Sunday Night, April 26, 2020 PM

The Old, Old Story and God’s Faithful Promises in Genesis

Rain and new growth in this spring, and we recognize that You are a God who is faithful in Your providences towards us. And we give You thanks for the things that each day we can experience Your blessings and Your goodness.

We pray for this evening that You would fill our hearts with Your Word, that You would feed us and nourish us according to Your Word. Give us wisdom, we pray, as we look carefully at Your Son, Jesus Christ, and Your Word.

I pray that You would fill us with Your Holy Spirit, that there would be a full and adequate echo in our hearts from Your Word, that we would truly give it an amen, that we would be the amen of Your will in heaven as we live here on earth.

We pray that You would spread Your kingdom, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, through us, that He would rule and reign not just in our hearts, but throughout the full range of influence in our lives, that we would truly press His authority upon every aspect of our lives, that we would be obedient and call others to be the same, for Christ is truly that worthy.

So tonight, as we look at Your Word, I pray that You would do Your work in us, and that You would be honored and glorified in us. We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis 48, really coming to the final portions of Genesis, where a few things are being sorted out that no doubt would have great interest to the Jews who were on their way to the land of Canaan, indeed just about to cross over into the land of Canaan.

All the pertinent details of their history, how it is that God had been faithful to them, how it is that God had provided for them and brought them thus far, the idiosyncrasies about their culture, the way in which that they were structured, how it is that they had the tribes that they had, all of these details are here in Genesis and of great importance to the Israelites.

Not just of great importance to the Israelites, as this is not simply a story about how the nation of Israel came to be and their unique opportunities to live for the Lord in their days, because really this is a story about the seed, a story about the promised one who would come and defeat the enemy and save us and to really bring forward all of the promises of God to fruition.

And so we have to remember that that's really who we're looking for and who we are following throughout this story in Genesis. We've already begun this portion of Genesis beginning in chapter 47 and verse 28, but we're going to read chapter 48 verses 1 through 16 as we consider this lesson called the old, old story and considering God's place and God's people and God's rule.

So if you have your Bibles, follow along with me, if you would. Genesis 48, I'll be reading verses 1 through 16. Now, it came about after these things that Joseph was told, behold, your father is sick.

So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him. When it was told to Jacob, behold, your son Joseph has come to you, Israel collected his strength and sat up in bed. Then Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me.

And he said to me, behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession. Now, your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine.

Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are. But your offspring that have been born after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the names of their brothers in their inheritance.

Now, as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died to my sorrow in the land of Canaan on the journey when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.

When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, who are these? Joseph said to his father, they are my sons whom God has given me. God has given me here. And so he said, bring them to me, please, that I may bless them.

Now, the eyes of Israel were so dim from age that he could not see. Then Joseph brought them close to him, and he kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your children as well.

Then Joseph took them from his knees and bowed with his face to the ground. Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right, and brought them close to him.

But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, crossing his hands, although Manasseh was the firstborn. He blessed Joseph and said, the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, and may my name live on in them, in the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.".

God’s Place as an Inheritance by Faith and Forever

Well, we've been talking about the old, old story, and really went through a brief survey of the story in Scripture, beginning with Adam and Eve and moving our way all the way through the person and work of Christ, and indeed our hope yet to come, that the story really is about God bringing His people into His place to be blessed under His rule.

And He does that through His Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And we see that those are the elements of the story, no matter where we are in the story. We can always identify, no matter where we are in the Bible, who God's people are, where their place is, and how they are to be blessed under God's rule.

I mean, no matter where we are in the Bible, those elements are there. And so, it keeps us on track to think about how it is that God works all of His will through His chosen servant, Jesus Christ, who is our Redeemer.

And we've been thinking about the place, that God has a place. And last week, we talked about that God has a place, and this place is an inheritance by faith, that Jacob inherited this place by faith, that even as he compelled his son, Joseph, appealed to his son, Joseph, to bring his body up out of Egypt and bury it in Canaan, at the very same place where his father and grandfather were buried.

And Jacob says to Joseph that he's going to lie down and rest with his fathers, and then Joseph is to take his body up to Canaan, meaning that Jacob understood where he was going to be. He was going to be in his everlasting rest.

He was going to be with the rest of the saints, even if his body was still not laid to rest physically. And so, we are reminded by that and other elements in the text that the place that God has promised us is an inheritance by faith.

The second point about God's place from this passage here in Genesis 48 is that this place is an inheritance forever. This place is an inheritance forever. And we saw that in verses 1 through 6, the theme of the land of Canaan and how it was that God Almighty appeared to Jacob and promised him this land.

You'll notice in verse 4, it was described as an everlasting possession. You see that. And that this inheritance would be passed down from Jacob to his sons and from their sons to their sons, and so on and so forth, and that this inheritance was an everlasting possession.

