The Double Portion

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Don Filcek; Genesis 48 The Double Portion

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsepp, and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the
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Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.
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Here's Pastor Don. We have a great day planned.
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How many of you know it's Church Picnic Day? Hooray! I'm excited about that.
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We'll actually talk about that a little bit more in just a second. As always, hopefully you got one of these when you walked in.
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This is your worship folder. Please look through this, read it. It has important announcements that we don't take time up here on the mic to go through, but important to know.
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Also, if you have a gift to give, and we we encourage that to be something between you and God every
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Sunday, and if you want to take the initiative to give something to the church, there's a black box right back there on that table, and you can drop it right in there.
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Also, you can fill out a connection card, which should be in your worship folder. That's a great way for us to get to know you, and to get your contact information, and get you on the email list, things like that, and that can go in the black box as well.
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Lastly, if this is the first time you've been here, we want to welcome you by giving you a mug. So if you like coffee, or you just like stuff to stay cold for a long time, you can get a coffee mug, and those are on the back.
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Feel free to take one if you'd like, and that's our way of welcoming you. So as I mentioned, today is the church picnic.
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That's going to happen right after church, probably about 12 -30. We'll all mosey out there, and it's at the playground behind the early elementary back this way, and the gazebo is where all the food is going to be set up.
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Feel free to grab any spot in the lawn to spread out, and then we'll have some music going, and we'll have a couple grills fired up, and then you can set all of your food there in the gazebo, and we'll kind of do like a circle through that, and we'll just have a great time.
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That'll go till 3 p .m. Bring your own chairs and blankets, all that good stuff, and then part of what we're doing different this time at the church picnic is that we have guests with us,
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Wings of God. How many of you are familiar with Wings of God, or have heard of it? Awesome ministry in Pawpaw that helps basically women get back on their feet, and so it's a transition house.
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They come, they live there, they work together with counselors and with house managers, and the
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Lord blesses them. They get their life back on track, and they're doing a new thing where they're helping out with church picnics and actually catering some part or all of the meal, and they're doing our meat.
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They're cooking all of our meat in the main dish this afternoon, and so we're excited to have them do that.
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We would ask that as you go through the line that you would give them a donation for the work that they're doing for us, and it's a way to bless them.
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We've actually covered the cost of the meat and the supplies, so everything that you give to their donation basket is going to go right to their ministry, and we really want to bless them today.
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We want them to walk away glad that they made some burgers and brats for us. You know what I mean? So we're excited to have them with us, and actually to get you more familiar with them, we have a couple of ladies here with us, and Megan and Alicia if you want to come up,
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I'll introduce them. We want them to talk just a little bit about the ministry so that you can be familiar with them.
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Recast supports them out of our budget, and we're happy to do that and partner with them. A few of us volunteer on occasion, and we just love being a part of their ministry, but they're going to tell us a little bit more about what they do and why it exists.
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So Megan, take it away. Hi everyone, my name is Megan. I am in charge of the church development at Wings of God, so I'm in charge of the relationships with the churches.
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This is my first time doing it by myself, so I'm a little nervous. Sorry about that. But yeah, like he said,
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Wings of God is a transition home that's in Pawpaw that helps previously incarcerated women from the Kalamazoo and Van Buren County Jails.
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We believe that the best way for you guys to truly experience what Wings of God does is to hear from our residents.
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With me, I have Alicia. She is a resident with us, and she is just going to share with you guys how the
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Lord has worked in her life and how he's been using this ministry to move mountains in her life and to pursue a healthy, godly lifestyle.
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So here is Alicia. Okay, I am nervous as well.
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Hi. My name is Alicia. I started attending
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Wings of God June 19th of this year, and it's helped me tremendously so far, and I haven't even been there that long.
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My story actually starts back in 2012.
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November 13th, my two and four -year -old daughters, along with my cousin, who is more like my sister, were killed by a drunk driver, and I didn't handle that so well.
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I decided to turn to all the wrong things, and I believed in God, but I didn't like him very much then.
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And so yeah, through my trying to do things my way,
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I ended up in jail last December, and they do
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Bible studies in there, and I knew I had to do something different, and I'm just sitting there, and I was kind of being stubborn.
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I didn't want to do the Bible studies, but I got really bored, so I decided to see what they were about, and I was doing them, and something that stuck out to me was, it was asking if worry was a sin, and I was like, that's really interesting, because I'm all worried about all the wrong things, worried about how
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I'm going to get out, worried about... So I just started focusing on God. I started reading the Bible, and I found some very interesting things in there.
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It spoke to me, and I just prayed that...
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I had court, and I just prayed and had faith that God's will would be done with me if he felt that I needed to be in there a little bit longer than...
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But I ended up getting out that day, and I was just sitting around, not really doing too much, but I started attending
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Bible studies on Wednesdays, and going to church regularly on Sundays, and I'm like, something...
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I got to do something different. I wasn't really doing anything with it, so that's whenever I found
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Wings of God. The program is amazing. It's absolutely amazing.
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It's added structure, and it's just stuff that I really needed in my life.
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I actually got a job last week. I start Wednesday, whoo!
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Thank you. I'm really excited about it, and getting back into society. Yeah, but it really is truly an amazing place.
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It's a year minimum, and I definitely see myself being there for maybe a little over a year.
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I got a lot of things I need to work on, but it's an amazing, amazing program, and God has used
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Wings of God to help out my life so much so far, and I haven't even been there that long.
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It's a wonderful program, and yeah, I'm happy to be here, and share my story with you guys.
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Thank you. I have...
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Really, it's an honor, and it's a privilege to go and do a morning devotional with the ladies a couple times a month, and I've been hanging out with Alicia, and it's just...
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It's amazing to see God transforming lives, and it takes a lot of sacrifice. It takes a lot of work.
