SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever look around and wonder why things are the way they are?
SPEAKER_01: How they got that way?
SPEAKER_01: What quirks of history brought things together as we see them?
SPEAKER_01: Like, why is the west door of the church kitchen taller than the east door of the church kitchen?
SPEAKER_01: Don't go look now.
SPEAKER_01: Or why is the light fixture above the nursery so much like the light fixture in the foyer?
SPEAKER_01: Don't go look now.
SPEAKER_01: Just ask Vic later, he'll tell you.
SPEAKER_01: Growing up, growing up, there was a white bookshelf in the farmhouse that I grew up in.
SPEAKER_01: You can see it there.
SPEAKER_01: I asked my dad for a picture of it this week.
SPEAKER_01: And in my lifetime, it served as an entertainment center.
SPEAKER_01: A family portrait display seems to be its service now.
SPEAKER_01: A junk drawer.
SPEAKER_01: We kept batteries, board games, iPod docs.
SPEAKER_01: Remember iPod docs?
SPEAKER_01: Spare shoelaces.
SPEAKER_01: All manner of things lived in the white bookshelf.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know when the revelation first came to me, but one day my dad told me that there was more to the white bookshelf than met the eye.
SPEAKER_01: Because one day I learned that my forebears built that bookshelf to do more than just solve a storage need.
SPEAKER_01: They built the white bookshelf because the ceiling above it was sagging.
SPEAKER_01: And in my estimation, that day, that bookshelf suddenly became so much more than an entertainment center and family portrait display and shelf for the iPod dock.
SPEAKER_01: It became a load-bearing wall underneath my bedroom.
SPEAKER_01: My dad told me this week that it was that way when it was built.
SPEAKER_01: There was some problem in the original building, and they put that bookshelf in to solve the issue, and then he said it literally supports the entire upstairs of the house.
SPEAKER_01: And that bookshelf is made for a sturdy wall.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably been there for a hundred years now.
SPEAKER_01: And just that story I just told you explains the way things are.
SPEAKER_01: Why is there a white bookshelf there?
SPEAKER_01: Why can't we move it?
SPEAKER_01: Why is it white?
SPEAKER_01: Well, mom likes the color white, I think.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 48 and 49 gives Israel a similar sort of revelation.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob's final words to his sons and grandsons explain so many things about the nations his nation, his descendants would inherit.
SPEAKER_01: Its tribes, its difficulties, its kings, and even its hope.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to show you this morning how the thing that explains the way Israel is is the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the promises of God are a load-bearing wall in Jacob's faith and Israel's history.
SPEAKER_01: And God's promises explain the way things are for us too.
SPEAKER_01: Like a bookshelf that holds up half the house, Jacob built Israel around the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: And his dying speeches to his sons teach us that God's promises are sturdy enough to bear the weight of life and death.
SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't already turned there, turn with me again to the book of Genesis, chapter 48.
SPEAKER_01: We'll look at this first chapter together to see a blind grandfather who blesses a future he won't see.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob has arrived in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He found Joseph alive according to God's promises, and he's settled in the land of Goshen to the east of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He's 147 years old, Jacob, at this point.
SPEAKER_01: And he just made his son Joseph swear to bury him in Canaan, not in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And then sometime after that, we see verse 1 of chapter 48.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob takes a turn for the worst and calls his son to him.
SPEAKER_01: So Joseph went to visit his dying father, along with his sons Manasseh and Ephraim.
SPEAKER_01: These boys are full-grown men, probably somewhere in their twenties.
SPEAKER_01: So when Jacob hears that Joseph has come, notice how verse 2 switches to Israel?
SPEAKER_01: It says that Israel summoned his strength.
SPEAKER_01: Israel summoned his strength in verse 2, not to go to war, but as he dies, to pass on God's words to his son.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens in verses 3 and on.
SPEAKER_01: He tells Joseph, as Jason already read for us, about God's appearance to him at Luz, where God Almighty confirmed the birthright that Isaac passed to Jacob in the promises of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob would be the one to carry on to be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob would be the father of a great nation, and Jacob's offspring would possess Canaan for an everlasting possession.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the promises of God in verses 3 and 4.
SPEAKER_01: All those things were promised to Abraham and were also promised to Jacob, and Jacob then, on his deathbed, adopts Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own, just like Reuben and Simeon are his own.
SPEAKER_01: So these would be the tribal names of Joseph's descendants.
SPEAKER_01: That's the rest of Joseph's kids would be called by either Ephraim or Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you ever wondered, why is there no tribe of Joseph?
SPEAKER_01: That's your answer.
SPEAKER_01: Right there.
SPEAKER_01: This moment.
