Reformed Church of Oklahoma City

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her. But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house, she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.” –Genesis 39:6-15

Joseph was well-built and handsome. Mrs. Potiphar must have been one of the most beautiful, best-smelling, well-groomed women in all of Egypt. Joseph fled the temptation (and her command!), was accused of attempted rape, put in prison, eventually put in charge of the prison, interpreted the cupbearer’s dream giving him opportunity to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, which made him the Prime Minister of Egypt saving Egypt and the surrounding countries from starvation through his food program, which saved his family including Judah, who preserved the Godly line so that we could have Jesus and be saved from our sins with no fear of condemnation from God. All that happened because he kept his pants on when he must have really wanted to take them off (he was single, lonely, secluded, and young).

Good for him, and we should learn the lesson well: fleeing temptation, however seemingly private, may well change the world.

But there is One greater than Joseph who was tempted in every way, yet was without sin. He was not merely thrown into prison by false accusations of sin: he was thrown in the grave by false accusations of sin! And he wasn’t just raised to be the top official of a nation, but to be the King of all the Nations. He doesn’t just provide a region with food for the hungry, but he is the Bread of Life and the Living Water himself, satisfying all the hungry and thirsty with his body and blood. He didn’t go through all this for his sin because he was righteous, but for our righteousness because we are sinners.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
Jesus Paid it All
Be Thou My Vision

COMMUNITY LUNCH
Our August Community Lunch is this coming Sunday following the worship service. For more information, click here.

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.

Visitors are always welcome!

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.” 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.” 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. –Genesis 38:24-26

Judah has a first son who was married to Tamar and yet was so wicked, the Lord just killed him without explanation to us. His name was Er, which spells “evil” backwards in Hebrew. Onan, the second of Judah’s sons, married Tamar but refused to give her a child, so the Lord put him to death too. Now it was time for the third son, Shelah, to marry her. He was young, maybe 10 or 11, so Judah tells her to wait on him. Judah is not excited about this because, well, the boys aren’t faring so well with her.

At this point of course, Judah should have protected her as if he were her husband, but he just lets her go around as a widow in poverty and disgrace and then withholds the promised third son from her. He encounters her, not recognizing her because of her veil, and treats her as a prostitute getting her pregnant. He leaves his “wallet” (signet, cord, and staff) behind.

When he finds out his daughter-in-law is pregnant, he gives a quick command: “Bring her out [to the city gate] and let her be burned.” He is cruel, hypocritical, and merciless. She sends word as she’s being dragged out for him to hakker-na “recognize” the “wallet.” She is using hakker-na here, but Judah is quite familiar with the word, since, in the last chapter he presented Joseph’s goat-blood-stained robe to Jacob asking, “Hakker-na?” (“recognize this?”). Ouch! That’s the wages of sin for you.

This is a breakthrough for Judah. Instead of justifying himself, just like when Nathan the prophet confronts David, he owns up to his sin. And then the Lord uses him…a lot! One of the twins born from this union is Perez, which means “breakthrough.” And it is a breakthrough indeed, for this is the child is the 10^th great grandfather of David, from whom comes our savior, Jesus Christ. Tamar is one of the four women in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, all of whom come from outside Israel and have potentially scandalous marriages.

Judah had wanted to murder Joseph his brother, then sold him, then deceived his father about it, abandoned his daughter-in-law, got her pregnant, and sentenced her to death by burning. What a guy! Now he is being restored as the bearing of blessing to bring forth the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the seed of the serpent. Sin certainly abounded, but grace abounded all the more!

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
The Beatitudes
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. –Genesis 37:23-28

Joseph wore the robe of royal adornment. He was the one on whom the favor of the blessing bearer rested. His brothers hated him for it so they mocked him (37:20), sold him for silver, stripped him of his robe, led him away to crucify him, ate to their fill while he remained empty, and sold him.

Jesus Christ wrote the robe of royal adornment (Matt. 27:28). He was the one on whom the favor of God rested (Matt. 3:17). His “brothers” hated him for it (John 15:24) so when “they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him(Matt. 27:31). He was sold to the enemy for silver (Matt. 27:15).