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Karina, the executive director, a lot of vision to make sure that this house keeps happening, and that the things are there for the ladies so that they can have this opportunity, and you know, none of us can do it alone, can we?
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None of us. We all need family. We need help, and this is providing an intensive community for them where they can get healed up, so please bless them today.
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When you go through that line, maybe dig a little bit deeper, and just make sure that they go away with some resources this afternoon from the picnic.
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All right, Don has entrusted me with the intro this morning, so I'm gonna actually intro the sermon, and then read the scripture, and then we'll have the worship team come up, but if you would open your
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Bibles, if you have them, and if you need one, don't have one, we got Mark back there, and Mike, and they'll hand you a
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Bible, and Jay, so just raise your hand, and we can hand you a Bible. Don loves it when you have that thing open, and you can follow along because he uses the the text as an outline, but we're in Genesis chapter 48 this morning, and we're getting to the end of Genesis here.
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Don has been preaching straight through Genesis. I think it's one of the great things about recast is that we go right through the scriptures, so bare minimum, you're gonna hear the
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Word of God right on through whatever he's preaching. Every Sunday, and we're in Genesis 48.
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Now, this is a scripture that maybe you're not very familiar with, maybe you've been reading, have a
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Bible reading plan, and you've been going through the Bible in a year, and this is one of those where maybe you just kind of like cruise on through, don't really know what's happening, something about blessing sons, maybe you don't have a lot of highlighter marks in your
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Bible here, or have much of this memorized, but everything in the Bible is there for a reason. The Holy Spirit has inspired this to be written down, and we'll see that some of the things that come from this portion of Scripture get referenced later on because it's all about lineage, it's all about God's plan of using
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His people to unfold His ultimate plan, which was to bring the Messiah, and these people here that we're going to read about this morning are a part of that plan, so everything is important.
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So as we read it, just keep that in mind that even sometimes as things don't make sense, they're all critical to what the
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Lord wants us to know, so join with me as we read Genesis chapter 48.
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After this, Joseph was told, behold, your father is ill. So he took with him his two sons,
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Manasseh and Ephraim, and it was told to Jacob, your son Joseph has come to you.
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Then Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed, and Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, behold,
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I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.
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And now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine.
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Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours.
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They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. As for me, when
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I came from Padam, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is
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Bethlehem. When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, who are these?
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Joseph said to his father, they are my sons, whom God has given me here. And he said, bring them to me, please, that I may bless them.
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Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see. So Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them, and embraced them.
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And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face, and behold,
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God has let me see your offspring also. Then Joseph removed them from his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.
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And Joseph took them both, Ephraim on his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near him.
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And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands, for Manasseh was the firstborn.
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And he blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom my fathers
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Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys, and in them let my name be carried on, in the name of my fathers
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Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.
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And Joseph said to his father, Not this way, my father, since this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.
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But his father refused, and said, I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great.
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Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.
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So he blessed them that day, saying, By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying,
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God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh. Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh.
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Then Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you, and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.
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Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the
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Amorites with my sword and with my bow. Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for this word. We thank you God that you've left this story for us to understand you, to know of your plan, to see how you've been unfolding your perfect plan throughout the ages.
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We thank you God that it's not always up to the traditions of men, that it's not on our shoulders, but it's your sovereign choice that's making things happen,
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God. And even in this scripture as we see the younger placed before the older, once again,
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Lord, you are saying that you will do things your way and that you will accomplish them. And God, we're grateful that you have.
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You are an awesome, sovereign God. You are powerful beyond all measure. And it's you that we worship here this morning.
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We want to lift you up and I pray that as we sing, God, that you would be pleased with our words. I pray that we get our heart right so that we're not just singing to stay in tune or to make a noise or as just routine, but that we would be doing it out of grateful hearts to you,
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God, because you're worth it. It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Amen.
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Thanks a lot to the band for leading us this morning. I'm very grateful for the time and energy that they put in into leading us before the throne of God.
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And hopefully you were able to enter the presence of God and worship him in his majesty and in his holiness.
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He is worthy. Amen. All right. I'm Don. I'm the lead pastor here.
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And thanks a lot to Kyle for kind of taking off the introduction there and kind of getting us engaged in reading the text.
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I would encourage you to have Genesis chapter 48 open in front of you. I know that we maybe lost our places or whatever, but having that open helps you to be able to refer and reference to the things that I'm saying because I'm going to walk us through this text.
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That's what we do every Sunday here at Recast Church is we believe that the power of changed lives comes through connecting with God's word in a powerful way.
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And so that's why we take off a chunk of God's word, read it together, study it together, that we might go out and live differently as a result of encountering
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God and the way that he has revealed himself to us in his word. So most of you that have been around for a while know that we've been talking through the book of Genesis and particularly these last 11 or so chapters, basically from 37 to where we're at now and all the way through the end of the book, is really discussing the life of one particular individual,
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Joseph. And really the climax, the high point of the Joseph story is a couple chapters behind us now.
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The climax of the Joseph story was when he had his big reveal to his brothers that he was indeed
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Joseph. Now remember that a few chapters before that, his brothers had sold him into slavery. They had actually said, you know what, this guy is dad's favorite, we can get him out of the picture.
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They were alone 60 miles north, out in the fields with the shepherds. They had intense jealousy of their brother and in the process of that jealousy, they were going to kill him.
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One of the brothers, Judah, had the idea, you know what, why be guilty of murder? We could just sell him.
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There's a wandering caravan coming through, we'll sell him. And up to the point of where we were at a couple chapters ago, they thought he was dead or gone or a slave in some foreign country.
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They were actually talking to him multiple times throughout the story and the text because they kept going back and forth to Egypt to buy grain during a famine and Joseph had been raised up to be one of the rulers there and actually raised up by God for the purpose of preserving his family during that intense worldwide famine where nobody was growing crops.
