The Pre-Exodus Exodus

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Don Filcek; Genesis 46 The Pre-Exodus Exodus

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsack 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. Good morning.
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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here and glad that we've gathered together to worship
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God together. Hopefully that's the reason that you're here and be sure to fill out the connection cards that you received when you walked in.
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Do want to point out that you received a worship folder and in that are different activities and things that are going on.
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But if you want to get connected here and you're kind of maybe you've been here for a while or even if this is your first week and you want to know more about what my next steps are or what's what the church really has for you, then you really need to fill out that connection card and share your email with us because we send out a weekly email that that clarifies a lot of the different events and activities that are going on.
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This is just a sampling of what you would get each week in the e -cast, the email that we send out.
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Remember also that any offerings given that are that you write expansion fund on are going to go towards our eventual goal of building a building.
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Obviously, this is not a church building. This is an elementary school. So we purchased 12 acres of property.
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We were able to, by God's grace, pay for that property free and clear. So that is our property out on East McGillan and now we're just, you know, as the money rolls in, we're not doing a capital campaign trying to sell bricks or trying to sell chairs.
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It's just as people have given towards that fund and just I think we're probably about a third, a quarter to a third of the way towards the money that we would need to put the down payment down on breaking ground in a building.
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And so praise God for that. And the budget you've seen on the stuff that's scrolling through on the pre -announcements that the budget is available for this fiscal year.
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We go from July to June and so that's available for you online. We have full disclosure on our finances here and how the money is spent and what comes in and what goes out.
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And so we want to make sure that you know that you can access that at any time and see what's going on there. All right, with all that out of the way, we're going to be talking about Genesis chapter 46 this morning.
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And we set the stage for that. I want you to think back in your minds to a time of transition.
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So as we come to worship and we come to this text this morning, if you have in your mind a time of transition,
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I think that's helpful for us. All of us have gone through a move of some sort, a marriage, going off to college, starting a business, having children, some some kind of transition that, and I'm not talking about the kind of transition where you're trying to decide whether or not to transition.
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That's already set in place and you're you're moving, you're going through it. You're actually, there's that risk involved in it and there's a level of the unknown and okay, what's this next step that God has for us and what's it going to look like?
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And in our text this morning, we're going to see the whole family of God, the people on the face of the planet that God is working through to bring about his honor and glory and to reconcile all of humanity to him, that seed of the nation of Israel, which is at this point of our text, just a family.
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We're going to see them all load up the U -Haul and make an international move. Okay, an international move.
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They're going to move to Egypt in our text. They start off in Canaan at the start of our text. They are in Egypt at the end of our text and I'm calling this the pre -exodus exodus.
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Okay, this is the exodus to Egypt. There's going to be the big exodus that you know of that is the people of God leaving
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Egypt. But long before Moses led God's people out of Egypt, which is,
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I want to remind you, the context in which the book of Genesis was written. So why, have you ever asked yourself, why does the book of Genesis exist?
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You might think some notions like it exists to tell us how God created things or how things started or whatever.
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Yes, there's that component of it and certainly we read it to understand what truly happened in history.
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But the reason that Moses sat down with a pen in his hand and wrote this God -ordained history that is certainly true in all of its aspects of the way that things went down, but it was so that the people of Egypt had some context and some understanding of who they were as they went in to take the land that God was giving to them, the land of Canaan after they've left
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Egypt. Well, how did we get to this place? How did we get to this, this situation where we're coming out of Egypt as slaves and we're going into the promised land and God is giving us law and all of that?
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And so that's the context in which Genesis was written in the first place. And long before Moses led
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God's people out of Egypt, Jacob led the people of God into Egypt. And our text is broken down into three sections.
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Just if you're, if you, if you take notes, you can just jot these down and then we're going to cover them after the worship time. But the first is we'll be looking at God's confirmation on this move.
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That's the first movement in the text. And then the second, we see a culturally guided list of those who made that first exodus, a listing of people, a genealogy, if you will, of those who departed
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Canaan for Egypt. And lastly, we encounter this amazing reunion of Joseph and Jacob, father and son who had been, been torn apart by the, the sons selling
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Joseph into slavery. Jacob thought his son was dead. For 22 years he's been living under the premise that his son,
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Joseph, is no more, was torn up by wild animals. They took the coat of many colors, dipped it in blood and gave it to their father, showing him as evidence that, that Joseph is no more.
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And now 22 years later, he finds out not only is his son alive, but his son is alive and is a ruler over the most powerful nation in the entire world at the time.
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Well, the interesting thing is that Jacob was no stranger to reunions. He had been estranged from his brother
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Esau for a similar duration. And for 22 years, he was separated, or for 20 years, he was separated from his brother.
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And he fearfully approached that reunion. And God met with him just prior to that meeting that we saw.
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I think I lost your attention there for just a second. The cute little kid with the juice, did that, that kind of, that kind of grabbed you there for a second.
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And me as well. Adorable. Um, so I was,
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I was saying that Esau, Esau, Jacob and Esau had had this similar situation where they had been estranged from each other.
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Jacob not being a stranger to those types of reunions, that drawing back together. And what the main point, the reason
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I'm even talking about that is that God was faithful to meet with Jacob the night before he was reconciled with Esau.
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He met with him. And remember whenever you see Jacob, in the later text of the book of Genesis, you've got to remember that this dude walks with a heavy hitch.
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He does not walk normal anymore. He has a significant God -given limp. Because that night before he was reunited with his brother
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Esau, he was a man of tremendous fear. A man of, uh, who was, who was constantly trying to while his way through things and trying to win people over in his own strength, which creates fear in you.
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Have you ever noticed that? When you depend on yourself, do you live a life of fear because you know yourself? And so there's a lot of fear in you.
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And he lived with fear and he came in contact with the Almighty God, wrestled, trying to do things in his own strength.
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And God Almighty touched the hip socket and caused him to limp through the rest of life.
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A constant reminder of this strong man's dependence upon God.
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This man who could do it himself and was, was going to make it himself. And, uh, you know, despite all his fears and anxieties, he could do it himself.
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And now he has been brought low with a limp to constantly remind him of that.
