Sunday Night, May 3, 2020 PM

And we pray that you would help us to trust you and grow in our love for you, and as we consider the words of Genesis and the way in which you show yourself faithful, fulfilling your purposes, keeping your promises, pray that you would strengthen our faith in you.

Lord, I thank you for the clarity of your Word, that it is eternal, unchanging, that it faithfully, sufficiently, inherently communicates your truths to us, the ones that we need to know for every bit of our worship of you and living for your glory.

And now, we ask that you would make the words of your Scripture to do your work in our hearts. You would conform us to your image, the image of your Son, Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray.

Amen.

God's People Brought Into God's Place

Well, I encourage you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 48, Genesis 48, and we'll be reading verses 8 through 22 in a moment, Genesis 48 verses 8 through 22. We're considering some universal biblical themes here at the end of Genesis 47 all the way through chapter 48.

We're considering the themes that we see throughout the Scripture, that God has a people and He brings them into His place, and that He blesses them under His rule, and that this is true whether we're looking at the Garden of Eden or we're considering God's dealings with Noah or God's dealings with Israel or the church, and any kind of dealings that God has, we see that God brings His people into His place and He blesses them under His rule.

And it is an encouragement to see that these themes are so robust even in a situation here back in Genesis, which would otherwise probably have no interest to us at all, maybe just a little bit of interest to us, some historical information, a conversation between a father and son and his grandsons.

And what is the importance of that? What is the significance of that at all to those of us who follow Christ? Well, it's very significant to us as we are reminded that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and training, and righteousness that we may be adequately equipped for every good work, and that is certainly the case.

Here.

So, we're thinking about God's people being brought into His place, and we've talked about His place, that it is an inheritance by faith forever for the family of God, that we've seen those themes in our text, but now we're thinking about God's people, and we see that God's people are blessed beyond anticipation.

We talked about that last time we were together, that even Jacob talks about that, that he said he had planned to die in misery, to die in mourning for his son Joseph, but he had never anticipated it, he had never thought that he would see Joseph alive again, let alone Joseph's sons, and so he was blessed beyond anticipation.

And we are reminded that we are in that same situation, that we are blessed beyond anticipation, that there are so many good things that God has laid up for us that we cannot possibly fathom all that God has in store.

And so, we're going to continue our thinking this evening from this text, our observation of the truths about God's people, not only are we blessed beyond anticipation, but also beyond amount and beyond our adequacies.

But first, let's read the text, Genesis 48, beginning in verse 8. When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, "'Who are these?'. Joseph said to his father, "'These are my sons whom God has given me here.'.

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 his 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.'".

When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on Ephraim's head, it displeased him, and he grasped his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. Joseph said to his father, "'Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn.

Place your right hand on his head.'. But his father refused and said, "'I know, my son, I know. He also will become a people, and he also will be great. However, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.'".

He blessed them that day, saying, "'By you Israel will pronounce blessing,' saying, "'May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.'". Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. Then Israel said to Joseph, "'Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers.

I give you one portion more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.'". Well, we're considering the fact that God's people are blessed beyond amount, and we see that in verses 13 through 16.

And we see that when Joseph brings his sons to his father Israel, Israel is ready to bless them, but he does so in a surprising way. Now, Joseph had certain valid expectations when he led his children towards his father Israel, but Israel already had a certain stated design concerning Ephraim and Manasseh.

Back in verse 5 of the same chapter, he had already said to Joseph, "'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.'".

So what does that mean?

Well, it means that Israel adopts the two sons of Joseph. He says, "'They will be my sons as well.'". He's claiming them as his own. It is as if now Israel doesn't have 12 sons, he has 14 sons. And in the future, Ephraim and Manasseh would each receive a full portion in the promised land as much as the other sons and their descendants expected to.

There would have been no tribe of Ephraim and no tribe of Manasseh had Israel not adopted these two grandsons as his sons. There would have been a tribe of Joseph in the land of Joseph, but it was the tribe of Ephraim and their lands, and it was the tribe of Manasseh and their lands.

And so we see that Israel, that Jacob, is favoring Joseph over the firstborn, Reuben. Remember that Reuben is the firstborn. He is the firstborn of Leah. Leah's son is Israel's firstborn. Joseph, however, is Rachel's firstborn.