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And so we know that he was reunited with his dad last chapter. They found out that he was
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Joseph. They moved the entire family up to Egypt to be preserved from the famine and they lived happily ever after, right?
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Is that the way the story goes? No, just like, that's only fairy tales, right?
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We know that. We know the reality of life. And so no, they didn't just necessarily live happily ever after.
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There were some happy times, but not forever after. So the next three chapters of Genesis are wrapping up the life of really
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Jacob. Now it isn't Joseph the main character, but it's actually talking about his father Jacob, this patriarch of the faith, this old ancient man who had really seen a lot of life.
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And we need to be careful as we near the end of books or we start books of the Bible to not just think they're filler or that they're just transition.
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Every chapter has an intention. Every chapter has a purpose, a function, something that we ought to take away from it.
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And they bear meaning and significance to the people of God. And so if you're a person of God, if you're growing in faith with him, then certainly this has something to do with you.
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So the famine is now passed. As a matter of fact, it's quite a ways in the past because we find out later that Jacob actually lived for 17 years in Egypt.
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Now there were only five years of famine left when he moved to Egypt. So if he lived 17 years, and in our text he's nearing his deathbed, we know that it's probably 15 to 16 years removed.
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He's probably 10 years out of the famine. Things are improving. The economy of the world is improving.
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There's food, and things are growing again, and things are actually looking good. Israel has enjoyed many years now under the protection of Egypt with all of his extended family.
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They are caring for the flocks of Pharaoh as well as their own flocks, and that's their job. But in the midst of everyday life, we find out right away in verse 1 that Joseph gets that call that every person who has aging parents dreads to hear but knows is coming.
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And he gets that phone call. Cell phone rings. He picks it up, and it says, Dad has fallen ill.
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Dad has fallen ill. He's bedridden. We think the end is near. You need to get up here to Goshen.
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You need to be here. He's going to set things in order. He's still in his right mind. He's there. He's able to talk.
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You need to get up here while he's able to interact with the grandkids and with everybody. Some of us have had that phone call.
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Others of you are dreading that phone call, and for some of you it's near, and the others of you, you're just really hoping it's a long ways off.
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But at the same time, that's exactly what's going on here for Joseph. And so Joseph responded. He hitches up the chariot, loads up his two grandsons, and he heads off to Goshen to go to the bedside of his ill and failing father.
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So he takes his two grandsons Manasseh and Ephraim with him. Jacob is so sick and so elderly.
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Remember that he lives to 147 years old. Does anybody think that's an incredible lifespan? I think so.
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He actually had the gall to say to Pharaoh, we saw a couple weeks ago, or maybe it was just last week, few and evil have been the days of my life.
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147 year old saying that. Wow. That puts some perspective on life though, doesn't it? How many of you know that life feels like a flash?
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Did you guys feel that? That was a summer. Do you know what I'm saying? Did any of you realize that it's
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August 10th already? The leaves are going to change. Sorry. Some of you, that's a real downer.
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I love the fall. I love the fall. I love the autumn, but every season has its own glory. But what we have, what we have in the next couple of chapters are the final words and final blessings of the ancient patriarch who had really seen a whole lot of life.
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So chapter 48, chapter 49, his blessings on his children and his grandchildren, and then finally he passes away and wrapping and things in chapter 50 that we'll get to.
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But he's so sick and elderly that he had to muster significant strength just to sit up on the edge of his bed.
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Just to sit there and engage with his son and grandson was work.
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Now, and in this context, he's going to rehearse some things on his life. And how many of you know that if you've lived long enough, you actually gain the right to rehearse some of your life?
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How many of you have an aged relative that shares the same story over and over again? Let me just tell you, endure it.
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Put up with it and be encouraged by that. I mean, that's going to be you someday. And you have the right to share some of your experience when you're there.
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So listen, listen, and learn, and engage. But think about your own life. Right now, if somebody were to pin you down to the high points of your life and say, could you share a couple of the highlights of your life with me?
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What would make the list? What kind of things would you be sitting there on the edge of your bed?
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You've mustered up all your strength. Your son that you thought was dead is now in your presence.
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His two grandsons are there. His two sons are there. And what are you going to share?
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Are you going to talk about promotions? Are you going to talk about the time that you got a big raise at work?
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Are you going to talk about hardships that you've endured? Betrayals by friends? I think it's a significant question for us to all ask, where would spiritual events occur in your list right now?
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Some of us, if we're honest, there's so much of the day in and day out material things that hit us that sometimes we have a hard time with the perspective of what's going on behind the scenes, the spiritual things that are happening.
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Jacob begins with his ladder. How many of you have heard the phrase, Jacob's ladder, before?
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Have you heard that phrase before? Jacob's ladder is the significant, he's highlighting it.
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Number one, first thing he's going to talk to his son and grandsons about is the ladder experience.
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Remember that. It's called Jacob's ladder, and I say that because it's a common phrase in English, but the reality is it's probably
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Jacob's staircase, and I mentioned that in the text when we were going through that a couple months ago.
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But what he's referring to is that one night, he was running from his brother Esau. He had stolen his brother's birthright.
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His brother was angry enough to kill him and chased him out of town, and mom said, you better split or else you're going to be dead in the morning.
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So he's run off in the night to escape from his brother to go to live with his uncle hundreds of miles away, and in the middle of the night, his first stop off, he stops at a place called
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Bethel, or later called Luz. He actually names it Bethel, the house of God.
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And he goes to bed that night, and it says he uses, I mean, back then men were men, so he uses a rock as a pillow.
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You know, I don't know, this soft stuff for me. And how many of you, that sounds uncomfortable? Most of us.
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But he lays his head on a rock for a pillow, and he goes to sleep that night.