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And now here in our text, just prior to another significant reunion in the life of Jacob, God meets him again.
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You see, I'm convinced that God is faithful to give his people the encouragement that they need at the right time.
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Oftentimes, it doesn't come a second earlier than you need it. Have you ever noticed that in your life? Oftentimes, you're not, you're not prepared today for the problems you're going to face tomorrow.
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He's going to, he's going to prepare you tomorrow for the problems you're going to face tomorrow. How many of you have been in that situation where grace comes at the last second?
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And God loves to swoop in and to, to provide the encouragement, the peace that we need just at the right point.
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And that's exactly where we find our lead player, Jacob, at this time. Jacob, as I mentioned before, was a man plagued by fears and worries.
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And he was often the recipient of these words from the Almighty God, Do not be afraid.
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Why? Because Jacob was often afraid. And so before the band comes to lead us in praise, let's open our
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Bibles to Genesis 46. If you're not already there, you can obviously navigate in your app over there or use your own
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Bible. If you didn't bring a Bible, go ahead and raise your hand if you don't have one. I'd like everybody to have a Bible sitting on their lap to be able to follow along as we read this together.
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So if you raise your hand up and keep it up, then, then one of these guys can bring you a Bible. And remember, if you don't own an
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English Standard version of the Bible, that's what I preach from, you can raise your hand and they'll bring you one and you can take that home with you.
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I don't think it's magical or mystical. It just happens to be my favorite translation. I know some of you love the King James. Some of you love
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NIV. I love the ESV. And so that's what I preach from. But follow along as I read Genesis chapter 46.
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So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the
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God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob.
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And he said, here, here am I. Then he said, I am God, the God of your father.
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Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt and I will also bring you up again.
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And Joseph's hand shall close your eyes. Then Jacob set out from Beersheba.
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The sons of Israel carried Jacob, their father, their little ones, and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
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They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt. Jacob and all his offspring with him, his sons and his son's sons with him, his daughters and his son's daughters, all his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.
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Now, these are the names of the descendants of Israel who came into Egypt. Jacob and his sons,
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Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and the sons of Reuben, Hanak, Palu, Hezron, and Carmi, the sons of Simeon, Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a
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Canaanite woman, the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the sons of Judah, Ur, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah, but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan, and the sons of Perez were
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Hezron and Hamel, the sons of Issachar, Tola, Puvah, Yob, and Shimran, the sons of Zebulun, Sered, Elan, and Jahlil.
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These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob and Paddan Aram together with his daughter Dinah, altogether his sons and his daughters, number 33.
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The sons of Gad, Ziphion, Haggai, Shunni, Ezban, Eri, Erodai, Ereli, the sons of Asher, Imnah, Ishva, Ishvi, Beriah, and Sarah, their sister, and the sons of Beriah, Heber, and Melchiel.
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These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah, his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob, 16 persons.
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The sons of Rachel, Jacob's wife, Joseph and Benjamin, and to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom
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Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, the priest of An, bore to him. And the sons of Benjamin, Bela, Becker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Mupim, and Hupim, and Ard.
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These are the sons of Rachel. Are those, are those dwarves from the
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Lord of the Rings or something? Um, Mupim and Hupim, Ard. These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob, 14 persons in all.
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The sons of Dan, Hushim, the sons of Naphtali, Jaziel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillam.
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These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel, his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob, seven persons in all.
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All the persons belonging to Jacob, who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including
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Jacob's sons' wives, were 66 persons in all. And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two.
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All the persons of the house of Jacob, who came into Egypt, were 70. He had sent
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Judah ahead of him to show Joseph the way, to show the way before him in Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen.
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Then Joseph prepared his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father in Goshen. He presented himself to him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.
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Israel said to Joseph, now let me die, since I have seen your face, and know that you are still alive. Joseph said to his brothers and his father's household,
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I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and will say to him, my brothers and my father's household, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.
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And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of a flock, and they have brought their flocks in their herds, and all that they have.
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When Pharaoh calls you, and says, what is your occupation? You shall say, your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth, even until now.
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Both we and our fathers, in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen. For every shepherd is an abomination to the
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Egyptians. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in praise this morning.
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Father, we are a people in need of you. I know that there's all kinds of distractions in my heart, all kinds of things that would war with your word this morning, that would war with my worship.
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There's all kinds of things in my heart that would, that happened this week, both good and bad, that would draw down attention from you.
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And so Father, I pray that as we get an opportunity to interact with others, uh, here in the connection time, to interact with you, and worship, and hearing from your word.
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Father, that you would help us to focus on that which your spirit desires to communicate to us. That we would focus on what your spirit desires to communicate from us to others, even in the connection time conversations, and before and after the service.
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And Father, that we would bring honor and glory to your great name. We believe that your spirit is present with us, and that everyone who is here that is your child has your spirit residing in them.
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And so therefore, my hope is that as I have an opportunity to proclaim your word and truth, Father, that your spirit would grab a hold of that in the lives of people and apply it directly to where they are at right now.
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Father, turn the distractions into the very things that you desire to hook us in with, and the very things that would fuel the
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Holy Spirit's work in our lives. Those distractions, those difficulties that we faced this past week, that they might be the very things that you apply the word to in helping us to think through what you desire for us.
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I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you very much to the band for leading us in worship this morning.
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Very grateful for the time and energy and work that they put in. And be sure to get comfortable. This is about the next 30 -40 minutes.
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We're going to be digging into God's word. If you need to get more coffee, more juice, or more donuts, feel free. Restrooms are out the hall at the end to the right, and signs are down there to direct you.
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And then if you just need to get up in the back and stretch out or whatever, feel free to do that.
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If you need to. Very few things will actually distract me during the message unless a little kid, cute kid is walking across, and I think he's bringing me juice and donuts.
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That's going to be distracting. But aside from that, feel free to get up and stretch or whatever you need.
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Last week, oh and make sure you have your Bibles open too. I say that every week, but I mean that sincerely. Like if you have your
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Bibles open to Genesis 46, then you can like see that I'm actually walking us through the text as we go. And you have it right there to reference it.