And so he's favoring Joseph with the double portion rather than the actual firstborn. Reasons for this are multiple, but the truth is that Joseph had not defiled his father's bed like Reuben. Joseph has not brought disgrace to his father's name through wholesale murder like Simeon and Levi.

And so Israel gives the rights of the firstborn to Joseph, and that means the traditional double portion. And that double portion is meted out through Israel adopting Joseph's two sons. So Joseph will get a double portion.

Joseph will get Ephraim and Manasseh territory, not just one territory. Israel adopts Joseph's children as his own, and so he says, may my name live on in them and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.

You could simply say that Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Israel, and Israel begot Ephraim. Where's Joseph? But that would be the legal structure of what just happened. And so that Joseph's name would not cease from the earth, Israel told him in verse 6 of this chapter that any future sons by Joseph, not Ephraim and Manasseh, but the sons he would have with his wife afterwards, they would have inheritance rights of their own.

So Israel echoes the covenant promise of God at this point when He blesses Ephraim and Manasseh, and He said, may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. This is the language that we've heard with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We've heard it also with Noah. We've heard it with Adam and Eve, to multiply, be fruitful, and fill the earth, so the same theme all the way through. Now, of course, we may be wondering about Judah. So here is Joseph being honored as the firstborn.

He's given this elevated special attention, but we know that the Messiah, the seed, comes from Judah. So, where is Judah in all of this? Well, 1 Chronicles 5 verses 1 through 2 sorts it all out for us.

It says, now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright.

Though Judah, this is where Judah comes in, prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph. So, a little historical note, yes, of course, Joseph ended up being the firstborn, as is indicated, but Judah is the one who prevailed, which is an important bit of the prophecy coming true that we'll look at in chapter 49.

But what I want to focus on at this point is not simply the amount discussed in the blessing. We have a tendency to perhaps prioritize numbers and statistics over what God might emphasize. But in verses 15 and 16, consider the quality, something of the quality of this blessing, which tells us the people of God are blessed beyond amount, blessed beyond amount.

In verse 15, verse 15, he says, 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 lands.

Think about who it is that Jacob is calling upon to bless these two grandsons, now his sons. What a great blessing is invoked here upon Ephraim and Manasseh, a blessing from the God who has shepherded Jacob all his life, the one who redeems.

This is the God who he wants to bless his sons. Hebrews 11, verse 21 says that by faith, Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. This is Jacob worshiping, he's giving praise to the God who made him, who was faithful to him, the God who redeemed him.

And he worshiped this God as he blessed the lads near his death. And as they were blessed beyond all measure by this God of grace, this God of all power, so also we are blessed beyond all amount as well.

Consider, Ephraim and Manasseh should have no expectation, should have no claim, no right to be adopted by their grandfather into the circle of tribes. There was no name earlier when we read about these are the generations of Jacob.

We don't read of Ephraim and Manasseh in that list of sons, but all of a sudden they've been included when as before they were not included. How much more privileged are we to be adopted into Christ? In Ephesians chapter 1 verses 4 through 6, it says that in love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace which he bestowed freely on us in the beloved.

That is a blessing that goes beyond the reckoning of any amount. And also consider that the blessing that Israel bestows upon Joseph's sons was in stark contrast to the earlier plans of Joseph's brothers.

Led by Reuben and Judah, they had despised Joseph, they had mistreated Joseph, they had sold him into slavery. Joseph had become a nobody slave in a foreign country, but God brought him up out of the lowliest places to the highest of places in God's good timing.

And what are we to think about that? We are to be reminded of the kind of God whom we worship, the kind of God whom we serve. In many places in the world today, not just the levels at which we understand persecution and struggle here and now, but the church all over the world today struggles.

They are in lowly places, but don't we recognize we follow the lowly footsteps of our Savior who through suffering entered into glory? And aren't we not promised that one day, even though there is lowliness and there is suffering and there is difficulty now, we are going to reign with Christ forever?

And so are we not also blessed beyond amount? And indeed, when it comes to the numbers, Israel has been promised, and he also speaks of descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky and as numerous as the sand of the.

Sea.

And consider his situation, there's about 70 persons moved to Egypt. Now, that's easily countable. That's smaller than the...that's almost the same amount of people who were gathered here this morning.