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And he goes to sleep on common ground, fearful, unsure, and virtually godless.
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He has stolen the birthright from his father. There has not been any indication of spiritual life in Jacob at the point when he lays his head on that rock.
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And you can go back and read it yourself if you're kind of questioning that. Go back and look and see what was his spiritual life like, or what is attributed to him in relationship to God prior to this event.
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And when he goes to sleep, he sees a ladder, a staircase, with its foot on the earth, and its peak in the heavens, the top rung in the heavens, with angels ascending and descending.
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And there at the top of the ladder is who he calls El Shaddai. That's the
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Hebrew word that is used in his recounting of this as he's sitting there. Remember, we're still talking about an old man at the edge of his bed recounting his life, and he says,
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El Shaddai met me there. What does El Shaddai mean? The almighty
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God. The all -powerful One was there at the top of the stairs superintending this interaction between heaven and earth.
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He is not removed from us, but He is engaged in the realms of mankind.
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He is involved in our lives. Angels ascending and descending, coming from His throne, at His Word, doing
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His bidding, returning, getting more assignments, and going back out. And Jacob's eyes at that point in history were open to the reality that there is an almighty
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One, and He is not distant, but He is engaged and involved in the realm of mankind.
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He is involved in our lives. And not just that, but He is a
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God who speaks. Hear me carefully. He is not a God who has left us to guess who
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He is in our futility, in our gropings and wanderings in the dark for who
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He is. He is a God who speaks and tells us about Himself. What kind of a God is He? He has shown us, and He showed
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Jacob there. God spoke, and He promised to be with Jacob. He said, I'm with you, almighty
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God, and I am with you. I will be there. God promised to multiply Jacob's offspring, and God promised to give
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Jacob's offspring a great land. These are the things that this dying man wants to emphasize to his son.
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God is with us. God is giving us a great land, and He will multiply our offspring.
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I think there's intention. Remember that they are in Egypt. They are foreigners in a foreign land, and He's highlighting to His son there on His deathbed.
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God has a different plan for you. Egypt isn't the end. I know that you're all Egyptian -ed up right now, Joseph, but this is not what you were made for.
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There's more out there. There's more for our people, and He wants to nail that home. Well, there in that context, that night in Bethel with the staircase to heaven,
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He wakes up in the morning and He immediately exclaims, Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not.
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One of my favorite phrases in the book of Genesis. Surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn't know it.
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I was unaware. Jacob got a first -hand view that God is indeed involved. Where he went to bed and laid his head on common ground, he woke up recognizing that God's engaged and involved.
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And not only that, but this God, hear me carefully on this, this
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God entered into a unilateral covenant relationship with Jacob. Unilateral means one -sided.
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Now, when you sign a lease agreement, is that unilateral? Ah, there's two parties involved in that, and there's what the landlord claims he will do, and if he doesn't accomplish those things, then you're in breach of that covenant, that contract.
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And as the person who's renting, are there some things that are required on you? Yeah, and then you're in breach.
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So it's not a unilateral covenant and not a unilateral agreement. But here, in this context, it is unilateral.
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What I mean by that is that He approaches Jacob in a dream in the middle of the night running from his brother and says, without laws, without rules, without conditions, the law will be given hundreds of years from this event.
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God made promises to Jacob there in that context. One -sided promises.
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I will do these things. Not like, well, if you do this and you prove yourself to be the right kind of guy, you prove yourself to be good enough and worthy, then
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I will do this and this. We know that Jacob was not worthy, right? Those of you who have been studying this life, was
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Jacob always awesome? You know that he wasn't, right? And his offspring certainly were not as well.
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So I want to take a moment to discuss a hot topic that's in the news right now. And I don't do this very often, but our text hits on it.
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And that is the fact that he's rehearsing the fact that they've been given, what? A land. Anybody think that that might have something to do with current events going on right now?
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Have any of you heard any banter back and forth on Facebook about how the Jews have the right because God gave them the land first, and so it's theirs?
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Any of you heard any discussions like that recently? You heard that being kicked around? It's very important that we get some of this right, that we come at this from the right perspective as evangelical
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Bible -believing Christians. We can get a little crazy and carried away on things. So the question that I want to pose to us and then try to answer is, is
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Israel justified when they surge into Gaza, leveling neighborhoods, destroying schools, and killing civilian
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Palestinians? Anybody think that that's a tough question to answer? Let me suggest that there's two sides to this that we've got to be careful.
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And I want to be clear that theology always ought to bear, bring itself to bear.
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What we believe about God and what we believe about God's Word should come down and hit every point of our lives.
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Everything that we discuss, every topic, the reality of God hits that. But the problem is when we take our theological, when we take a political answer and wet it with our theological answer, that gets a little screwy.
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Or when we assume our theological answer based on politics or something like that. We've got to be careful about the way that politics and theology interface.
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So there's a theological answer to this question and then there's a political question answer to this question.
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Throughout the Old Testament, God gives the people of God a promise of land. There cannot be a question of that.
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You read the Old Testament, you're going to have them given the land of Canaan. Is everybody clear on that?
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You already knew that. You already take that for granted. But throughout the Old Testament, God gives the people of God a promise of land.
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And throughout the book of Joshua, they take that land with divine assistance. Now we know that that was over the course of many years.
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Why didn't he just give it? Have you ever asked, why didn't he just give it to Abraham right away? Why did he have to give it to Joshua 400 or 500 years later?
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Why doesn't he just give it to Jacob right now and be done with it? And the fact of the matter is the Bible actually answers that question by saying the sins of the
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Canaanites who lived in that land were not fulfilled yet. They weren't complete. They had not proven themselves wicked enough and there was more sin that they were going to accomplish before God was going to finally send the
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Israelites in to judge them. It's kind of a crazy answer, but that's the answer that scripture gives.