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I don't always draw your attention to verse, but you can follow the flow. Last week, we saw the big reveal.
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It was like kind of the climax of an eight -chapter series on the end, at the end of Genesis, on the life of Joseph.
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And last week was the big reveal, really the climax, even though today there's some other aspects of what's going on in the covenant people of God, the chosen people,
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Israel, and what's going on with them that are very significant in the course of human history. Joseph, last week, finally let his brothers know that he was indeed still alive, that he was himself, is himself, that dude in Egypt who is selling grain to everybody.
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And he reveals that to them, that he is now the ruler, one of the rulers in Egypt, and their jaws dropped to the ground.
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They thought he was dead. They had sold him into slavery and assumed he was dead or off someplace else. And here he is, looking very
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Egyptian and also looking very powerful. And they are the ones who abused him, left him for dead, and then sold him into slavery.
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And that's not cool. But we saw significant forgiveness and reconciliation last week.
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He sent them away in a hurry with all kinds of gifts last week at the end of our text. He sent them to retrieve their father, their families, and come and move to Egypt because this famine is struck.
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They're two years into a seven -year devastating worldwide famine. You put seeds in the ground, nothing grows.
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There's no water to water the crops. There is no possibility of growing your own garden in this scenario.
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And so the whole world is under a devastating famine, the known world at this time.
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And so God is using Joseph and the plan that he hatched through Joseph to preserve his chosen people through this worldwide famine.
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Remember, he made the dream, he made the famine known to Egypt because Pharaoh had a dream.
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Joseph was able to interpret it. And so Egypt has food, the rest of the world not so much. So if you want to eat during this time, you go to Egypt.
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The 11 brothers returned to their father declaring to him that Joseph was indeed still alive. You can imagine the initial shock of that, the disbelief that the text told us.
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He didn't even believe that indeed his son was alive. But then they gave him some evidences and some different things and that initial shock wore off and Jacob agreed to move down to Egypt with his family and be reconciled with Joseph.
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I want to point out that from Jacob's perspective, his number one goal in this entire thing is to see
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Joseph again, his son. Can you imagine having a child that you have been estranged from for 22 years? You assumed they were dead and now you have an opportunity to reconcile.
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How many of you would be making a beeline for Egypt? Like you'd be like, first flight, I'm there. And so that's what is going on in our text.
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So the family packs it all up because Joseph doesn't just send a message saying, come to me dad and let's reunite.
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But he actually says, move the whole family because you need to be in Egypt. This famine, I've got special revelation from God that this famine is going to last longer than you can sustain these trips back and forth for grain.
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You need to be present here with me. And so they pack it all up and they take the first leg of the journey 20 miles south from the
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Hebron area where Jacob is currently residing down to a place called Beersheba. Beersheba has a history in this family.
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Beersheba, by the way, is the last place you would go if you're going south out of Israel into Egypt.
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This would be the last like stopping place. I mean, it's like the last city. It's the frontier city in the south of Israel.
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It's got a lot of family history in it. I'm guessing that all of us have a place with some kind of family history.
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Can you go to a place in your mind where your family maybe vacationed as you know routinely as a child or maybe it's a an old childhood home that you grew up in and were raised in or a neighborhood or the church that you grew up in?
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Are there places in your life that have certain significance to your family or maybe to even your parents or grandparents?
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Am I the only one that that would be the case or some of us have that? And so there's places that have that significance.
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Beersheba is that this is the place where grandpa Grandpa Abraham had dug a well, okay?
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So this goes way way back into their family history. It was a place that Jacob's father had then in turn had to re -dig that well and negotiate for that well that his father had produced that well and dug it.
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But then some pagans had come along and and pagan tribes had had filled that in and so he had to negotiate for it.
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And again, it's renamed Beersheba, which means the well of seven or the well of the oath. Seven being a word and the number in Hebrew that signifies completion.
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Oath being a word that implies that I'm going to complete something and so those two words are related in the Hebrew language.
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So beer ironically is the word for well in Hebrew and sheba is the word for oath and so it's the well of the oath.
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Not only did his father, not only did Jacob's father re -dig that well, but he also built an altar there and sacrificed on that altar.
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And so considering all that's going on in Jacob's life, can you imagine why he might make a sacrifice at this time?
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He comes to Beersheba, one of the last stopping points along the way where there is known water.
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He knows there's a well there. His dad dug that well. And so he's got some substantial troop with him.
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I mean, he's got a lot of people and we're going to see a huge family traveling with him, huge flocks traveling with him. Water, important.
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He's going to where he thinks he can find water. And so he's heading down to Beersheba. Hopefully there's some water even in this famine and during this dried up time and he heads down there.
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But I think that he makes an offering and I think that probably we know a couple of different things that might be motivating that offering.
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Probably gratitude. Like right, that gratitude for the realization that the son that he thought was dead is now alive.
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And so he offers a thank offering to God. But I think there's another element to this. How many of you just before you go ahead on a road trip, you've just made it a habit or a thing in your family that you pray for safety as you're going?
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I mean, usually we back out of the driveway and as we're taking off, I'm like, who's going to pray? So we pray for safety for the trip and pray that we don't gouge each other's eyes out, you know, that we don't cross the invisible line in the back seat and that kind of stuff.
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I mean, some of you with kids, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And so you're just like, help us to survive.
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Help us to not run off the road and help me not have to pull over this car right now. You know, and so you're praying in advance for that kind of thing.
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I think that's a little bit of the motivation of this offering. It's a consecration offering as well as a thank offering. His family is embarking on a journey.
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I'd imagine that Jacob desires the blessings of God on this trip. I want to get there safely.
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I want to see my son. So he offers a sacrifice to, the text tells us, the God of his father
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Isaac. Now without getting too down on your dad, I want you to think about something for a minute, to think in terms of the
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God of your father. That's who God introduces himself to, Jacob, as the
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God of his father. I want you to consider what it would mean to offer a sacrifice to the
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God of your father. Now some of us ought to be moved to deep gratitude when we consider the
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God of our father. Some of us know what it means to have a father who led us into the ways of the
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Lord and showed us and modeled to us, certainly not perfectly, but showed us some of the character of God in the way that he fathered us.