SPEAKER_01: Because of the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: Explains the way things are.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 7, this dying man remembers the woman he loved.
SPEAKER_01: Talks about Rachel again, right?
SPEAKER_01: Joseph's mother.
SPEAKER_01: And Rachel's husband then blesses her even in death by giving her another son by adoption.
SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: So compelling.
SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing memory, honestly, for a 147-year-old man about to die.
SPEAKER_01: I've met some 80-year-olds in this room, and Jacob remembers lots of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: 147-year-old man about to die.
SPEAKER_01: He's so aged, in fact, that like his father Isaac, his eyes have grown dim.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10 says that his eyes were so dim he could not see.
SPEAKER_01: And so he asked Joseph, who those young men over your shoulder are.
SPEAKER_01: We might be inclined to think that he doesn't recognize his grandsons or doesn't know them.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: It's his eyes that are failing, not his memory, because he just adopted them.
SPEAKER_01: When they come to them, he he kisses them and he braces them.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 11 says, I never expected to see your face.
SPEAKER_01: But behold, God has let me see your offspring too.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob, Israel, at this point in his life, has known his grandsons for 17 years.
SPEAKER_01: Seventeen years he's known Ephraim and Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: And he's still grateful.
SPEAKER_01: He's still grateful and in awe of the God who shepherded him beyond his wildest dreams.
SPEAKER_01: Such wonder is not lost on Joseph either, because he he bows himself low.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12 says, He removed them from Jacob's knees.
SPEAKER_01: Don't picture infants, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jacob is sitting up on his bed, and the boys are in front of him, and Joseph clears them out of the way to make room for a very solemn posture of intense reverence.
SPEAKER_01: He bows himself with his nose to the ground, the text says, his face to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: And so the prince of all of Egypt, Joseph, with access to riches and power and all that a man can possess at that time, bows himself low before a dying, blind, nearly landless old man to receive the blessing of the promises of God Almighty, or else should I.
SPEAKER_01: Because these covenant blessings are sturdier than all the riches of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine, imagine if you're a former Egyptian slave and you hear this story of how Joseph sat at the pinnacle of all Egypt and he bowed himself low before Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: To hear that your forefathers chose Canaan and all of its hardships over all of the riches of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: God's promises explain the way things are, right?
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob has something he wants to say.
SPEAKER_01: These are his last words, nearly.
SPEAKER_01: In Israel, he wants to bless the boys.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to pass his family's greatest treasure on to his grandsons.
SPEAKER_01: And so verse 13 says that Joseph is very careful to present them in birth order.
SPEAKER_01: But then Jacob crosses his arms.
SPEAKER_01: And I love verse 15 if you look at it.
SPEAKER_01: It says that with his hands on top of Ephraim and Manasseh's heads, Jacob blesses Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: He blesses Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: There's no rivalry here.
SPEAKER_01: There's no selfishness.
SPEAKER_01: Ephraim's not stealing anything from Manasseh.
SPEAKER_01: So this is nothing like when Jacob was a boy and he stole Esau's birthright.
SPEAKER_01: This time, Jacob, that great schemer, is working with his cards flat on the table and his heart wide open.
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob blesses Joseph by blessing Joseph's sons.
SPEAKER_01: It's so above board.
SPEAKER_01: And notice how the how that blind grandfather describes God in three ways.
SPEAKER_01: He calls him, the poetry makes it seem like it's one God described three times.
SPEAKER_01: The God before whom his fathers walked, is the God who has been Jacob's shepherd all of his life.
SPEAKER_01: His life full of evil days.
SPEAKER_01: And the angel, his shepherd is the angel who has been redeeming him from all evil all along.
SPEAKER_01: Think about the evil Jacob has seen.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob, not Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: He saw the hatred in Esau's eyes when he fled.
SPEAKER_01: He saw the deceit in Laban.
SPEAKER_01: He saw violence in his sons, Simeon and in Levi, as they slew all of Shechem.
SPEAKER_01: He's seen the treachery in Reuben.
SPEAKER_01: He's held Joseph's bloody coat in his hands.
SPEAKER_01: And he's seen this angel redeem him from all evil as he's reconciled to Esau.
SPEAKER_01: And now God has let him see not just Joseph but his grandsons.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but see them receive the blessing of their inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob says that the God before whom Abraham and Isaac walked has been his shepherd all of his life and has redeemed him from all of the evil that he has seen.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the first time God ever gets called a shepherd in your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Period.
SPEAKER_01: And so all of those beautiful pictures we love from here out.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 23, John chapter 10, they stem from this moment.
SPEAKER_01: When Jacob calls God a shepherd, the one who leads him and redeems him.