So, Jacob, or Israel as he is now named, is having some very important conversations with his sons here at the end of his life. In verse 29, time for Israel to die, he has some things to say. And in chapter 47, then we come to chapter 48, and again we hear that it's time for Joseph to die.

And that just reminds us, we just don't know when our time is. Even when someone is very ill, we just don't know how much more time that they have. It reminds us that God is the one who is in control of that, that is appointed to man, wants to die, and after this comes the judgment, that in God's book are written all the days that were ordained for us when as there was not yet one of them.

And God is sovereign over that time, we're not. But we do see that Jacob is doing his best to make the most of the time that he has left. And one of the things that he's doing is making arrangements, not only for his funeral, but he's also making arrangements for his heirs, for his inheritance, the way things that are going to happen for his family after he's gone.

And this is, of course, what we do, isn't it? We make arrangements for ourselves before we die. We do our best to make arrangements for our family and those who will be left after we're gone to make sure that everything is situated according to wisdom.

And we follow that very same example, that very same prudence. But notice in chapter 48 that Jacob is saying some things to Joseph that Joseph would undoubtedly have known, that he would have already been taught when he was a young man before he was kidnapped and taken away to Egypt.

But not only were these things that Joseph knew and he probably had already taught Manasseh and Ephraim, but Jacob, godly grandpa, is taking the time to give some important information to his grandsons.

He's saying some things that have undoubtedly already been said, but he's making the point to emphasize these things about how God Almighty appeared to him. You remember he was at Bethel in the house of God.

He was in the house of God and he knew it not. He had laid there and rested there on his flight away from Esau on his way to Laban, and God had appeared to him from heaven at the top of that steep stairway, the ladder, we call it Jacob's ladder.

And he wants to remind his son and his grandsons of what God Almighty said. Now, this is important that we catch this name of God in verse 3. God Almighty appeared to me at Laz in the land of Canaan. God Almighty.

El Shaddai is the name of God here. That means that God is all-sufficient. God is non-contingent, meaning He is not dependent on anyone or anything. He is self-existent. That's what it means that He is El Shaddai, God Almighty.

He does not need anyone. He does not need anything. Remember, he would say one point in the Scripture is, am I really eating these sacrifices that you offer me? Am I really feasting on the blood of these animals?

He's saying that's not the point of that. And he would even say to David, am I really going to dwell in a house made with hands needed to create? There was nothing that compelled him to create other than his own character for his own glory, and thus it was all out of grace.

All that God does is out of the abundant overflow of His excellent character. And so God, all-powerful, God Almighty, El Shaddai, this is the focus of Jacob as he comes to his latter days. And notice that this Almighty God is the one who made these promises.

He's the one who made a promise for an everlasting possession and eternal inheritance. Because we have an Almighty God, therefore we have an amazing promise. The promise is amazing only because it comes from the Almighty God.

He's the one who can bring this promise to pass. The exceptional God brings about exceptional blessings in this promise. So Jacob is going to die. He knows it. It's near the end. He's going to die. But what is he certain of?

What is he certain of? That the promises of God will come to pass. He knows that God has promised to give the land to his descendants after him for an everlasting possession. Well, this is going to happen no matter what else happens.

Consider this, that God's promise is absolutely true despite the failures of mankind, despite the failures of Israel themselves, despite all the change that has occurred, even though according to 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 12 through 13, the land is everlasting, the inheritance is everlasting.

The heavens will be destroyed by burning, Peter says, and the elements will melt with intense heat. But according to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

It's because the promise is from God Almighty that we can be assured of His fulfillment no matter what happens, though a land be lost because of idolatry, through exile, through weakness. Well, the promise will be made sure.

The everlasting inheritance, you see, was not based on the merits...the everlasting inheritance was not based on the merits of Abraham or the merits of his descendants. It was based on who God is. That's why Romans 4 verse 13 says, the promise to Abraham and to his descendants that he would be the heir of the world was not through the law but through righteousness of faith.

So Paul says, this promise that God made to Abraham and to his seed, and that's the actual word there, the promise to Abraham and to his seed, that he would inherit the world, that didn't come through the law.

That came through the righteousness of faith, which, of course, being saved by faith is entirely different, isn't it, than being saved by one's works and merits. The righteousness of faith has to do with those who are in Christ by the grace of God.

Galatians 3 .29 says, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants' heirs. You inherit something according to promise, which is why when we look in the Old Testament and we see these promises rendered to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants about God's people being in God's place under God's rule, as Gentiles, as Christians on this side of the cross, it's not something where we look back at that and say, oh, how nice for them, as if it doesn't have anything to do with us.