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Others of us, unfortunately, know that you should not, that we should not worship the God of our father because his
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God was not the true God. And obviously what I'm, what I'm implying here is that there can be a disparity between what we were, what our fathers worshiped and what we now worship.
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And there can be a disparity even in what we were communicating about God, right, as fathers. Could there be some discrepancy in the things that we're communicating to our children about who
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God is? And this is certainly not central to this text, but a minor application is to consider then for all of us, not just for fathers, certainly it applies to us specifically, but what is your
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God like? If others were to worship your example, just to follow your example rather, and to worship your
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God, what would that look like? What if your co -workers, what if, what if you in, in essence, are the only one conveying
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God to one of your co -workers? What do they know of him? What would their worship look like if you're the only one who is showing them who
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God is? What would they come away from that with? Certainly for us fathers, biological fathers specifically,
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I would encourage a good long look at the spiritual legacy that you are creating in your children.
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What would your children say is your God? Maybe just starting there. If they were, if they're just watching, they're watching you.
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By the way, they're watching you more than they're listening to you. You already knew that, right? They're watching you.
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They're taking this in. And what would your children say is your God? Do you want your kids to make offerings to the
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God that you're conveying to them? They're learning from us. They're watching us. Obviously you mothers as well, and, and those of you who don't have children, or those of you that are single, this, this applies just as equally in the, in the other relationships that you have in life of conveying who
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God is. And obviously a central tenet to that, a central point to that is knowing
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God. How do we know God? Well, digging into his word and studying it to know who he is and how he has revealed himself.
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Well, that night in a vision, so he makes a sacrifice, and then they all camp that night, and there'd be, again, the first leg of the journey is behind them.
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And that night in a vision, God appears to Jacob and calls his name twice showing urgency.
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We, we see that multiple times in scripture where God calls somebody and uses their name twice.
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Here he says, Jacob, Jacob, or you can think Martha, Martha, or Saul, Saul. And there's times where the name is doubled for urgency or for effect in a way of, kind of gently, but, but forcefully nudging an individual and grabbing their attention.
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And when he responds, here am I, you need to understand that it's not like he was concerned that God couldn't find him in the dark.
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I'm over here. You know, here, I'm over here. Here I am. The, the here am I is better translated at your service.
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I'm attentive, Lord. I'm listening. I'm ready. Jacob has a heart that is soft and ready for God's call on his life.
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What do you want from me? He's 130 years old and he's ready for the call of God in his life. Are you getting that?
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Does anybody think that's a big deal? Any of you recognize that as you get older that you become less moldable, less shapeable, more set in your ways?
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Anybody? I mean, I'm 41 now. Yeah, I just confessed that. Um, and I'm actually noticing that.
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I'm noticing a little bit more rigidity in my life. I'm noticing that I don't like sleeping in a tent as much anymore. I kind of prefer my own mattress now.
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I mean, there's just certain things about life that it's kind of like as you get older, you're like, yeah, I guess, uh, this is just the way that I, I like to roll this way.
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And, um, here at 130, he's like, God, God, what do you want from me? I'm at your service. I'm at your disposal.
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What do you desire? And God in his beautiful grace calms the fears and anxiety of this 130 year old man trying to guide his family.
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Once again, God identifies himself with his people by calling himself the God of Jacob's father.
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Now, that God would ever willingly identify himself with humanity blows my mind. That he would title himself after a human.
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Think, think in those terms. That he would say, you want to know who I am? You want to remember who I am, Jacob? I'm the God of Isaac. I'm the
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God of Abraham. I'm, and later when he reveals himself to Moses, he's gonna say, I'm the God, hey, Moses, I know,
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I know I haven't talked with you before, but I wanted to just make a formal introduction. I am the God of Abraham, the
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God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Like he introduces himself in the context of human history, human relationship.
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Are you getting what I'm saying there? That's, that's monumental that God would engage in our history.
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Some people, even some of the founders of this nation believe that God just wound it up and let it fly.
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And he's off on vacation somewhere and eventually he'll come back and roll it all up again. He's intimately involved in our lives, even to the degree that he titles himself according to people in history.
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Think in these terms. If you are one of God's followers, he could say accurately. He could come to one of your descendants and say,
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I am the God of, and fill in your name. If you're in with him and in with Christ, he is your
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God and you are his. It's a glorious and amazing thing. Well, God gives Jacob specific permission to go to Egypt.
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I wonder if there wasn't some question and some fear in Jacob's mind like, am I just on this trip because I want to see my kids again?
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Some people in older age, they move across the state or they move across the country to be closer to grandkids, right?
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Is he just going because I want to see Joseph and I want to see his kids and I want to hang out with Joseph. I mean, I want to see him and I want to know that that might be a primary motive for him.
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And so he might be kind of going, am I? God promised us Canaan. He promised us this land that I currently live in and now
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I'm picking up my entire family and moving to Egypt. Am I going against God's will here? So do you see the faithfulness of God in revealing to him?
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This is my will for you. This is what I desire. He comes to him in the night and verifies. This is indeed my plan.
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And he promises to complete the process of making Jacob into a great nation. He says, Jacob, that promise hasn't ceased.
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I am indeed going to make you into a great nation. Egypt will in essence prove to be an incubator for the fledgling nation while they're there.
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Right now, they're just a great family, a huge family, but they are going to become a great nation while within the boundaries of Egypt.
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God also affirms his previous pledge to be with Jacob. That's a kind of a common theme throughout the pages of Jacob's life has been
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God saying, I will be with you. I will go with you. Do not fear. Do not be afraid. He will not walk alone.
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And we just sang, never once have I ever walked alone. And that was true in Jacob's life. Even though there were dark times in their valleys and there were high points and there were plateaus and there were times where he felt like he wasn't moving anywhere.
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And even during those times he was never alone and God is faithful to verify that to him time and time again.
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But in further compassion, God gives a further seed of the promise. This move to Egypt does not dismiss the promise of God given to them in Canaan.
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He's going to fulfill that. He's going to give them that land. He says, I will be with you when you go there and I will also bring you back again to Canaan.