SPEAKER_01: Redeemers are our family.
SPEAKER_01: It's a family relationship in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_01: They're the ones are the ones who come to your rescue in your most helpless distress.
SPEAKER_01: When nobody else comes through, when you can't save yourself, that's when you need a redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jacob was lost.
SPEAKER_01: He was lost first in trouble and then in grief with nobody to come to his aid.
SPEAKER_01: Who could bring Joseph back?
SPEAKER_01: Only God.
SPEAKER_01: The God who redeemed him time and time again.
SPEAKER_01: These verbs, before whom my fathers walked, switch to the God who has been my shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: You notice that?
SPEAKER_01: Jacob starts by talking about what Abraham and Isaac did.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he turns to his own life, it's not about him.
SPEAKER_01: It's about what God has done for him.
SPEAKER_01: One commentator says, if Abraham and Isaac walked before God, God has walked before Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jacob realizes God's out front, leading him like a shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: Like a good shepherd should, dim-eyed Jacob can see with eyes of faith how God has brought all of this about.
SPEAKER_01: All of this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: God worked together.
SPEAKER_01: God sent Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: All of these things.
SPEAKER_01: And he acknowledges the depth and the beauty and the richness and even the surprise of God's blessings towards him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he extends all of those same blessings to Joseph's sons.
SPEAKER_01: And he just says, bless the boys.
SPEAKER_01: Bless the boys.
SPEAKER_01: And he gives three descriptions of that blessing.
SPEAKER_01: He wants his name to be carried on, the name of Abraham and Isaac.
SPEAKER_01: That means include them.
SPEAKER_01: Include them in my blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Include them in my family.
SPEAKER_01: And let them grow into a multitude.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're, if you look at it, all Jacob asks is he asks God to keep his promise.
SPEAKER_01: He just asks God to keep his promise to Abraham, his promise for offspring numbered like the stars of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And in that way, Jacob connects Abraham's promise to a God who does something, a God who shepherds, and a God who redeems from all evil.
SPEAKER_01: Two more things to notice.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob crossed his hands to bless the younger brother.
SPEAKER_01: And he did it on purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_01: Joseph thought it was a mistake.
SPEAKER_01: See how Joseph worked really hard to switch them on his end so that he presented them to his father the way his dad would reach.
SPEAKER_01: And then his dad crossed his hands, and so Joseph thought his dad was thinking what he thought and trying to.
SPEAKER_01: They were doing the thing where you're trying to go past somebody in a hallway and you both go left and then you both go right.
SPEAKER_01: But Moses makes it crystal clear to us that Jacob did it on purpose when he says, No, I know, my son.
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_01: And the text never tells us why.
SPEAKER_01: Just dying to find out why.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe just how he knew.
SPEAKER_01: How did Jacob know that Ephraim would be greater?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say.
SPEAKER_01: He knows they both will be great.
SPEAKER_01: What's crazy though is that he's right.
SPEAKER_01: He's right.
SPEAKER_01: Ephraim does become greater for a time numerically and eventually politically in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: If you're an Israelite in the wilderness, this explains why Joshua, the son of Nun, an Ephraimite, is the one who will lead you into the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: Because Ephraim receives pride of place in Jacob's heart.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't know.
SPEAKER_01: At least I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you do.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know how Jacob knew that.
SPEAKER_01: So we're left to wonder a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really fitting for this text.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jacob is also trusting God beyond what he can see.
SPEAKER_01: Beyond what he can see.
SPEAKER_01: He never thought to see Joseph again.
SPEAKER_01: He never thought to see Joseph's sons.
SPEAKER_01: And now sitting here on his deathbed, trusting his shepherd with eyes of faith, dim-eyed Jacob can bless a future he will not live to see.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 21, he makes another promise.
SPEAKER_01: He promises Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: He promises Joseph that God will be with him.
SPEAKER_01: God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.
SPEAKER_01: Over and over again in our study this summer, we've seen that God was with Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: He's with Joseph when he's in Potiphar's house.
SPEAKER_01: He's with Joseph when he's in the pit.
SPEAKER_01: All these things.
SPEAKER_01: God was with Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: But here, now, somebody besides the narrator sees it too.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a blind man named Jacob who sees that God is already with his son Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: The blessing of Abraham that had already shepherded Jacob's life had already started shepherding and redeeming Joseph's life too.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore he just trusts.
SPEAKER_01: He believes.
SPEAKER_01: He trusts that God would continue to be with Joseph all the days of Joseph's life, even as God was with Jacob all the years of Jacob's life.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jacob makes it clear to Joseph God will not leave you here in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that Joseph has been promised the land of Canaan, too.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine hearing that promise retold around a campfire in the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: Or on the other side of the Red Sea, forgive me, in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: That the God, the same God who either you saw or your parents saw, split the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: The God who sends manna every day except for one day, that God.
