Can You Come Back From a Huge Mess-Up? - Three Lessons From The Life of Judah
Even if you’ve not read the Bible, you can probably still name many of the heroes whose stories shape many Christian beliefs. There’s David, and Joseph, and Abraham, and Noah, and of course Jesus’ mom, Mary. If you do study the Bible, then you probably know of Hebrews chapter 11, commonly referred to as the Hall of Faith. It contains quick mention of a list of some Biblical heroes and the huge faith that they had displayed in their life and work.
While there are countless lessons to be gleaned from the main characters, there are countless other lesser known characters whose stories offer us just as much value in terms of the issues of life. One such character is Judah. If I were to mention Judah to most people, the first thought that may come to mind would be the phrase “The Lion of Judah,” or the fact that Judah is one of the 12 tribes of Israel.
Judah’s Backstory
While there is much to Judah’s life, I want to focus on two specific, unrelated, but very similar events. As one of Joseph’s older brothers, Judah colluded with the other brothers to get rid of Joseph. The brothers were envious of Joseph for two reasons. First, their father Jacob didn’t hide the fact that Joseph was his favorite. As a kid hearing that your sibling was the favorite by a wide margin, that could certainly insight some envy, anger and bitterness. Second, Joseph comes to his brothers one day with a dream that basically elevates him to king status over his brothers. Man, I didn’t have a younger brother, but I have three younger sisters. If any of them came up to me when we were younger with a dream that they would be queen and I would serve them someday…talk about sibling rivalry!
So back to the two events.
Event 1 – Let’s make a deal!
Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother? We’d have to cover up the crime. Instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother—our own flesh and blood!” And his brothers agreed. – Genesis 37:26-27 NLT
We see here that Judah is the one who suggested selling Joseph as a slave. Perhaps that was a more merciful option than killing him outright like the other brothers were suggesting, but let’s not gloss over Judah’s motive here. His motive was personal gain, not his brother’s welfare. He knew full well that Joseph could be killed as a slave anyway. It was easier, and cleaner of a crime to sell him into the abyss of slavery than to commit a murder and have to cover it up.
Event 2 – Let’s make a deal…again!
There’s a lot that happened between event 1 and event 2, but these two similar events can teach us something as leaders.
Fast forward quite a bit to find the irony of the circumstances played out in HD. There is a famine in the land, and only Egypt has any food. Joseph is second in command in all of Egypt and under his leadership Egypt was able to store up 7 years worth of food to get them through the famine Pharaoh dreamed about. Jacob sends his sons, all but Benjamin the youngest, to go to Egypt to get food and we have one of the most ironic, yet exciting confrontations in the Bible. Judah and his brothers are face to face with Joseph, and not knowing it’s him, are begging for food for their family.
Joseph sends them away, and also gets a little crafty in order to test them. After scaring the pants off of them, he tells his brothers that they need to prove that they are not spies posing as hungry foreigners. The brothers try to convince Joseph to no avail. Joseph’s requirement in order to prove that they are not spies is that they go home and bring back the youngest son, and leave him in Egypt as sort of a good-faith pledge. Once the brothers get back to their father Jacob and relay this news, Jacob will sure need some convincing in order to let his youngest go, especially after losing Joseph years ago.
This is where a different version of Judah comes in.
Then Judah said to Israel his father, "Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. – Genesis 43:8-9 NIV
This is the same guy from the first event who was willing to sell his brother as a slave. Now he’s putting his neck out there on behalf of his brother’s safety. His concern here seemed to be more focused on the family as a whole, than just himself as it was in event 1.
Joseph provides him another opportunity to prove he is changed when he has his Egyptian servants plant a silver cup in Benjamin’s bag as they were heading home. Joseph playing dirty cop here, planted evidence of a crime on his younger brother to test what the other brothers would do.
As Joseph begins to hand out the sentence of slavery to Benjamin, Judah steps up. Judah chop!
"Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers." – Genesis 44:33 NIV
Judah is willing to put his own life on the line for the sake of his youngest brother, and the well-being of his father. Hardly the same portrait of a man we see in the first event. Same man. Two events. One, he’s a human trafficker. The other, he’s sacrificing his life for someone.
While you may not have those two extremes play out in your life, and I hope you do not, we can all learn something from Judah’s transformational story.
3 Takeaways From Judah’s Story
1 – We can’t change the past, but we can change.
You’ve made mistakes in the past. I know I sure have. I wish I could go back and right or re-write those wrongs. All I can do, all anyone can do is decide to do good going forward. Judah already had a reputation as being selfish and willing to do whatever it took to get ahead. Yet, he somehow found change along the way, not change in how to go about getting what he wanted, but change in himself.
"What if you made decisions based on the belief that others are number one?"
Perhaps in business, you’ve treated some people unfairly in the past. Perhaps you’ve gone about things in a way that put you first, and we’re told to do that in our society. The common phrase is heard often, “I gotta look out for number one!” What if you made decisions based on the belief that others are number one? You can be a close second, but putting the needs of others in front of your own is exactly what Judah did when he offered himself up in place of his brother Benjamin. He didn’t change or erase what he did years earlier to Joseph, but he himself did in fact, change.
2 – People are following our example, whether the example is good or not.
In both events, Judah’s acts of selfishness, or selflessness were on public display. He was leading his brothers to make a terrible decision in disposing of Joseph. But, later he would lead his brothers as the example of putting the well being of others miles in front of your own. The crowd followed his lead in both events. If you are in a position of leadership, people may follow you regardless of whether you are providing right examples or wrong examples. It’s your job to make sure that those you’re responsible for, have good examples. You can’t be mad at your team for manipulating reports or projects if they see you do it.
3 – Selflessness can sometimes lead to bigger personal gain.
Don’t give to get. We know that. But, when you give to give, or sacrifice something for the sole benefit of someone else, it opens up opportunities for God to bless you. God loves a cheerful giver, one who doesn’t expect benefit other than the joy inherent in the action of giving.
As Judah offered up his life in place of his brother, I believe he unlocked divine blessing in his life. In those moments, he had the heart of Christ, in that nothing was too valuable to give up to save his brother, including his own life. Judah’s story foreshadowed what would eventually come in Jesus and the cross, but what happened in Judah’s life?
At the end of Jacob’s life, he pronounced blessings upon all of his sons, including Judah.
Judah is a lion’s cub; from 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. – Genesis 49:9-10 ESV
Judah would be just that and his tribe would rule, just as Jacob professed. Jesus is mentioned as having come from the line of that tribe as well. Pretty powerful family heritage if you ask me!
Be willing to step up and offer your time and resources to help someone, and expect nothing.
If you’re leading others, whether it be in business, or your family, or your social circle, be open for opportunities where you can give selflessly. Be willing to step up and offer your time and resources to help someone, and expect nothing. For one, it feels good. More importantly, God can multiply that seed of giving and do wonderful things with it for whoever it is that you blessed, and many times for you as well.
Closing
Judah shows us a perfect example of how we are all flawed, and all fall short. Some say that people don’t change. Maybe you agree with that, but I don’t subscribe to that. I believe people don’t change if they don’t want to change. I believe people can and will change if they want to, but I’ll say it’s much easier to be changed from the inside through a personal relationship with Jesus. He is the change maker, more so than we could ever be. Just like Judah, I believe we’ve all had times of selfishness. That isn’t the end of our story though, just like it wasn’t for Judah. Let’s make sure the next chapter of our lives looks more like the older Judah than the younger one!