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Now, the fact of the matter is Jacob doesn't know that he's going to be in a pine box when he moves back into the promised land.
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But he knows that God will be faithful to keep his promise and that he will not be buried in Egypt.
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But eventually he will be taken back indeed to Canaan. 430 years later that's going to happen.
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It's going to be fulfilled. But the final promise of God, when he meets with Jacob here, shows the most tender compassion and the goodness of God.
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Because there is one primary thing on Jacob's mind as I mentioned and it is Joseph. I'm sure that really what he wants to know what his heart longs.
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Am I going to see him again? Are we going to get back together or is this is this going to be the end for me? And God showing concern even for family dynamics and the longings of the heart of one individual old man.
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He lets him know that his precious son Joseph will be the one who closes his eyes.
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Now for us, we might kind of go, oh morbid, like right? Like okay now he's told him he's going to die and you might find discouragement in that or you know if God were to approach you and say you know what your child is going to be the one this this estranged child is going to be the one who closes your eyes upon death, okay?
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That's kind of a mixed blessing, right? Um, but imagine this is a man who actually said um,
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I will go down to shale. I will go down to the grave in immense sorrow and sadness because my son
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Joseph has been torn from me, okay? So can you imagine the context in which he is now being it's now being revealed that no, you will not go down to the grave in sorrow, but you will go down in the presence of this one you lost.
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You'll be reunited again. Your eyes will indeed behold your son Joseph.
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How many of you think that would be a good promise at this stage in the game? He's not even sure if he's ever going to be reunited with him. He's on his way.
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Uh, but who knows what could happen between now and then and he just wants to quick get there.
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I just want to point out in passing that this marks the last this this revelation this night vision that Jacob has of God, God approaching him and talking to him, is the last recorded interaction between God and a human directly for 430 years in the pages of scripture.
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We now embark on a 430 year period of time between this revelation to Jacob and who's going to be the next person to hear from God in this way where he has a direct spoken audible interaction with the almighty.
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Moses at the burning bush 430 years later.
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There's a lot of life in that 430 years. There's a lot of history in that 400 years.
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There's a lot of day in and day out of people, the covenant people of God during that 430 years.
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So when we look back at the old testament time and think to ourselves boy I wish I lived back in those days where God just would like you'd wake up and talk to God and he'd just tell you what to do with your day.
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How many of you have ever had that view of like the old testament like every time every 10 seconds God is speaking with somebody and it's like oh man if we could just live back then where we could see him and we could see his miracles and we could do this and do that and 430 years here.
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We need to realize that we're thinking incorrectly about history if we just have the assumption that God was speaking at all times to these people.
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Or big gaps big huge chunks of time where we don't know what the interactions look like.
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So Jacob now sets out from Beersheba with a destination of Goshen. That's where Joseph had told them to go and so they're going to go to Goshen but none of them have been there.
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It's an area near the Nile Delta. If there was water anywhere it was going to be there. If there was any place that had the possibility of growing anything to feed flocks it was going to be in the
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Nile Delta during this era. Remembering that the weather patterns in the Middle East come from the
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Mediterranean Sea and all of that area and if it's dried up and the wind isn't blowing right and they're not getting water there.
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The source of the Nile Delta is thousands of miles further south all the way down in southern
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Africa near the rainforest. And so the possibility of there actually being water in the Nile is still reasonable during this time that there might be something there.
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And so he they're moving to Goshen. His entire family went out with him and and remember gimpy Jacob isn't going to do this trip very well.
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And so he and the wives and the younglings are all riding the wagons that Pharaoh has provided for them.
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And just a word on this. This is not like packing up the minivan and moving to another state.
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Okay, whatever we whatever notions you have about moving it's it's multiplied in this. Even in our modern age, now
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I'm thinking these terms, even in our modern age what would it take to move 70 people? Just for the people alone you would need a few charter buses.
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Right? At least a couple. Just to move the people. Okay, just to get them physically there or how many plane tickets would it require to move to California with 70 members of your family?
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Imagine that. Not to mention all the goods and the flocks that they had during this time. This is a massive family.
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This is like an exodus. That's why I'm calling it the pre -exodus exodus. Verses 8 through 27 form an extended list of those who moved to Egypt with Jacob.
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This list is organized according to Jacob's wives. We know that he had four with Leah mentioned first, then
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Zilpah her maidservant, followed by Rachel, and then her maidservant Bilhah. And just to point out
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Leah accounts for 33 of those in transit out of the 70. 33 of them come from the line of Leah.
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Now, let me share two quick observations about this list. And the first is just simply that Leah accounts for more than double the offspring of her maidservant.
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And Rachel also accounts for double the offspring of her maidservant as well.
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But one amazing fact is that Leah alone accounts for almost half of all the offspring mentioned in the text.
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God has seen fit to use this unloved, forgotten woman to bless her with many children.
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And she is the one in whom the entire nation of Israel or the majority of the nation of Israel ends up being built up.
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My last observation about this list is that it is not a complete genealogy of every single person that moved to Egypt.
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We have to understand that in this text. The text actually declares that for us, that there were others in the entourage that were not numbered in the 70.
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The number 70 in verse 27 is actually a symbolic analogy or uh, what's the word, metaphor for the number of completion.
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So it has to do with a completion that all of them moved. And those who were selected to arrive at 70 had specific importance during the life of Moses.
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They would have been able to key in on some of these names. Even 430 years removed, they've been sharing histories and sharing genealogies down through the ages.
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They would have identified some of these people. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather or whatever. And so they would have been able to identify some of these names.
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And I'm sure that they were used intentionally during Moses's time to make some points. But in the western world, we use numbers as an instrument of precision, right?
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That's primarily why we introduce numbers into any scenario, is to try to provide some level of precision, some level of measurement, some level of a more detailed understanding.
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But in the ancient world, numbers were used as allegories or symbols. We don't use them that way anymore.
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And so because of that discrepancy in the way that we use numbers now from the way that they used it in ancient times, it's very difficult to come up with an apt illustration of what they mean by the number 70.