SPEAKER_01: That God promised 500 years ago that we would make it.
SPEAKER_01: That we'd make it home.
SPEAKER_01: That's the force of this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And for you guys, the same God who raised Jesus from the dead has promised to give you everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: At least it should.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what explains the way things are.
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob's faith teaches us that you can count on those promises.
SPEAKER_01: Even when you can't see how they'll be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: They're sturdy enough to bear the weight of life and death, even when our eyes cannot see exactly how they're gonna unfold.
SPEAKER_01: So there are lots of things we can't see, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you think about it.
SPEAKER_01: You will never know when death will come for you or for those you love.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot predict how your life will unfold.
SPEAKER_01: You can try.
SPEAKER_01: Try all you want to to plan.
SPEAKER_01: You can't really foresee how other people will react to you with what you say.
SPEAKER_01: But even when we can't see, even when we can't see, God's promises are still true.
SPEAKER_01: And we know we know that we have an inheritance in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And we can walk by faith in that promise.
SPEAKER_01: And trust me, guys, walking by faith in that promise is a sturdier way to live than simply leaning on our own understandings.
SPEAKER_01: I've tried that, it doesn't work very well.
SPEAKER_01: I still do it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember how Stephen prayed it, but he prayed it perfectly, didn't he?
SPEAKER_01: It's better.
SPEAKER_01: It's better to let God's promises bear the weight of life and death.
SPEAKER_01: To plan your future that way.
SPEAKER_01: Then chapter 49 comes.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob summons all of his other sons to himself to tell them that what will happen to them in the days to come.
SPEAKER_01: I don't see in this moment an obvious revelation from God.
SPEAKER_01: No new vision in the night, no dreams to interpret like Joseph received.
SPEAKER_01: But as we go through these sons, and we won't make a sermon out of all 12 of them, I promise.
SPEAKER_01: As we go through each of them, I hope we can see that Jacob's words here explain so much of what will eventually come to describe the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And everything he says is in some way built around the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jacob knows.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that his sons will be the tribal heads of a great nation.
SPEAKER_01: This is the promise he went down to Egypt with in chapter 46.
SPEAKER_01: We saw it last week.
SPEAKER_01: God said to Jacob, I am God, the God of your father.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation.
SPEAKER_01: It all comes from that.
SPEAKER_01: It all flows from that.
SPEAKER_01: So then when Jacob removes Reuben from the firstborn's preeminence, and he scatters Simon and Levi to keep their violence in check, that's verse 3 to 7 or so.
SPEAKER_01: He's doing several things all at once.
SPEAKER_01: He's telling the nation that will come from them that Reuben will no longer have firstborn preeminence any longer.
SPEAKER_01: Because of his sin.
SPEAKER_01: And Reuben defiled Jacob's bed with Jacob's concubine.
SPEAKER_01: It's been 14 chapters since that happened.
SPEAKER_01: 14 chapters since Reuben's sins.
SPEAKER_01: And the consequences of that are still here.
SPEAKER_01: And they're going to continue on because no prophet, no judge, no king every king.
SPEAKER_01: From the tribe of Reuben.
SPEAKER_01: So he's lost his place because of his sin.
SPEAKER_01: His father knows there will be a nation, and he says, not Reuben.
SPEAKER_01: But notice.
SPEAKER_01: Notice he's still a son.
SPEAKER_01: His dad didn't disown him for his sin.
SPEAKER_01: His dad just said, You're not fit to lead.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob knows that his sons will be a nation, and in faith, he's beginning to prepare them for that.
SPEAKER_01: Because he believes it's true.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what you see in Simeon and Levi again in verses 5 to 7.
SPEAKER_01: These were violent men.
SPEAKER_01: These brothers slaughtered the men of Shechem underhandedly and in vengeance.
SPEAKER_01: And like a father separating his children when they can't get along, he spreads them out.
SPEAKER_01: He scatters them in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't let them live too close together.
SPEAKER_01: And in so doing, he denounces their violent ways.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: These two tribes are scattered not to regions, but to cities among the territories of the other tribes.
SPEAKER_01: Simeon will eventually all but disappear within the nation, within the tribe of Judah, scattered almost to the point of irrelevance because of his sin.
SPEAKER_01: But the Levites, we know the Levites, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Levites, they would be redeemed as priests.
SPEAKER_01: And so God turns the tribe of Levi from a disgraced and scattered tribe into a tribe with an everlasting priesthood when he honors their zeal for his commandments at the golden calf moment.