The next time Joseph’s brothers would eat their fill with him was when he was at the head of the table (43:32-34), and treated them not as they deserved, but with grace and mercy.

The next time we will eat our fill with Jesus is when he is the head of the table at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9,17), and he treats us not as our sins deserve since he has been crucified for them, but with grace and mercy forever and ever.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
All Creatures of Our God and King
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Lift High the Cross

MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
Don’t forget the men’s prayer breakfast this Saturday (August 7) at 8:30am at the church!

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” –Genesis 35:1-3

God calls Jacob and his family to get up and get out of this place where (because of the events of chapter 34) they’ve gone from being peaceful shepherds to predatory warriors by killing so many men in Shechem. It’s going to take faith for them to do that because it isn’t safe anymore. That’s easy though, since we see that God terrified everyone around them and they moved on safely.

The difficult thing is the purity part. Jacob realizes they have foreign gods with them, especially referring to the household gods Rachel had stolen from Laban. They even seem to have pagan jewelry in their ears. Verse 4 says they “hid” them. It’s an unusual Hebrew word that means something like “dumped.” It’ a demeaning word to insult the gods. They had been sat upon (31:33-35) and are now denigrated to their final burial. That’s pretty much not what you’d want in your god(s)!

So then in verse 3 Jacob’s family goes from the gods to the God who answers them in the day of distress (not like the foreign gods who are themselves in distress!). They go to the God who is with them through all their travels, unlike the foreign gods who must be toted here and there. And they go to the place where the special presence of the Lord may be found.

Every day, but especially every Lord’s Day, we are called to put away the foreign gods among us and go to the place where the special presence of the Lord is found in what is Bethel for us this side of the cross: the preaching of the Word and the table of the Lord. There we proclaim publicly to all who would see that we worship the one true God and trample idols underfoot. More than any other place, because of Christ’s life, death, burial, and resurrection, it’s in the public worship of God Almighty that we are renewed in our day of distress, purified by his blood, and we have our garments changed from filthy rags to the righteous robes of Christ.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty
Psalm 146 (Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah)
Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15.

Visitors are always welcome!

And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two female servants. And he put the servants with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.

But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. –Genesis 33:1-4

Jacob had had quite a night. He wrestled with God and was permanently maimed from the experience. Without sleep he did not have the strength to fight with Esau nor was his apparently peak physical condition peak anymore. Esau had his 400-man militia there too. Jacob moved the shield of his family out of the way and bowed down to his brother seven times from whom he stole the blessing 20 years before. Interestingly this is quite a reversal from the blessing Isaac gave Jacob (thinking it was Esau): Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you (Gen. 27:29).

Jacob was promised just a few hours before that he would win (his new name Israel), but this looks rough. Maybe, just maybe, Esau would spare the women and children.

But Esau ran, met, embraced, fell, kissed, and wept.

When we are at the end of ourselves, when we have nothing but the gospel promises, when our strength and self-justification is gone, and we know that we would justly be obliterated because of our sin, well, that’s such a great to be. That’s the place where the one who has every right to judge us for our sin meets us the way the father met the prodigal son. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:20).

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Come, Christians, Join to Sing
Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed
Take My Life

LADIES’ FELLOWSHIP
The Redeemer ladies will enjoy seeing The Jerusalem Collection exhibit Saturday, July 24, 10:00 am at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum. Lunch will follow afterwards at the Prairie Thunder Baking Company. RSVP here. All ladies are invited.

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” ⁷ Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, ⁸ thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.” ⁹ ¶ And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ ¹⁰ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. ¹¹ Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. ¹² But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” –Genesis 32:6-12

Finally, no more scheming, no more deception; just recounting and praying the gospel, the promises of God! Jacob repents: he acknowledges his unworthiness, confesses his weakness, and recalls the gospel promises. “Repent” means something like “a change of mind.” Your mind is changed about how what you believe and consequently what you’ve done. That’s a huge part of repentance.

Non-biblical repentance is deadly. Jacob has the real thing in this passage. For the religious, non-biblical repenter, repentance usually means something like turning away from doing the wrong thing and turning to doing the right thing. That is a kind of repentance, but you don’t need Christ for it. Plus, we don’t have the willpower to do it anyway and come up with petty righteousness to feel that we are, well, righteous. Then we surround ourselves with others who are “righteous” like we are, feeling safe and warm in our little community—a constant danger for all Christians.