That does not seem like as the stars of the heavens or as the sand of the seashore. So at the moment, he's relatively few in number. And Israel as a nation would also find herself with far fewer numbers than the opposing nations.

How often did we read...do we read in the Old Testament about Israel facing off with their enemies? And their enemies were like the sand of the seashore, without number. Consider the language that was used of those who opposed Israel during the times of Gideon, the Midianites who were without number.

And Gideon was easily numbered at 300. Consider the numbers there. But nevertheless, Israel as a nation, their numbers would swell and initially fulfill God's promise. Our numbers as the people of God may seem few.

And indeed, we are reminded of the difficulty that Jesus said in Matthew 7 verse 14, for the gate is small and the way is narrow, it leads to life and there are few who find.

It.

Matthew 22, 14 says, many are called but few are chosen. Luke 13 verses 23 through 24, someone said to him, Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? And these are questions that we ask. These are observations that we may make.

And yet, one of the more interesting things to study in the scriptures is how is that the case? And we know that's the case. We believe the Word of God for its plainness in this matter. And yet for all of that being true, what is the truth of the matter?

What is the end result of the matter? Revelation 7, 9 says, after these things, I looked and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes.

How is it that the last shall be first and the few will be too many to count? Those are glorious truths which should arrest our attention and lead us to worship. We too are blessed. We indeed are blessed beyond amount.

God's People Blessed Beyond Their Adequacies

God's people are blessed of God beyond our anticipations, beyond our amount, and also beyond our adequacies. Now, consider what happens when Jacob blesses the sons of Joseph, but in reverse. Joseph properly anticipated that, well, of course, my firstborn son will receive the better blessing from my father as my father adopts them.

And so he, with his left hand, Joseph with his left hand, maneuvers forward Manasseh, the elder, towards his father's right hand, because the right hand, of course, is the favored position. And so he wants his father to lay his right hand upon Manasseh's head because Manasseh is the firstborn.

And then Joseph, with his right hand, moves Ephraim forward to his father's left hand to receive blessing, but the lesser blessing. So Joseph has put everything proper in its order. Perhaps he's thinking too much of this.

After all, he himself is not the eldest, and yet he's receiving a double portion, but he's putting these things in order. And now Jacob switches his hands. Jacob knows he's dim, his eyes are dim, he's blind, but he knows how this is going to go.

He knows that Manasseh is being moved towards him. And all the things that must have come into his mind in his worshiping, it says that he's worshiping the Lord. Hebrews says he was worshiping the Lord as he blessed these two sons.

So he's worshiping the Lord for his grace, for his unmerited favor as he crosses his hands and blesses the younger over the elder. How often has Jacob thought about the way he schemed in collusion with his mother, dishonoring his father, and tricking Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing, the firstborn blessing, going behind Esau's back?

He came before his blind father and tricked him. And yet now Jacob is in the position of Isaac, and Jacob's eyes are dim. No one's trying to trick him at all, but now he's doing this in a way that honors God.

There's no deceitful scheming going on. Now Ephraim gets the better blessing, and we'll think about that more in a moment. But Ephraim's privileging over Manasseh was very obvious in later years. As the tribe of Ephraim became strong, the tribe of Ephraim became a dominant leader, so much so that the northern nation of Israel sometimes was simply called Ephraim.

Remember that when the kingdom split into the ten tribes of the north and the two tribes of the south, that the northern tribes, those ten northern tribes, were often called, as a whole, Ephraim. That was how dominant Ephraim was as a tribe.

And so this blessing, this formulaic blessing that we see in verse 20, carries with it a reality of there being a blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, but also reminds us of grace.

Look at what it says.

Jacob blessed them in that day, saying, By you Israel will pronounce blessing, saying, May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. In other words, what is he saying?

He's saying... Notice, remember, Joseph brought his sons to Jacob, and then Jacob surprisingly switched his hands, and then the blessings all came true, such that there would become a saying that people would use in blessing one another, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.

What is being said here? May God bless you unexpectedly. May God bless you without respect to your merits. So without respect to the merits of firstborn versus secondborn, he switched his hands. May God bless your efforts, not based on your quality, but based on his quality.

And that is the way that Ephraim and Manasseh were blessed, and so should all the people of God also desire to be blessed in the same way, that we will be blessed beyond our merits, blessed beyond our adequacies, blessed beyond what we deserve.