SPEAKER_01: And after the golden calf, one tribe came to Moses' side to clean up.
SPEAKER_01: It was Levi.
SPEAKER_01: And then eventually Phineas is.
SPEAKER_01: Go look up Phineas this week.
SPEAKER_01: He's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: But I hope you see that God's decrees are so often much more nuanced than we realized.
SPEAKER_01: Much like God redeemed Jacob the schemer.
SPEAKER_01: Who'd been kicked out of his family almost.
SPEAKER_01: He redeems Levi's fierce anger into zeal.
SPEAKER_01: Into zeal.
SPEAKER_01: Don't assume you know what God is going to exactly do.
SPEAKER_01: But you can always trust that his promises are good and that he will do what's right.
SPEAKER_01: God's promise to Jacob was that his sons would be a nation.
SPEAKER_01: A nation.
SPEAKER_01: So this wandering patriarch, this sojourner, he's far from his home.
SPEAKER_01: He's the head of his household, and he believes that his sons will be tribal heads.
SPEAKER_01: And so he trusts that God's promises are sturdy enough to be ready for, to prepare for.
SPEAKER_01: And so he removes preeminence from his unstable firstborn.
SPEAKER_01: He publicly curses the anger of his second and third sons.
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at towards the end of the chapter, look at verse 28.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of all of this, and those three are the hardest.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of all of this, Moses writes, All these are the 12 tribes of Israel in verse 28.
SPEAKER_01: This is what their father said to them as he blessed them.
SPEAKER_01: Blessing each with the blessings suitable to him.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 9, 8.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 8, he turns his face to Judah.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 8, things change because Jacob has zero control, really, over the way Judah's brothers will respond to him.
SPEAKER_01: As patriarch, he has some influence over the details of Reuben Simon and Levi's place.
SPEAKER_01: His word carries weight there, but he can't say with any certainty of his own insight that Judah will be successful in warfare.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jacob tells his sons it's not only his desire that Judah would become their leader, but that it will surely happen.
SPEAKER_01: It will happen.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 10, he says that neither scepter nor staff shall depart from Judah.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's a kingly picture.
SPEAKER_01: A ruler's staff is the idea.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a father leaving one of his older children in charge in his absence.
SPEAKER_01: While I'm gone, he's in charge.
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob is making his mind known that Judah is to lead.
SPEAKER_01: And he knew that the promise that Canaan would be an everlasting possession.
SPEAKER_01: And that the nations would be blessed through Abraham's sons.
SPEAKER_01: And in chapter 35, God told Jacob that, quote, kings shall come from your own body.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jacob knows that this nation that's going to go on forever is going to need a king.
SPEAKER_01: And so he looked upon God's promises and he structured a nation yet to come by saying to them, Let all of your kings be like him.
SPEAKER_01: Let all of your kings be like Judah.
SPEAKER_01: And it comes true, right?
SPEAKER_01: At least in the time of the tribes, Judah becomes the tribe to go up first at the head of the column.
SPEAKER_01: Later the tribe of Judah bears sons like David and Hezekiah and Josiah and Zerubel.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: But if you look closely at verse 10, Judah will be the king until all the obedience of the peoples comes to him and remains with him.
SPEAKER_01: The Abrahamic blessing to the nations will be mediated through the lion cub of the tribe of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: He's believing in the everlasting nation.
SPEAKER_01: And he's believing that they'll have a king.
SPEAKER_01: And he sees a Messiah ahead who will fulfill all of Abraham's promises.
SPEAKER_01: And when that happens, because it does happen, it's still coming, when that happens, Judah's son and Israel's king, if you look at verses 11 and 12, will dwell in such richness of joy that he's not afraid to tie up his donkey to the grapes.
SPEAKER_01: For he knows he has enough grapes, even if the donkey destroys that grapevine.
SPEAKER_01: So he's promising that the Messiah in the fullness of glory is so rich with joy that he can afford to wash his clothes in wine rather than water.
SPEAKER_01: Almost with bright eyes and a sparkle to his smile.
SPEAKER_01: It's this metaphor to say not only will you have a king, but your king will have such immense prosperity and there will be such peace.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what the Messiah from the line of Judah will bring to the whole world.
SPEAKER_01: All of that for Judah.
SPEAKER_01: All of that and more.
SPEAKER_01: For the son who disgraced himself with a cult prostitute.
SPEAKER_01: Tamar turned out to be more righteous than Judah.
SPEAKER_01: All of that.
SPEAKER_01: All of that for the son whose firstborn sons were so unrighteous that God struck them dead in chapter 38.
SPEAKER_01: All of that for the son who sold Joseph into slavery.