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When you see the number 70, you're thinking precise. Seven, zero, 70. I know how many that is. I could have 70 pennies.
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I can have 70 quarters. I can count 70 people in here. And so because we use them precisely,
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I think the closest that I could come to an understanding of how the way we use numbers in this allegorical way would be the way that sometimes a man or a woman will be referred to as a perfect 10, okay?
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You're not calling that out often, but the number is a symbolic representation of a subjective reality, okay?
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So when somebody calls someone a perfect 10, well, you're like, no, well, actually 9 .8175 is what
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I'd give. Okay, you know, and so are you looking for precision there? Or is there just kind of like a metaphor of something that we all understand when that number is used?
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There were far more than 70 people traveling with Jacob. There are daughters mentioned in the text that are not named or counted.
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There are wives of his sons never mentioned by name or counted. There are even likely husbands of his daughters that were not mentioned, not to mention any of the children of his daughters.
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We know he had daughters. Not a single child of any of the daughters are mentioned there in the text.
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So the point of the ancient Hebrew, the point that the ancient Hebrew reader would have taken from this text is that the entire family traveled with him.
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That could, well, that number, well, could have been over a hundred. And I want to point out this is hardly a nation, but it certainly is a large family.
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Would you agree with me on that? Being responsible for a hundred people, that's a lot. And Jacob sends
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Judah ahead of him to get directions to Goshen. None of them had ever been to Goshen before. So he sends Judah to go to see
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Joseph to say, how do we get to Goshen? What is the area? What is the route that we take? And I think it's ironic and amazing and kind of glorious and kind of like the way that God works.
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That the very one who sold Joseph into slavery, the one, the very one who divided Jacob from his son
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Joseph, is the one who is sent ahead to bring about reconciliation. Judah, the one who had the idea, hey, let's sell him into slavery, is the one who is sent out to go and say, how do we get together?
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Where are we going to meet? How is this going to come back? And on, and in verse 30,
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Jacob has hope for a peaceful death. I'm sorry, I actually jumped some stuff.
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Joseph sends Judah back with directions. So Joseph doesn't take
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Judah and lead him to Goshen or lead him back, but he sends Judah back to the pack with instructions and then he proceeds to hitch up his his chariot and head out to meet his father.
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He presents himself to his father. It seems to be almost kind of anticlimactic in the text. Did you notice that when
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I read it? The reunion of these two is not expansively covered in detail, but we do know that it is not just a clinical meeting.
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This is a son returning to his father from death. Pract, I mean, I mean figurative death.
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This is a father who at one time said he would go down to the grave in sorrow over the loss of his son and he is now restored and there is weeping for a long time.
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There's a lot of tears on both, on both sides here. There is again hope.
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Now that he has seen his father, now that he has seen his son face to face, Jacob says, I can, now that I've seen your face,
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I can go to death peacefully. And there's something about the face, there's something in the life of Jacob that the face is mentioned a lot and I think that it's a powerful metaphor and it's something that we need to take on in our lives as well.
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Jacob, remember, named a place the face of God, Peniel, because he had wrestled with God face to face and had indeed prevailed.
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That was the night before he met the face of his brother Esau. Again, I'm using straight text here from Hebrew.
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So that was the night before he met the face of his brother, hoping that his brother
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Esau would lift up his face from the ground and show his favor to him. And now that he has seen the face of his long, long, long lost son
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Joseph, he can go to the grave in peace. I want to suggest to you that there's a lot to a face.
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Give me a face -to -face meeting over a phone conversation or a text any day. When it comes to really, truly communicating, there is intimacy, connection, and relationship before the face of another.
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And this is one of the very things that I think is in jeopardy in our culture. And although I don't want to extend this too far as an illustration or extend it too far as an application point,
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I believe that we are living in a time and an era where we are losing the power of the face -to -face as we exchange the intimate for the immediate.
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Are we an immediate culture? I mean, I get in trouble if I don't text you back right away, if I don't respond to my
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Facebook messages, if I don't. And so there's an expectation. How many of you recognize that in yourself? Like you text somebody and you're like, where are they?
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I mean, come on, aren't they there for me? Like, come on, are they okay? I mean, it's only been three minutes, right?
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It's like, are they okay? You're starting to panic or whatever. I mean, do we live in an immediate culture?
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And what impact does that have on the notion of intimacy? On the face -to -face?
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It's something that is valued here. And Jacob, there's something powerful. How many of you think there might be something powerful in his standing before the face of Joseph, his lost son?
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There's something powerful in that reconnection. Something intimate about being there in the presence. A phone call wouldn't have done in that situation, would it?
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No, I really am here. Text. Send up. Okay, great. Glad you're okay. I thought you were dead for 22 years.
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All right, good. Something about the face -to -face there, kind of settle in.
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But despite the fact that Jacob is now ready to die and says so, okay, now my life is fulfilled.
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Now I'm at peace again. I'm back restored. He's going to live on another 17 years in Egypt.
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Joseph, however, goes into a strange monologue here in the text. Immediately, he launches into an expected interview that they're going to have with Pharaoh.
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And he wants to coach his father and his brothers about a meeting with Pharaoh, the most powerful man on the face of the planet at the time.
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Now, it may seem strange that he launches into this, but there's intentional force behind his communicating with his brothers exactly.
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Coaching them what to say and how to say it and what to emphasize and what to not emphasize. And Joseph knows how to interact with Pharaoh, right?
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He knows him personally. He's been connected with him. And so he's saying, listen, this is what we need to get accomplished what we want to have happen.
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So in verses 31 through 33 at the end of our text, it's obvious that Joseph wants his brothers and his father to be honest about their occupation.
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Now, probably they had some understanding or some notion about how the Egyptians view shepherds and leaders of flocks.
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They know that it is an abomination. They hate flocks. They hate what they do to the landscape. They hate the way that that rolls.
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They're more of a bovine community and bovine culture. And so everything was very focused on cows in Egypt, not so much on sheep and goats like it was in Canaan.
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And so there's, you know, they just consider the fact that the sheep just ravaged, sheep and goats ravaged the land where, you know, the oxen aren't as bad or whatever.