So I don't want God to bless my marriage or my work or my spiritual disciplines or anything else in my life to the exact degree of effort, but far beyond all my adequacies. We don't want God to bless Sunnyside Baptist Church to the exact degree that we have somehow earned his consideration.

And while we faithfully strive to do the work that God has set before us, we should ardently hope that God would bless us to the degree of his delight in Christ, not our adequacy. Isn't that the way in which Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh?

He blessed them in the way that he did because of his delight in his son, Joseph. So when we have this blessing, by you, Israel pronounced a blessing saying, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.

That is speaking of grace. May the Father bless you in accordance with the delight that he has in his son, not according to your adequacies, your merits, your qualifications, but according to his own deep favor.

We should be encouraged about how often God does not bless according to a person's position or a person's adequacy, but according to his great grace. God emphasizes his gracious choice in history over and over again by elevating the younger over the elder.

Remember that it was Abel and then later Seth over Cain. Shem was blessed over Japheth and Ham. Abram was blessed over Nahor and Terah and Haran. Isaac was blessed over Ishmael. Jacob over Esau. Joseph over Reuben.

Ephraim over Manasseh. Moses over his brothers. Gideon over his brothers. David over his brothers. Solomon over his brothers. Over and over again throughout the history of redemption, throughout the history of God's people, God is continually showing us at critical moments in the story how he would bless the younger over the older, reversing the trend, reversing the expectations, giving no consideration to any kind of merit.

Well, why does he do that? Well, Paul says in Romans 9 and verse 11 that God's purpose according to his choice stands, not because of works, but because of him who calls. Paul clarifies that God's free will is at an operation in the blessing of salvation.

He says in verse 16 of Romans 9, so then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. We are reminded of the freeness of God's grace, the surprisingness of God's grace, and isn't it true that God's people are blessed beyond their adequacies?

Ephraim has done nothing to earn a special blessing, neither have we. Jacob was less attractive than Esau as a person. When who here will say that we have caught the eye of God by our own loveliness? Moses stuttered.

Gideon was a coward. We are inept, apt to fail. Yet God delights in using the unlikely to do the impossible. He receives the glory in this. That's our God who redeems us for his glory, who saves us and leads us to expand his kingdom on earth.

This is our God who chooses, as Corinthians says, chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are so that no man may boast before God.

So as we think about the way in which that we are blessed and we give thanks to God and praise to God for his grace, we remember that we do not work to earn our blessings, but we work to experience the blessings of our salvations.

We labor to prove the extent of God's unmerited favor, not to earn that unmerited favor. We are to seek God and pray for his blessings upon our lives according to his grace for his glory. In the conclusion in verses 21 through 22, then Israel said to Joseph, behold, I'm about to die, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers.

I give you one portion more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow. Jacob speaks with the voice of faith at the end of his life. He cannot physically see the present.

His eyes are dim, blind to the present. And yet he makes confident declarations about the distant future. He is prophesying and he's doing this all to the constancy and faithfulness of God Almighty to his people.

That's a promise that all of God's people have to hold to. God will be with you. What did Jesus say to us after he told us to teach obedience to the nations, to teach all nations to keep the commands of Christ, this great commission?

What did he say? Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And in what way is he with us? Well, Jesus elaborated on that very clearly. John 14, verse 18, he says, I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you. After a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live, you will live also. In that day, you will know that I am in my father and you and me and I in you.

And he clarifies, he will send to us the Holy Spirit so that we are not alone, that God is with us in this way, that God will never leave us nor forsake us. We are reminded in the Psalms and in Hebrews 13.

Now, that is the kind of promise that will grow dearer to our souls with every bend in our road, every new imposing obstacle, imposing mountain ridge, which may emerge on the horizon of our future. We should remember this, God is with us.

He has blessed us, his people. He blesses us beyond all of our anticipation. He blesses us beyond all amount. He blesses us beyond our adequacies. And so we can give him thanks and move forward in faith.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for the reminders of your grace in the life of Jacob, in the life of Joseph and Ephraim and Manasseh. This blessing, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh, the blessing that reminds us of your surprising unmerited favor in which we live.

We give you the glory for this. We praise you for this. Thank you for giving us a salvation, a good news that is of grace that we may live in the light of your affections and your smile, all because of Jesus Christ.

We always find our confidence in him and we pray these things in his name, amen.