SPEAKER_01: All of this for the son who laid down his own life for Benjamin's sake.
SPEAKER_01: That's a king, Jacob says.
SPEAKER_01: The son who sold Joseph has been redeemed into the sacrificial leader who offers himself for Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: That's the heritage of your salvation, too.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Kings who lay down their lives for their people.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Dan, Asher, and Naphtali.
SPEAKER_01: Verses 12 to 21.
SPEAKER_01: They all receive a blessing that eventually bears fruit in their in their geographical inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: They all, it all shows up in how they're apportioned later.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a pattern that's easy to miss, I think.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jacob ascribes to all of these, all of these sons of his things that are necessary for the functioning of a nation.
SPEAKER_01: Because he believes they will become a nation.
SPEAKER_01: So to Zebulun, he ascribes trade and effective commerce, maybe even a coastal trade.
SPEAKER_01: To Issachur, he gives pleasant pasture land and maybe hard forced labor, even.
SPEAKER_01: He recognizes that nations need justice too, and Dan's name means judge or even vindication.
SPEAKER_01: That's the name Rachel gave him when he was born to her handmaiden when she said, God has judged me and heard my voice and given me a son.
SPEAKER_01: So she named him Vindication.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jacob honors her naming of his boy.
SPEAKER_01: Dan represents the judges in some ways.
SPEAKER_01: His fulfillment is complicated.
SPEAKER_01: His dad calls him a snake after all.
SPEAKER_01: That's not ideal.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually the Danites will be a source of great idolatry for all of Israel, both in judges and the time of the kings.
SPEAKER_01: So Dan's complicated, but to Gad, he assigns a place on the edges that endures raiders and yet stands firm.
SPEAKER_01: Nations have borders, and somebody will have to be there.
SPEAKER_01: And so Gad will raid at the heels of those who raided him.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually, Gad's sons are excellent soldiers and military men and skillful warriors in David's time.
SPEAKER_01: Asher receives the blessing of agricultural success, rich food from the good farmland, or the tribe would eventually settle west of Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Naphtali is hard to translate.
SPEAKER_01: But it could be fertility, it could be the promise of freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Almost like it'd be a sovereign nation.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be their own kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually the kingdom of Naphtali would have a natural beauty to it.
SPEAKER_01: And you may think when I rattle all those things off, that this prophecy thing's a little self-fulfilling.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, couldn't couldn't Joshua and Moses just look back at this chapter and and parcel it out like that from there?
SPEAKER_01: Like, how impressive is this really, Webb?
SPEAKER_01: It's just a plan.
SPEAKER_01: That's not true.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what happens.
SPEAKER_01: God commanded Moses to appoint the inheritances by lot.
SPEAKER_01: Oop.
SPEAKER_02: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans.
SPEAKER_01: That means they they cast dice or something like it to see who would receive which portion.
SPEAKER_01: And so when Jacob's words come true hundreds of years later, it's not because Moses made them come true.
SPEAKER_01: It's because the Lord is the one who established all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: Because the lot is cast into the lap.
SPEAKER_01: And Proverbs says it's every decision is from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So I have more questions, not fewer.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_01: There are complicated questions here about how did Jacob know the details of God's plan?
SPEAKER_01: Or was God just pleased to honor Jacob's blessings?
SPEAKER_01: Did God do it because Jacob said it, or did Jacob say it because he knew God would do it?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: He knows there will be a nation.
SPEAKER_01: I think Moses teaches us that secret things like that belong to God.
SPEAKER_01: But nonetheless, it's so plain that Jacob believed, at least in part, so far as he could see, that God would make a nation out of his sons, out of his sons.
SPEAKER_01: And he he took all of those blessings together and he understood that, and he sees a he sees kings, which he was promised, and he sees borders which nations have, and commerce and labor, and the fruit of the land, and all these things.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob is sketching a portrait of a complete nation.
SPEAKER_01: Like God had promised.
SPEAKER_01: And then he turns to Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: He looks at Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph is described as fruitful.
SPEAKER_01: Makes the blessings we've already seen in chapter 48 to Ephraim and Manasseh public.
SPEAKER_01: He will be the one to carry on the special blessing of Abraham and the fulfillment of the commission given to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiplied.
SPEAKER_01: There will be lots of sons from these tribes.
SPEAKER_01: But we return to something we haven't seen since Reuben, Simeon, and Levi.
SPEAKER_01: When Jacob talks about Joseph, he goes back to the past tense.
SPEAKER_01: He goes back to the past tense.
SPEAKER_01: He retells how Joseph survived the bitter attack of his enemies without retaliation, because of the mighty one of Jacob, the shepherd, the stone of Israel, because he can do that, because the God of Joseph's father, Jacob's God, helped him.