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So God gave this promise of land. It was taken under Joshua. But at the point of the giving of the law, the possession of the land, the physical land of Canaan was wrapped up in conditional obedience to the law.
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In other words, God said, I'm going to give you this great land that I've promised to your forefathers, but as I give it to you and I have now given you law in Mount Sinai, I am going to tell you to keep the law or you're going to get exile.
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You're going to get the boot from this land. And he made that abundantly clear to them. In Israel, of course, we get through the end of the histories and through David and then through the, you know, past the time of judges and stuff, and Israel disobeyed the first covenant and they were exiled from the land.
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They got the boot. And centuries later, God ushered in a new covenant of grace through Jesus Christ, grafting in the
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Gentiles. That's you and me. We should be glad about that. And he brought the Gentiles, all those non -Jews into his plan, blowing wide the doors to the kingdom of God.
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Today, to be a true person of the covenant, to be a member of the family of God, to be a member of the people of God is to come to the
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Father through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. That's what it means to be in the family of God now, here, where we live.
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So consider what that might have to do with any giving of the land. The blessings of the
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Old Testament people of God, the gift of the land, the multiplying of offspring for Israel, that ultimately always served the cause of Jesus Christ.
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It was all pointing forward to the one who would come. It was that trial period that we might be able to look back in history and say, we've tried law.
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We've tried to go that route. And God gave us a chance through Israel and we blew it.
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And there's a case study, an extended example, of how we cannot keep the law. How humanity is prepared for the need for a
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Savior. What I'm trying to get at is that ultimately the land has already accomplished its role in redemptive history by bringing forth the
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Messiah. The land, that promise of a land, had an end in mind.
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It was not in itself an end, but it was a means to an end. The true
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Israel has always been the people of faith. And that enabled people like Rahab, the pagan harlot, to be counted among true
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Israel. Ruth, a Moabite, a people group who were enemies of Israel. And she was included as a true
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Israelite. And as we're about to see, the half -breed of Manasseh and Ephraim will be singled out among their brothers for an extra blessing.
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So the nation of Israel, it might come a shock to many of you, was never ethnically pure.
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It was never ethnically pure. The land was always a means to an end and never meant to be an end in itself.
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If you're tracking with any of this, then let me summarize by saying that Israel does not have to succeed in possessing the land of Israel.
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What would that do to your faith if ISIS and these other countries just surround it and take it over?
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I mean, I fear that some evangelicals would just shed their faith altogether and be like, well, you know, God's plan hasn't come to fruition.
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God hasn't preserved the ethnic people of Israel. And they do not have to succeed.
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They do not have to succeed. Israel does not have, hear me carefully, there might be some debate and you're free to come and talk with me after the service and disagree or, you know, and I would love the discussion, but Israel does not any longer have a theological claim on that land.
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But let me suggest from a political perspective, hear me carefully, from a political perspective, the answer may be different because I believe a nation has a mandate to protect its citizens.
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So do you hear how the theology might be one thing and the politics might be another? Does Israel have the right to save its people from Gaza?
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Yeah, sure it does. But I would also suggest to you that neither the Jews nor the Palestinians have been known at all for their moderation in battle.
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Neither side has, it's like an escalating threat, you know, when you get the, what's the word
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I'm looking for, practical jokes going back and forth, of course it's no laughing matter and we're not talking about practical jokes, but you know how those can end in the
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ER? Any of you ever had a practical joke that ended in the ER? These things escalate.
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They start off tame, they start off mild and they escalate and they escalate and both sides have not been moderate in their treatment of the other.
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There is deep -seated animosity and hatred that many of us from this side of the pond are unable to relate to, are unable to connect to.
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I mean, we're like Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and it's like ugh, you know. But I mean, that type of animosity that these people harbor towards one another is obviously, obviously from the news, violent and vehement.
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If you find yourself hung up in verse four, by the way, we are going to move on, but if you find yourself still hung up on the word everlasting in verse four, it could easily be a real hang up for many of us.
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And so let me read the verse. And he said to me, talking, and remember, he's still sitting on the edge of the bed, this is still him reminiscing, Behold, I will make you fruitful, the words of God, and multiply you and I will make of you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an, a what?
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An everlasting possession. Consider what you understand that to mean.
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So, some of you are sitting out here and you know what the word dispensational means and so you come from a dispensational perspective, so you key in on that word everlasting and you're like, well,
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God has to have Israel in the land forever and ever in order to keep his promises. So, Don, how can you possibly say, and some of you are like,
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I said the word dispensational and you kind of took a little mini nap there. You're like, I have no clue what that means. And so,
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I'm not going to get into that. Again, if it's not a hang up for you, then I'm not going to make it a hang up for you. But the word everlasting there, does it mean that the physical land of Israel, like the whole world will be destroyed someday in a fire and remade, but Israel will remain there hanging and floating in space because there will be an everlasting possession for them?
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Or is this a spiritual promise as Abraham understood it? By the way, when Abraham received this initial promise of the land, in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, it actually says that his hope was not on this planet.
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His hope was not for a physical land, but his hope was for a land, a city whose maker and builder is
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God himself. His hope was beyond, I mean, we talked about putting our roots down on planet earth and our hope is in, is the hope in the land?
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The hope is in the Messiah who came out of the land. Are you getting what I'm saying in that?
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So think about what it is that you're identifying as the everlasting possession. It is eternity with God.
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So he's sitting on the edge of his bed, he's reminiscing about events and he's keying in on the promises of God and God meeting him in this place and recognizing that God is real.
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And he's sitting there talking about these events and Jacob, in a moment, he claims
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Ephraim and Manasseh as his own. He says, I'm going to adopt these guys. And ultimately, what's happening here is rather than have one portion of his inheritance go to Joseph that's eventually going to get split amongst all of his sons,
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Jacob is essentially giving Joseph's line a double blessing. Joseph is going to get two inheritances.