The Bible says that everything has to do with Christ. So if we're in Christ, then everything in the Bible has to do with us by extension. So we have to keep that in mind. God has a purpose to bring His people into His place under His rule through His Redeemer, and that is His purpose no matter how messy we make the world.

God just keeps showing how His promise is bigger than our messes, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. When we think about the gospel story, we ought not...the gospel is not and should never be for any of us a footnote or a paragraph or a chapter in the story of our lives.

It should be the relentless theme on every page. The gospel of Jesus Christ has to do with everything with which we do because of the nature of His glory, because of the nature of His authority, because of the pervasiveness of His reign and His rule.

And that is in regard to the promises that we hold to and anticipate. The place that we've been talking about is not only an inheritance by faith and an inheritance forever, but it's also an inheritance of our family, meaning, you know, I'm not the only one going there and who is going there.

It's an inheritance for all of our family. And notice this theme in our text. At the very end of chapter 47 and verse 30, it says, but when I lie down with my fathers, you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.

And He said, I will do as you have said. And then verse 7, a consideration here. Now as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died to my sorrow in the land of Canaan on the journey, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.

It's important to see that when Jacob speaks of land, when he's speaking of the place that God promised His descendants, when he's talking about the land, he cannot help but speak of death. That's where his fathers lay.

That's where he buried Rachel to his great sorrow. And so Jacob knew that he was going to be with his covenant family in death. His body would be buried in the land of Canaan, but more importantly, his spirit would be with God.

His spirit would be with the other Old Testament saints, even as Hebrews 11 lays out for us. You see, the place that God has promised us in death is a place and inheritance that all of our spiritual family receives.

So that's to be an encouragement to us that when a Christian dies, when a believer dies, they go to be with Christ. Second Corinthians chapter 5 verses 6 through 8 says, therefore, being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight, we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord, be at home with the Lord.

And so we have that great comfort and that great hope. So the place that we go to is an inheritance by faith, it is an inheritance forever, never going to lose out on that, and it is an inheritance for our family, for our spiritual family.

God’s People Blessed Beyond Anticipation

Now we need to think about the place, the people, the kind of people that God brings into His place. So first of all, God has a place, and secondly, God brings His people into His place. And the aim that He has in bringing us into His place is one of blessing, it's one of blessing.

When God blesses us, it's to His glory, it's to His fame, it magnifies who He is when He brings us into His blessings. So first of all, God's people are blessed beyond anticipation. We'll see also that God's people are blessed beyond amount and that God's people are blessed beyond their adequacies.

But first of all, in verses 8 through 12, we see God's people are blessed beyond anticipation. Again, verse 8, when Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, who are these? Joseph said to his father, they are my sons whom God has given me here.

So he said, bring them to me, please, that I may bless them. The eyes of Israel were so dim from age that he could not see. And Joseph brought them close to him, and he kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your children as well.

And then Joseph took them from his knees and bowed with his face to the ground. And we can just imagine Israel's joy at seeing his grandchildren. But we see that his eyes are so too dim to actually see very well at all.

And so it's possible that all he could just make out are just a few shadows. And so he's handicapped in much the same way that his father Isaac was in his latter years. But here, Israel is faced with an opportunity to bestow a special blessing.

And even as he is blind, as his father was when he gave the blessing, so now he gives a special blessing. But he does see Manasseh and Ephraim. How does he do that? He would kiss them, he would embrace them.

The blind, you remember, see through touch. Israel says he never anticipated these blessings. He never imagined that he would have seen Joseph again, let alone his children, let alone his grandchildren.

He never would have thought that that would have been possible. Remember that when Reuben and Judah and the others brought Joseph's torn, bloody tunic to Jacob, they had, of course, kidnapped Joseph and sold him off to the Midianites.

When they brought that torn tunic that they had ripped up, that they had killed a sheep and poured the blood all over the tunic, and they had brought that to their father, what happened? Genesis 37 verses 34 through 35, Jacob tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days.

Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son. So his father wept for him. So what did Jacob anticipate?

He anticipated mourning and grieving for Joseph to the end of his days. That's what he was expecting. That's what he anticipated. But that was not what God had in mind. Jacob didn't go to his grave mourning Joseph because he actually got to see Joseph again.

And not just Joseph, but Joseph's sons. Jacob knew that God had promised blessing. Remember that Jacob looked up at the stairway into heaven and God spoke to him in Genesis 28, and God had made the covenant promises to Jacob even as he had to Isaac and to Abraham.

But Jacob could not have known at the time that he would become the father of 12 sons and a daughter. He could not have known that he would become the owner and shepherd of massive amounts of livestock.

Jacob could not have known that his future favorite son would be cruelly taken from him, and that even as he mourned for Joseph, God was in the process of shepherding world events towards a global crisis in which Joseph, descendant of Jacob, would be used by God to bless all the families of the earth, providing them food in the midst of absolute famine.