SPEAKER_01: And so I think in this blessing for Joseph, Jacob is recognizing God's special presence with Joseph, who in verse 26 was set apart from his brothers and blesses him yet again with the fullness of God's blessing for the fruitfulness and many offspring and the blessings of the womb and all these things.
SPEAKER_01: And in this way, Jacob recognizes that Joseph's future rests upon God's faithfulness, just like Joseph's past had.
SPEAKER_01: And next week, already, we'll see that Joseph receives these blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Because he sees Ephraim's children to the third generation.
SPEAKER_01: God's promises to Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: God's presence with Joseph explain the way things are.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: Benjamin's kind of an enigma.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob essentially calls him fierce, maybe even devouring, with not a lot of explanation or foretelling.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually we see the tribe of Benjamin does become skilled in warfare.
SPEAKER_01: Their skills are even destructive in the nation.
SPEAKER_01: And by now we shouldn't be surprised to see that Jacob somehow says marvelous things about what God will do.
SPEAKER_01: Because God's promises are sturdy enough to bear the weight of your life and to plan your future around.
SPEAKER_01: And in faith, in faith, that sojourning patriarch is structuring a nation yet to come.
SPEAKER_01: And he's doing it like a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: He really is.
SPEAKER_01: Moses' Israel can look around and they can see Judah at the head of the column, and they can see the Levite serving at the tabernacle, and they can see an Ephraimite standing at the lead with Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: And for them, Jacob's faith explains their whole lives.
SPEAKER_01: Way more than just why there's a bookshelf there.
SPEAKER_01: So just ask yourself this week.
SPEAKER_01: What would it take for people to look back over your life and realize that the only thing that explains you is faith and the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: I think verse 18 is a perfect picture.
SPEAKER_01: We skipped it.
SPEAKER_01: Might be the most important verse in the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: You look back up at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: It sits dead center in Jacob's poem.
SPEAKER_01: It's in a place of privileged emphasis as the central hinge of the poem, right after the seventh sun.
SPEAKER_01: And it jumps out as this odd oddburst of prayer, this odd outburst of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob says, I wait for your salvation, O Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the interpretive key for the whole chapter.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jacob recognizes that while God has promised his sons a nation, he looks at his sons and he sees they're still sinful, and he sees they're still flawed, and he sees that the world will still be violent all about them, and so central to all these blessings, is the salvation of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: They need a kinsman, redeemer to rescue them still.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob had seen how God had been his redeemer and his shepherd, and he cries out to God in the middle of all this stuff, and he just says, God, save my boys.
SPEAKER_01: It's the first and only time in the entire book of Genesis that the root for this word for salvation occurs at all.
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's it's it's almost like Moses saved it for this moment.
SPEAKER_01: It's also the last time in the book of Genesis where Moses uses the proper name for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: So the first time we hear salvation and the last time we hear the name Yahweh, they're together.
SPEAKER_01: And that makes the short little prayer in verse 18 resonate loudly, I think, in the ears of Israel in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: They're wandering because of their parents' sins.
SPEAKER_01: Just like Reuben's sins are gonna have consequences, they're in the desert because their parents turned back from the con the conquest of Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob essentially, through Moses, tells them to wait and trust in the promises of God to deliver them.
SPEAKER_01: God has surely promised they will inherit the land of Canaan, so wait, wait for God's salvation and trust the promises.
SPEAKER_01: Old preacher John Flavelle wrote a lot about providence and he wrote about how we should be patient for God's provision.
SPEAKER_01: He said, the foolish child, the foolish child would pluck the apple while it's green.
SPEAKER_01: But when it's ripe, it drops of its own accord.
SPEAKER_01: And it's much more pleasant and wholesome.
SPEAKER_01: The delay of your mercies is really for your advantage.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to wait.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to wait for the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He's not slow to fulfill his promises, 2 Peter says.
SPEAKER_01: And according to God's promises, we wait for the new heavens and the new earth and the resurrection of our bodies.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John 2, 22, 25 says that the promise God made to us through his Son was the promise of eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says that all the promises of God find their confirmation, their yes and their amen in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And this, this waiting for God's salvation, it's like the subtitle for the entire Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Just as it was the subtitle for Jacob's sojourning and Israel's wandering and eventually exile.
SPEAKER_01: Nowhere has God demonstrated his trustworthy character so plainly as he does in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob got to see his grandsons, and so we trust God.
SPEAKER_01: You've seen Jesus Christ crucified and raised.
SPEAKER_01: And so we wait for his timing.
SPEAKER_01: We're careful not to seize things by our own devices that he has not given to us appropriately.