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He's going to get, well, when they go to divide up the land into twelfths, two twelfths is going to Joseph.
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It's going to be his. Of course, it's going to be through his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. They will be counted, the text says, just like Reuben and Simeon, equal on par with those brothers.
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Any other children born to Joseph will be considered underneath Ephraim and Manasseh. This type of adoption is documented in ancient culture.
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It's used for a variety of different reasons. But it seems possible that Jacob is trying to double bless his favorite son,
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Joseph. But he's also trying to make up, we see in verse seven, for the children that Rachel never had.
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In verse seven, he recalls one of the darkest hours when he had to bury his favorite wife, Rachel. And so there's this man, one more time, he's sitting on the edge of his bed, he's talking, he's reminiscing, and he highlights the high point of his life.
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God met me. El Shaddai, the Almighty, met with me. But then he highlights the lowest point of his life, when he had to bury the wife that he loved.
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A tough, obviously, extremely difficult thing for him. Because of the degeneration of Jacob's eyes, mentioned in verse ten, he can't tell yet, and up to this point, he doesn't even know that his two grandsons are with him, but they're probably standing at the door, and as they draw near, he says, who is this that's come with you,
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Joseph? Obviously, his adoption of these two sons had nothing to do with their presence with him. But it works out great that they are present, because now
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Jacob can just finish that by blessing them immediately. He kisses and hugs his grandsons, offers an exclamation of joy, he says,
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I never thought I would even see Joseph again with my own eyes, and now I have the opportunity to be in the presence of my two grandsons as well.
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Joseph respectfully bows to his father in anticipation of the blessing of his two sons, and then he stages them, just like any good father would in this context.
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He stages them so that Manasseh, the oldest, is on his left as he approaches his father sitting there, so that he will be on his father's right.
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And he takes Ephraim, the younger, and positions him on his right, on his father's left, so that he will receive the secondary blessing as he goes.
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By the way, the right hand of blessing, that was seen as the place of power and authority and richest blessing, so he wants his father's right hand on his eldest son when he blesses him.
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Joseph should know, though, by this point, that his family has been anything but customary on the following of the blessings of the eldest.
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Right? Those of you who have followed the storyline, you realize that ship has sailed. Even in this blessing, what position is
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Joseph? Joseph is the only one there. His father is on his deathbed. I mean, he's the only one there. We're going to see them all come in later and they're going to all get a semblance of blessing, but he gets it first.
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And he's getting the double blessing. And where is he at in the birth order? Does anybody know off the top of your head? Eleventh.
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He's a ways down. Would you agree with me on that? And he's getting a double portion of the blessing here in private with his grandsons.
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Huh. So this is anything but, the family does anything but the customary blessing of the eldest.
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So when it comes time to utter the blessing, Jacob switches his hands and gives the right hand blessing to the youngest
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Ephraim and the left hand blessing to the eldest Manasseh. He knows what he's doing. He's not foolish.
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And he immediately begins the blessing. He puts his hands on their head and speaks immediately and he requests that the God who has been his shepherd would have good will towards these two boys.
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He requests that the same messenger who has redeemed Jacob from evil would use these boys to carry forward the family name and that they would grow into a multitude on the face of the earth.
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Now Jacob had a tough life. We've talked about that a lot. But Jacob knows that he has been redeemed from all evil.
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And I want to key in on that word redeemed. It's much like the word that we pray in the
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Lord's Prayer. Deliver us from evil. Well, being delivered from evil presupposes that you're in the midst of evil.
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Right? Doesn't it? And in fact, redeemed from all evil. He hasn't been, he doesn't say the
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God who has walled me off from all evil. He doesn't say the God who has preserved me untouched from all evil.
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He hasn't been even protected from evil. Would you agree with me on that in his life?
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Has he endured evil? Absolutely. But he has been redeemed from all evil.
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There's something beautiful and key about that word. He has been, the word redeemed, bought back from, purchased from evil.
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Jacob has not made it through life without injury. Jacob has not made it through life without personal stain on his character and on his life.
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Jacob has not made it through life without significant battles with evil, both internally and externally.
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But he has been redeemed from evil. And he trusts the one who has been with him.
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And he knows no other blessing to give than to bless in the name of the one who has preserved him, the one who has redeemed him.
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But Joseph, being an observant father, notices the switcheroo hand -crossing thingy going on. And he was ticked.
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The words that are used there. I mean, he's upset. He's irate. Like red face, you know. Red face Egyptian going on here.
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And he rebukes his father on his deathbed. Don't recommend this happen.
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I don't recommend you go this route. Not this way, father, he says. Not this way.
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No, no. And he grasps. It's a violent grasp, his father's hand trying to switch this up.
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Dad, you've got it wrong. Come on now. I know you're struggling to see, but I lined this up.
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I got it all set for you. All you had to do was reach your hands out. You're not even getting that right. Jacob's sight is weak.
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But Jacob's insight is strong. His insight proves to be stronger than Joseph's.
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And Jacob has received the knowledge that Ephraim will surpass Manasseh. By the way, if you read this carefully and what this blessing looks like, this is not a rejection of Manasseh.
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Manasseh is not rejected at all. They both will be significantly blessed. Both will indeed become great.
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But Ephraim will be the stronger. Jacob reminds his favorite son that God will indeed take him back to Canaan.
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I love the fact that this dying old man realizes that the plans of God will far extend his own life, will go beyond his own life.
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Jacob's ability to be used for the kingdom of God in this physical world is coming to an end. And we all know that that day is coming someday for us as well.
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Where our ability to influence the world ceases. But I find joy.