Repentance for the gospel-believer is not turning from doing the wrong thing to doing the right thing; repentance for the gospel-believer is turning from doing the wrong thing and turning to Christ to receive and believe what he says about you. That’s biblical repentance; that’s what Jacob is doing here. Jacob falls into the everlasting arms of God, entrusting himself fully to God’s infinite wisdom in the revealed promises.

The purpose of repentance is to reenter repeatedly into the reality of your union with Christ so that your passions for the things contrary to God’s will are weakened over time. Don’t make the mistake of believing that the purpose of repentance is to satisfy God so he will bless you and answer your prayers. Christ is the one who has satisfied God ensuring perfect blessing and just the right answer to every prayer.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Rejoice, the Lord is King
Like a River Glorious
Jesus Shall Reign Where’re the Sun

LADIES’ FELLOWSHIP
The Redeemer ladies will enjoy seeing The Jerusalem Collection exhibit Saturday, July 24, 10:00 am at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum. Lunch will follow afterwards at the Prairie Thunder Baking Company. RSVP here. All ladies are invited.

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched tents in the hill country of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee secretly and trick me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre? And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? Now you have done foolishly. It is in my power to do you harm. But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’ And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house, but why did you steal my gods?” Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our kinsmen point out what I have that is yours, and take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. –Genesis 31:25-32

Laban exploited Jacob and his daughters for 20 years and still experienced God’s blessing because of Jacob’s favored status with the Lord. Laban must have thought that he was sowing deceit and manipulation, but reaping blessing, i.e., he thought he was getting away with it. But, don’t be deceived, God is not mocked. In the end, usually later than we might like, but in God’s perfect timing the tables are turned. Jacob and his wives depart with riches and triumph majestically over Laban without a violent act. Laban’s greed robs him, leaving him without wealth or daughters and their children.

God warns Laban directly, but Laban does exactly what God told him not to do. Such is the way sin works because Laban wants his household gods much more than his son-in-law, daughters, and grandchildren.

Jacob left the land of his father with nothing and was blessed by God even in terrible hardships, just as Jesus left behind the glories of heaven and for our sakes went out into the wilderness of the sin-stricken world with nothing. Jacob faced temptations and trials (of course, he resorted to deceit and trickery and idols), but Jesus faced temptation and trials and was perfect in them. God rescues Jacob from the “world” and gets him back to the Promised Land in spite of his sin. God raises Jesus from the “world” and gets him back to the Promised Land because he had no sin, but was made sin for all of us who resort to deceit and trickery and idols. Neither one of these lives are the way we would have done it if we were running the world! God alone has the glory.

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
Breathe On Me, Breath of God
Lead On, O King Eternal

LADIES’ FELLOWSHIP
The Redeemer ladies will enjoy seeing The Jerusalem Collection exhibit Saturday, July 24, 10:00 am at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum. Lunch will follow afterwards at the Prairie Thunder Baking Company. RSVP here. All ladies are invited.

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? –Genesis 30:1-2

The entire passage from which the two verses above is taken outlines the rank idolatry of the entire family. Jacob’s idol is Rachel, Leah’s idol is Jacob, and Rachel’s idol is having children. Idols are terrible. We all have them and will struggle with them until we die. If only they were as simple as little golden statues or stone figures!

One way to figure out what your idols are is to trace back the source of your most negative emotions. What causes that ridiculous anger you have? What am I so intensely worried about all night that I can’t sleep? What would put me over into total despair? Perhaps most of all: what do I protect with lies and deception?

Rachel reveals her idol without hesitation, “Give me children, or I shall die!” Rachel is jealous of her sister who is having children pretty much back-to-back. Leah has no difficulty doing what barren Rachel cannot. Leah’s idol, however, is not having children. Hers is Jacob’s love. Rachel, at least most of the time, has it. Sadly, Rachel is jealous of a sister who has everything she wants and Leah is jealous of a sister who has everything she wants, and neither holds precious what she has been given.