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So they had this this sense of an abomination there. So he wants them to be honest about their occupation.
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He's driving for his family to be permitted to settle in the area of Goshen, that nice land, which he knows will be okay during this time of devastation in this famine.
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I believe that there are also motives in keeping the Hebrews distinct and a bit removed from the urban life of Egypt. He doesn't want them to settle in the capital city.
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He doesn't want them to settle into urban life in Egypt. They are supposed to remain a distinct people.
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If they integrate into Egyptian society, begin to intermarry with them, it will be only a generation or two and they'll be no longer a distinct people, right?
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How are they going to become a great nation within the boundaries of Egypt if they don't remain distinct? And so there's something to the fact that they are an abomination as shepherds to the
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Egyptians that's going to preserve their unity, that's going to preserve them and maintain them being separated out, which is going to drive them into eventually slavery in Egypt and some different components there that are going to happen down through history.
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The fact at the end, the fact that's given at the end of verse 34 that the shepherds are an abomination to Egypt shows that part of Joseph's motivation is in part that is, in his brother's honesty, they would be relegated to the outskirts of society.
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He wants that. Pharaoh will not, by the way, I don't think he fears for a second that Pharaoh is going to reject the family of his grand vizier.
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Okay, so that's the office of Joseph and it would be crazy for Pharaoh to reject his family, but he's also not going to move them in as next door neighbors if they're shepherds.
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You getting what I'm saying? So to the original audience, this text is pivotal. Those reading this, those hearing this read to them by Moses in the revelation, in the context of the exodus years removed, 430 plus years later, it shows the explicitly
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God -ordained immigration of the patriarch Jacob to Egypt with his entire family.
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We get caught up in the details, but the original readers would have been struck by the symbols of totality in this text and the original audience would be able to look at this text and make sense of the way that God moved them to Egypt.
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You've got to remember that the original readers of this text would have only ever known Egypt as a place of slavery and pain.
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That generation, that last generation to leave Egypt, knew nothing of the glories of Egypt, knew nothing of the plan of God to preserve the people through Egypt.
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And if this was man -made, if this was a man -written document, do you think Moses would have any reason to boost
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Egypt as a place of salvation for his people? No, he would have every motive to just downplay them and make them look like like bad people and evil and all of that.
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But instead he actually says God took us there to save us. But now in that situation where we were led into slavery and everything turned south and they didn't, and a pharaoh was raised up that didn't remember
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Joseph, in that context God has now moved us on and is bringing us back into land. Are you seeing how this text would have an impact on the people of that day and that time?
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So what do we do as far as application? Like what does this have to do with us? You know, we're looking at a man who moves his family.
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So should we say that the application to us is that God wants us to move our family? Some of you after this last winner you're like, yeah, sounds great.
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When do we move? Uh, when do we sign up, right? But honestly, I want to suggest that we consider the ways that God works to move us on.
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There's a variety of different things that God could be using to bring us forward in his plan and his purpose for us.
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It could actually be the weather. I don't know if you've ever identified that, but the fact is that a famine is weather related.
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And that's one of the tools, that's one of the circumstances that God did indeed use to move his people on. But God worked in the circumstances.
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So I'm going to give you these basically three things that I suggest that we think about as we consider one of two callings on our lives.
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By the way, every one of you has a calling on your life. To either stay where you're at on purpose or go someplace on purpose.
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Fact. Don't stay here without conviction. Don't stay where you live and in your position and in your place without conviction that you are, that there's a possibility for you to be used by God where you're at.
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But equally don't go out without conviction. Are you, are you hearing me there? So there's these three things for us to think through as we consider where God has us right now.
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Three things that I see in the text that he used to move this man of God along and said, no, Egypt is for you.
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The first is that God worked in circumstances of his people. He went before them to prepare the way even sending
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Joseph there to prepare that land and all of the circumstances and to interpret dreams and do all kinds of things to prepare the land for them.
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He orchestrated events from a famine to dreams to imprisonment to even a personal vision to Jacob.
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And all of these things led Jacob up and out of the land of Canaan into Egypt. I would not suggest that you can get a thus saith the
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Lord from circumstances, that you can look at your circumstances and say say definitively 100 % my circumstances
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God has to move me to this place or that place or whatever. But it would be silly to not look at the events of our lives as moving us in a direction.
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Would you agree with me on that? Some of you have seen that, some of you have moved, some of you have transitioned and you've transitioned intentionally because you've actually seen
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God's hand in it. But when I talk about direction, I want to say the second thing. And the second thing that we need to consider as we contemplate being staying here or going intentionally is that I can tell you the direction that God has for your life.
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There's one thing I can tell you because if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you have the same direction in your life that I have in mine.
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I'm going to tell you one thing that for sure God has for you. And that is that his number one direction for your life is the purpose and the cause of his expansion of his kingdom for his honor and for his glory for all times forever and ever.
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That's what he wants of you. If it is your conviction by the end of this morning that God has you right where he wants you then be there for the cause of the kingdom of Christ.
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Are you hearing me? But some of you, you might end this service and you're suddenly like sparked in your mind this is not the place that God has for me, but then he has some other cause of the kingdom of Christ for you.
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Are you hearing me? But all for the glory of God whether to stay or to go is for his purposes.
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At many times in history, God has moved his people on for the cause of the kingdom. In Jerusalem in the early days of the church, there was a severe persecution that hit in Jerusalem.
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And they were slaughtering Christians left and right and the believers scattered. And do you know what they did when they scattered?
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They carried the gospel with them everywhere that they went and the church grew as a result of the persecution.
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Why? Because they understood their purpose. They understood why they were breathing God's air was to expand his glorious kingdom for his cause.
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Wherever they were. To stay in Jerusalem, share the gospel. To leave Jerusalem, share in the gospel.
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Understanding that there is a kingdom cause that you are breathing. There is a reason that God has you alive right here right now.
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And it's a glorious and majestic higher calling than any occupation that any of us serves right now. That's not to say that God can't be using your occupation.
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The the 50 hours or 55 hours or 60 hours that you work at your current employer.