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I find significant joy and hope in knowing that the God who is with me will be there with my children and will be there with their children and will be there with their children and will be there with their children.
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There is one constant in human history. Only one. The one constant, the one consistent and regular and routine thing that can be counted on to be impacting the world is our
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God. And he goes on beyond us. So only as much as our work in this life is tied in with him are we having anything to do with anything.
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So whether that's your nine to five job, tie it in with God. Whether that's the way you live in your neighborhood, tie that in with God.
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Whether that's the sports you play, tie that in with God. Your free time, your entertainment. Go on and on and on and what you are doing that is for the purposes and for the glory of God.
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I'm not talking about having your Bible open at every time and never watching TV. But is it tied to the
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Almighty? Are you processing your life through the lens of what matters most and what is going to extend beyond you?
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Jacob had that perspective. Jacob reminds his favorite son that God will indeed take him back to Cain and I love the fact that he realizes that God is going to do this for his family.
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There's a myth by the way that ties in with this point and that is that we are one generation away from faithlessness.
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Have any of you heard that? I think there's even a movement on Facebook right now. People are posting that and it's kind of getting forwarded and stuff and we're just one generation away from the church dying.
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Except for the fact that Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against His church.
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And my hope rests in the God who goes beyond my life. I can't carry that weight on my shoulders.
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Did you realize you can't either? Have you come to the brokenness of the end of yourself and said, listen,
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I can do only what I can do, but it's God who's going to carry this thing forward. It's God who's going to carry this next generation.
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Are you praying for your kids? Are you praying for your grandkids? Are you praying for their friends? Are you praying for your baseball team, your soccer team, whatever it is?
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I know we've got a lot of people that are involved in this community praying for this next generation saying God carry them further than we've gone.
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Take them deeper into you than we have gone. Where is the hope? I fear that we as a generation have lost hope for the next generation and they're going to go on.
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They're going to do great things for the cause of Christ. That's a glorious thing. Let yourself go on that.
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And I'm not saying give up. I'm saying be engaged and be involved and be a part of that. Tie in with what God is doing in this next generation.
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It's exciting when you start to see that God goes out beyond you. And one of Jacob's last actions is to give the land of Shechem to Joseph.
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It's pretty unclear at first. You probably didn't get that. But verse 22, maybe there was a little bit of confusion over there.
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It says, Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope. And then you look down in the word mountain slope, look down in the bottom and it's
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Shechem. The word is actually Shechem. That's the word for mountain slope. And we know, those of you that were here, you remember that sordid account of the embarrassment of Shechem that Jacob's daughter was defiled by one of the leading, the leader of the city's sons.
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Brothers got all hacked about that and went in and diced up the entire village. Slaughtered them.
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Got rid of the entire village. And to Jacob's shame, he did not control his sons in that situation.
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And it was a horrible slaughter. And so here he ultimately says he redeems that horrendous event by giving it as a reminder to his most powerful and Egyptianized son that they have a land that belongs to them outside of this land.
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And so it's a reminder, a deathbed reminder saying, this is not your home, Joseph. You have a deed to property that is
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God given and it is yours. And he gives that property to his son. Interestingly, when
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Joshua enters the land, centuries later, the people conquer Jericho. You know, the marching around the city, shout, walls fall.
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They conquer Ai. And Ai, by the way, was a little bit more dicey. They went at it one time and somebody had kept back some stuff from Jericho and they lost in battle and they had to go back again and take it.
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And then after the conquest of Ai, they head up north to a place called Shechem and they have a dedication service. There's nothing mentioned in the text ever in the book of Joshua about them conquering
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Shechem. Why? They own it. It's already theirs. When they conquer the land and go in, they already have a portion of it.
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They already have a little postage stamp area that belongs to them, that's deeded to them, that they can prove that they possess.
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They don't even have to conquer Shechem. It's already theirs. So what is the significance of these last events before the final blessings that are issued next week and the death of Jacob?
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Well, whenever we encounter a text in the text of Scripture, whenever we dig in, we need to consider why it has been included here.
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To be honest, Ephraim and Manasseh are not standouts in the future of Israel.
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But if we think for just a moment they should stand out in a way that we have rarely considered, I think we will find out that the application this week to our lives comes through recognizing what makes this particular event unique.
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The first thing that I want to highlight is on this double blessing given to Joseph.
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Joseph is the one who is being blessed ultimately by this. Manasseh and Ephraim are his kids.
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But how many of you know you bless my kids, you're blessing me. Do you feel that way? Do you recognize that? I mean, there kind of comes a point where Christmas is no longer as exciting about opening gifts as it is watching your kids open gifts.
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And boy, I'd rather you just get something for them. Do you know what I'm saying? And so, I mean, this is a blessing to Joseph that he's getting the double blessing.
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Ten of Joseph's older brothers and dozens of grandsons are overlooked by Jacob in favor of adopting
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Ephraim and Manasseh. And I think what is going on here is that God is identifying to us conclusively that He is not a respecter of man -made custom.
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It seems like we serve a God who goes out of His way to demonstrate His right to choose whomever
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He desires. He doesn't need to take the firstborn. He doesn't need to take the secondborn. He doesn't need to take the fourthborn in the case of Judah.
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He can choose the children of the eleventhborn if He wants to. It's His gig.
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God is exercising His will and He wants us to know it. He wants to highlight it. He is
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El Shaddai, the Almighty God, who has the right and authority to do as He wishes.
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He doesn't answer to any man -made rules. And so maybe for us, step one this morning, maybe this is enough for you, just to take this on and to mull it over and to let this dig into your mind is to let
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God be Almighty. Maybe that's what you need to wrestle with this week is to let
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Him be in charge, to let Him call the shots, to recognize His sovereign right to guide and direct you.