Jacob is put out with Rachel’s question (idols never satisfy!) and utters a rhetorical question: “Am I in the place of God, who has withhold from you the fruit of the womb?” Yes, it is a theological certitude, but most definitely not an answer of a loving husband. When Isaac found his wife was barren, he prayed for her. Jacob encouraged his wife to blame God rather than pray. Tragically and ironically she gets children and still dies in childbearing (Gen. 35:16-19).

The only answer for their inner emptiness they so desperately try to fill is the Lord with his promises. Jacob bears the blessing with a promise: those who bless Jacob will be blessed and those who dishonor him will be cursed (Gen. 27:29). Jacob has personally encountered the promises of God even seeing the gate of Heaven! Neither he nor his wives believe them for a good deal of their lives and the consequences are horrific.

We don’t just have trouble filling our inner emptiness with Christ instead of the things of the world. We simply can’t. We need help. The church at worship is the place where you should get that help. When you go to a church that worships not as merely seems best to them, but according the scripture, this will cause you to face God’s demands, your failure, and Christ’s provision. We need that in great measure! There is one whose only satisfaction was the promises, love, will, and face of his Heavenly Father. We can never climb the ladder he climbed because we’re too weak to climb up, so he came down to set us free not just from the things that enslave us, but even from the law itself (Gal. 3:23-26). “Give me Christ, or I shall die!”

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Sing Praise to God, Who Reigns Above
Fairest Lord Jesus
Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder

MEN’S PRAYER BREAKFAST
We would normally have our Men’s Prayer Breakfast this Saturday (July 3), but we’re taking a month off for the holiday weekend. Please plan on the next one: Saturday, August 7.

SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her. (Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant.) And in the morning, behold, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” Laban said, “It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. –Genesis 29:21-26

Jacob works for Laban seven years so he can marry Rachel. Even their initial meeting is a contrast to what should have been. His mother, Rebecca, met his father’s servant at a well. The servant was wise, prayerful, and acknowledged God’s providential hand. Other than meeting at a well, Jacob has almost nothing in common with Abraham’s servant who was on a similar mission before him. In contrast, Jacob was on the run from his deceit and apparently doesn’t pray one word when he meets Rachel.

He does not claim the gospel promises given to him by his father so Laban could maybe make the right decision. He doesn’t claim the gospel promises given to him by God in the dream of the ladder showing the gate of heaven. He just cuts a deal with Laban, which is mostly financial.

So the seven years are complete and they have a feast, indicated by the Hebrew word to be a “drinking feast.” Jacob having had a bit too much mixed together with the dark of night, and separated by the bridal veil, ends up with Leah, the half-blind rejected girl.

Obviously Jacob was furious and felt betrayed. Are we to feel all that sorry for him? In Genesis 27 two brothers were exchanged by a trick during the dark of night after some eating and drinking and behind the veil of Isaac’s blindness. Jacob’s protest is met by Laban’s cutting remark (paraphrased here): “Where we come from, we don’t let the younger get ahead of the older.” That probably left a mark on Jacob to help him remember that one reaps as he sows.

Is there any gospel in this? It doesn’t look good, but of course there is! This is, after all, “about him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth” (John 1:54). The good news is this: human sin, weakness, foolishness, and all manner of evil cannot thwart the redemptive plan of God.

The girl unwanted by her father, half-blind, and utterly unloved by her husband, Leah, is where we see this. When we read the line above, “And in the morning, behold, it was Leah!” we tend to think of that as Jacob’s profoundest disappointment. Maybe it sounds more like this: “And in the morning—O man—it was the wrong one, Leah, ewww!” But that would be a tragic mistake if we read it that way. Here’s what we should see instead: “And in the morning, behold, it was Leah, the mother of Judah, David, and Jesus Christ the Savior of the world!”

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. (1 Cor. 1:27)

And that’s the gospel! Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.

The related hymns we’ll sing are:
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
The King of Love My Shepherd Is (Psalm 23)
It is Well with My Soul

This Sunday following the service is our June Community Lunch at the church in the “Tuscan Cafe”. Everyone is welcomed to enjoy.

Sunday school for children (in Genesis) and adults (in Galatians) is continues. Coffee and other treats are served at 9:15, teaching begins at 9:30, and we break to get ready for worship at 10:15. 

Visitors are always welcome!