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That's a that's that can be a kingdom cause, right? You bring the gospel to your co -workers. Can you bring can you be a a spokesman a spokeswoman for the cause of the kingdom wherever you are?
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Amen. Absolutely. During Paul's second missionary journey, he received a dream of a man in Macedonia asking him to come and visit.
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And the gospel spread to Europe and the first convert on the continent of Europe came about because he had a dream one night.
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And to dovetail with the message last week, the number one thing that God has for you is his kingdom work. Many of us wouldn't hesitate to move for a higher paying job, which is reality, right?
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We would you're going to pay me more? Uh, and the cost of living differential works in my favor or whatever.
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Yeah, sure. But I would suggest to you that a primary question in any move is how could
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God be using this move to further his kingdom? Some of us that are considering a move should not be because of the kingdom and some of us who are pretty satisfied with where we are at right now should be considering a move for the cause of the kingdom.
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And I cannot tell you which one you are. But I would love to walk this path with anybody who's struggling with restlessness in your life.
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I know I think that there's a midlife range where there's a lot of restlessness in my generation.
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There's a lot of longing. There's a lot of desire for something more or I was created for more or whatever. And if you find yourself in that situation where you're finding yourself restless,
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I would love to walk through that and maybe maybe going is what God is calling you to do.
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But maybe staying with intention and purpose is part of it. I don't know. And that leads to the last and possibly
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I think the most difficult, the difficult thing for me to really work through because of my upbringing because of the conservative church that I was raised in and the notions of prophecy and the notions of God speaking directly to us.
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But I can't leave it out because the text clearly communicates through a specific vision given to Jacob.
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I'm leery of it because it is so utterly open to abuse. Have you ever had anybody say
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God told me to and then fill in the blank, whatever it might be. God has told me.
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But Paul, remember, went into Europe because of a dream. Now he could have just as easily woke up in the morning and been like,
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I don't really know, you know, I mean I had a dream, but it was just a dream. Right?
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I mean, I dreamt that a guy was over in Macedonia calling me to come over there, but maybe it was just the lasagna
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I ate. Man, I'm not, that ice cream did a number on me. Don't just eat right just before you go to bed, you know.
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But he went and he saw it as the call of God on his life and God met with Jacob in the night and told him
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Egypt was the right move for him. And so a challenge to all of us, a specific challenge to me this week is to consider, do
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I believe? Do we believe? Do you believe that God can communicate even to your own subjective and emotional heart the truth of what he desires for you?
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Do you believe that God can communicate to you the desires? And I mean, I want you to raise your hand if you don't recognize some subjectivity in your heart that it's, it's like,
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I don't know where the end of my want and the start of God's want always is. And I can't always discern that.
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Anybody else with me on struggling through that one? At what point is it that I want to move or that I want to stay or at what point does all of that filter in?
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And so it's a challenge. And there are certainly more methods that God can use to move us along, but these are the methods that I see
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God use in our text to get Jacob to move to Egypt. And this is a huge move.
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This move has a huge part to play in the major theme of salvation of God's people. You see God's plan since, since the first sin of mankind back in Genesis 3 has been to call out a man named
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Abraham in Genesis 12, to create from him a nation, to shelter that nation with a good land, to protect them during rough difficulties like this famine, to make them distinct and set apart by law through the book of Genesis and through the book of Exodus and Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, with the eventual purpose of raising up one of their offspring to be one who will crush the enemy and provide salvation for his people.
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And that is the big picture of what God is doing. And this move is a component of that, is a part of that.
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And so this move to Egypt is a sheltering part. He's sheltering the small band of people during a worldwide famine.
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He will use their experience in Egypt to refine them. He will use their experience in Egypt to make them hungry for him and to make them ready for his law and even to soften them and prepare their hearts for his ultimate blessing that will come.
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So this morning let's take communion and as we take communion remember where we live in this historical plan.
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The promised offspring came 2 ,000 years ago. He fulfilled the prophecies and he died in our place that we can be restored in a relationship with God through him.
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He is the pathway. He is the door. He is the gate to reconciled relationship with God.
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And as we come to communion, I would encourage anyone who is following Jesus to as you sit either go get the go get the juice and the cracker and then come back and sit or as you sit waiting for the lines to die down and you sit there,
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I want you to just think and consider whether or not you would be willing to offer up your life like the attentiveness of Jacob who said here am
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I, here am I, at your service, at your service.
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And then I would like that to be in the context of going or staying of actually a conviction, a conviction that God has kingdom purposes for you here or a conviction that God has kingdom purposes for you elsewhere.
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But I would like you to think down deep to that level of what God desires for you and be open to his communication.
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Again, I get nervous. I get anxious. I get a part of my upbringing and again a part of my church history is that kind of like this is it right here.
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You know, this is it. Just study the word and God is capable of speaking to us through all different kinds of means and methods.
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Always check what you think God is saying to you through the word, but even the word shows us that God at times speaks to us outside of the word.
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But it always will be consistent with this. What I'm calling us all to is a life of conviction, a life of conviction that God has us here for a purpose and that he might send some of us out for a purpose.
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But recognizing that we are to live intentionally with the kingdom purpose of God in mind.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this opportunity to dig into your word.
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I thank you for the chance to come to communion this morning and to get a time to reflect and to think about your calling on our lives,
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Father, that we would be convicted to live here on purpose. I'm convinced that the majority of us in this room, that's going to be your, that's going to be the result.
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We're not all going to have a mass exodus and every single one of us move to Alabama tomorrow or something. But God, I'm convinced that the majority of us just need this reminder for the purpose of living intentionally for the cause of your kingdom here and now at our workplace, in our neighborhood, and in the various avenues that you've given us of relationship here.
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Father, there are some here that without question you are nudging, you are pressing, you are calling, and some maybe even to go overseas and make an international move for the cause of your kingdom.
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Father, I pray that you'd be working in hearts and lives to show us your desire for us as individuals.
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I thank you for this body. I thank you for the chance to remember Jesus Christ, our hope and our savior who died on the cross, his blood shed in the place of ours, his body broken in the place of ours, that we might be reconciled to you.
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Thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ and for this memorial that we celebrate in communion in Jesus' name.