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But the second unique feature in this text that often is overlooked, I had never really even contemplated it until I started digging in and studying this better, is the fact that the blessing is offered to the half -Egyptian grandsons.
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Who's singled out in this text? The ones that are half -Egyptian.
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These guys had an Egyptian mom that was raised in a pagan priest's home. You getting me?
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Granddad on the other side of the family was the chief priest of a district of Egypt called
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An. And he was the dude. And this is where his daughter -in -law, where Jacob's daughter -in -law was from.
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These kids Ephraim and Manasseh, they probably went to Egyptian school. They spoke
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Egyptian. They probably wore Egyptian clothes. They were well -versed in Egyptian society.
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They probably even looked, when they got together with their cousins, a bit Egyptian.
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You getting what I'm saying in this? I would think that during the life of Moses, as anti -Egypt as that culture was, he might have been tempted to leave this chapter out.
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Let's not talk about how some of our family, we know who they are, but let's not talk about how they come from Egyptian stock.
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What do you think, that they might have a cause to be anti -Egyptian in the writing of this? At the time that this was going down.
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Remember they're coming out of Egypt. This was written by Moses in the context of the Exodus. They're coming out as slaves, as people who have been abused, beaten, killed, and their lives taken from them by the
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Egyptians. And then here in the midst of this is this, this text that indicates that wow, an extra blessing to the half -Egyptian kids.
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But all throughout the Old Testament, there are signs that God is not Jewish.
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It's important because we could tend to get that way in our minds. God brings anybody into the family who will come to Him by faith.
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In Christ, it's declared that there is now neither Jew nor Greek. The staunch ethnocentricity of the
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Jews can certainly be understood by many of the Old Testament texts speaking out against intermarrying. How many of you have ever noticed that?
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That in the Old Testament they were constantly being told to not intermarry with the pagan tribes around them. Have you ever noticed?
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Have any of you noticed that? You know what I'm talking about? So what do we make of that? Well, I want to be clear that all of those injunctions to not intermarry with the people around them were always in the context of worship and never in the context of superiority.
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It wasn't, you're better than them. How dare you marry someone like that? It was, they're going to pull you down.
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They're going to bring you into their idol worship. If you marry an idol worshiper, you're going to get in trouble.
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That's one of the reasons that personally my conviction is that I don't perform marriages for a believer with an unbeliever because I think that that's going to cause a lot of hardship in your life.
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That's going to cause a lot of this. And it's going to be, I mean, marriage, marriage is tough enough as it is.
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And then you add that dynamic in it and there's going to be a constant pull to just sleep in. Why would you go to those church people?
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Some of you are living that now and I recognize that. And it's tough. It's not easy.
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The fear of intermarrying was always about being led away to worship idols and not about the superiority of the
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Jews. So it may surprise some to find out that from the very beginning there was never truly an ethnically pure Israel.
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But two of the tribes were adopted and they were half
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Egyptian. And these two were singled out for a special blessing and I believe that this was on purpose and we should recognize that God is creating for himself, hear me carefully,
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God is creating for himself a multicultural, multi -ethnic, multitude of people called by the glory of his name that will one day gather around the throne and worship.
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And it is going to be beautiful and more beautiful because it will be like a patchwork quilt of nations.
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People in Arabic proclaiming the glories of God. People in English proclaiming the glories of God.
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People in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese. People in dialects from Indonesia that will be standing before the throne of our great
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God worshiping him as ultimate and true and almighty. And that will be a glorious day.
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People from Iraq who have died this past week for the cause of the name of Christ. And hear me carefully, people from Gaza will be there.
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People from Gaza who are in essence more the true people of Israel than some of the
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Israelis who are killing them. That might shock some of you to hear me say that up here, but there are believers, there are brothers and sisters in Gaza just like there are some believers in Israel.
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But the only way that a person from Gaza is going to be standing there is because of the blood of Jesus Christ. The only reason that a
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Jew will be standing there is because they have recognized and come to bow the knee before their Messiah, Jesus Christ.
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Are you hearing me? That is what this is all about. And God sees fit in his glory to occasionally pull back the screen on our ethnocentricity and our superiority and all of these type of complexes that we get and say,
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Ephraim, Manasseh, they get a double blessing. They get to be singled out and he does that with intention to say, it's not the way that you think it is often.
01:00:07
And lastly, lastly we get a chance to come to communion this morning. So as we come to communion let's consider the blessing that has been given to us by fulfilling this promise to Jacob.
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The fulfillment of that promise is the blessing. Jacob sat on the edge of his bed and he rehearsed his life and the high point was when he came to realize that God was real and was really involved.
01:00:30
And God has a big plan for his people. And the culmination of that big plan was found in Jesus Christ.
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He came to pay the price for our sins. He came to restore us to his Father. He came because he loved us enough to die for us.
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And so if you are all in with Jesus Christ, he is your hope. He is your only, only hope for salvation.
01:00:56
Then please come to one of the tables during this next song. The tables are set up in the corner and feel free to take communion together.
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Take the cracker to remember his body that was broken for us. Take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.
01:01:11
And let's rejoice together that God Almighty is creating for himself a people for his glory and he has allowed us to be a part of that.
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Let's pray. Father, I rejoice and thank you for just the glory of your ultimate plan,
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Father, that you are bringing about a multinational, a group of multi -ethnic people, a multitude of people from across political persuasions and across government lines and from all around the world you are bringing people to yourself.
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Father, we are privileged people. We live in a country where we have a lot of freedoms and we have not faced war on our soil in many, many years.
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We are grateful for that. Father, I pray that you would help us to think outside of ourselves, to recognize your big picture plan and to do the part that we can in sharing our faith with those around us.
01:02:08
And Father, as we come to communion to recognize that our only hope and the only hope of anyone is in the cross of Jesus Christ, your son.