He could not have anticipated that. And so Jacob, in his deepest sorrows, could not have imagined that Simeon's imprisonment in Egypt, Benjamin's imperilment, and the devastating famine would all turn out to be a blessed reunion with Joseph and a turn of fortunes for the whole family as they became one of the most wealthy and powerful families in all of Egypt.

Israel, he didn't know that that was going to happen. He could not have begun to anticipate all of those blessings. He never expected to see Joseph's face again, let alone be blessed with the joy of loving Joseph's two sons.

Israel was blessed beyond his anticipation, right? And so God's blessings were better than the scope of Jacob's expectations. God made his promises to Jacob back in chapter 28. Jacob received those promises, but he had no idea the grand scope of what that would look like when God brought that to pass.

He couldn't have known how big God's blessings were. Our eyes are dim as well, dim like Jacob's in his old age. First Corinthians 13 .12 says,. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. Let's remember that Paul's writing about mirrors that were little more than highly polished metal. The images were blurry, not fully clear.

But we gaze at the promises of God in many ways ever as Jacob gazed at the promises God gave to him. Second Corinthians 3 verse 18 says,. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit.

The idea is even though we see dimly, we do see sufficiently by the grace of God that we are given understanding of His promises by His Holy Spirit. As we look at Christ, the more that we gaze at Christ, the more that we look at Christ in the Word, the more we will look like Him in this world.

We are transformed from glory to glory. But it's progressive, isn't it? It's small. It's incremental. We're still gazing. We've not at all come to the end of the glories of Christ. How can we possibly know all of the wonders and the grandeur of what lies ahead of us?

But it is important what we anticipate, isn't it? It is important what we anticipate, what we're looking forward to. It shapes how we live in the present. 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18 says, therefore, we do not lose heart.

Why? Because of what lies ahead. But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

There was a line out of the hymn we sang this morning that spoke about that, that in the hereafter will be sweeter for all of the trials that we have gone through. Verse 18 says, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And so, what are we looking at? Are we looking at the bare facts of what's around us right now? That will not sustain us.

The news stories are not going to sustain us. The rumors about how things are going are not going to sustain us. What are we looking forward to? What we anticipate, what we are looking forward to, our hope greatly influences everything we do in the here and now.

What we are looking forward to in the hereafter greatly governs all that we do right now. And so, Jacob is fully anticipating that God is going to keep His promises. Now, he has received His promises.

God says, I'm going to give you this land to your descendants. He knows that God keeps His promises. He has lived that. He has experienced the faithfulness of God. And even now, as he's talking to Joseph and his sons, he recognizes that he's been blessed beyond all anticipation.

And so, he is in the process, you see, of making arrangements for his descendants about what is yet to come. And he's making, and we'll see further on as we go through this passage, how he knows that the blessings that God will render are greater than the ones he has already been given.

Do we have that same kind of anticipation? Do we live in anticipation of Christ's victory? Is that what we're anticipating? Are we thinking about, and this is an opportunity for me to bring in my favorite Psalm, the one that we didn't get to this morning, Psalm 110.

The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. So, Christ is sitting at the right hand of God until His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. And the Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion saying, rule in the midst of your enemies.

Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power and holy array from the womb of the dawn. Your youth are to you as the dew. The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

So, we have the powerful reign of Christ, the forever priesthood of Christ. Verse 5, the Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses.

He will shatter the chief men of our abroad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside. Therefore, He will lift up His head. This imagery shows Jesus Christ victorious over every last enemy in a thorough fashion.

No enemy is left on the field of battle. There's just one warrior left. It's Christ. He's the one who's left there. And the picture, and you know David was a warrior. You know David was a warrior who knew what it was like to finish a battle.

And what does he do? He kneels down and gets a drink of water to refresh himself. And he lifts up his head and he's the only one left there. The warrior has conquered. And that's what we should anticipate, a field of battle on which Christ is the victor and every other enemy is thoroughly defeated.

That should be the anticipation of Christians, knowing that the victory of Christ is thus declared and promised throughout all Scripture. And we should live in such a way that anticipates that very victory.

Well, of course, we don't see everything subjected to the feet of Christ now, as Hebrews 2 says. We can only handle so much information at a time, but we should be living in anticipation of that and living our lives in accordance with that.

Well, God's people are blessed beyond anticipation. As we continue on through Genesis 48, we will consider even more that God's people are blessed beyond amount and that they are blessed beyond their adequacies, which we'll look at next time.

Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for our time in your Word. I pray that it has been encouraging. I thank you that your promises are sure and they're true and that you will not fail to bring glory to your Son, Jesus Christ, in the ways in which that you bring about your promises, fulfilling them in the lives of your people.

We praise you for this, and we give you glory, and we do so in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.