SPEAKER_01: So don't lie to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Don't steal to make the church more secure.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01: Wait.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we should be a praying people.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus is good and he said that whatever we ask in his name, the Father will give to us.
SPEAKER_01: And so we wait.
SPEAKER_01: We wait for your salvation, Lord, because you alone, you alone can give the growth that our hearts long for.
SPEAKER_01: Why else, guys?
SPEAKER_01: Why else would we take risks to be obedient?
SPEAKER_01: And because that he who promised is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: And he can work all things together for the good of those who love him.
SPEAKER_01: The promises of God are sturdy enough to live on.
SPEAKER_01: Sturdy enough to live on.
SPEAKER_01: The hope of eternal life in Christ is the only thing, the only thing that can give all the mundane, sorrow-filled days of our lives meaning and hope.
SPEAKER_01: Hope for life and hope for death.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob instructs his sons to bury him at home in Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: In the land God promised to give to his children, he wants to be buried with Abraham and Sarah, with Isaac and Rebekah, and he wants to be buried with Leah.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that he won't live to see any of these things he's foretold.
SPEAKER_01: He won't see Judah's king before he dies.
SPEAKER_01: He won't see the tribes possess Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: He won't see the nation that he's been promised, but he still dies in complete hope that these things will happen.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really, consider it for just a second.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, Jason helped us see what a massive move this was for Egypt, for Jacob to pack up his whole household and go to Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: They've lived there for 17 years now.
SPEAKER_01: They're settled.
SPEAKER_01: As far as human eyes can see, there's nothing driving these people home.
SPEAKER_01: They're in the land of Goshen.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph is providing for them.
SPEAKER_01: Israel has the best space they could ever ask for in the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob says, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: This place is not my home.
SPEAKER_01: Take me home.
SPEAKER_01: Bury me at home.
SPEAKER_01: In contrast, Abraham didn't go home.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Abraham was buried in the cave at Machvilah, however, you say that.
SPEAKER_01: And Jacob is insisting with this request that his sons not sojourn in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Forever.
SPEAKER_01: He's a pilgrim.
SPEAKER_01: Even now.
SPEAKER_01: And I I I don't know about you, but I expected Joseph's dad to be want to be buried with Rachel.
SPEAKER_01: Back in Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: He chooses the burial place of his fathers.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the most compelling hint in the whole flow of the context here is that he chooses to be associated with the family burial plot, not with his favorite spot in Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: Because he doesn't just go back to the land, he goes to that place.
SPEAKER_01: Because it was the only legally purchased piece of ground in Canaan that they owned.
SPEAKER_01: It was already his.
SPEAKER_01: It was the only patch of the promised land that Jacob had a current claim to, surrounded by the other patriarchs of promise.
SPEAKER_01: So why was Jacob buried there instead of with Rachel?
SPEAKER_01: It's because this explains the way things are, because he believed the promises of God were sturdy enough to die upon.
SPEAKER_01: It's his dying confession of faith.
SPEAKER_01: There are so many famous last words.
SPEAKER_01: And Joseph's last words look weird without this.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: The last thing he says is the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites.
SPEAKER_01: He draws up his feet and he dies.
SPEAKER_01: His last words are that ground belongs to us.
SPEAKER_01: Belongs to you, he says to his sons.
SPEAKER_01: He's clinging to the promise of God that the land of Canaan will be his.
SPEAKER_01: And so the man who was who was a little bit afraid to go down to Egypt and hesitated at the border of Canaan, died, saying, This part of Canaan is mine and I will not let it go.
SPEAKER_01: There are so few things in life worth dying for.
SPEAKER_01: And don't think that Jacob's just being sentimental about a homestead here.
SPEAKER_01: As real as that may be, I don't mean to belittle that.
SPEAKER_01: What happens here is more than that, though.
SPEAKER_01: It's more than that.
SPEAKER_01: Because back at the end of chapter 47, he asks for an oath from Joseph and he says, swear to me.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he has Joseph's promise that he'll return to Canaan, he bows himself upon the head of his bed, which could be translated as over the head of his staff.
SPEAKER_01: It's a weird scene.
SPEAKER_01: If you just read Genesis, you might think that at the end of chapter 37, when he gets Joseph's promise to take him home, that he's just expressing gratitude to Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: But Hebrews 11 tells us there's more than that.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just saying thank you to Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: Tells us that he's bowing his head in worship at that very moment.
SPEAKER_01: He's bowing his head over his staff in Hebrews 11, 21.
SPEAKER_01: Because once he had received Joseph's promise, he gives thanks to God that his body would not remain in Egypt, but that he returned to Canaan.
SPEAKER_01: That's his whole focus.
SPEAKER_01: It's God's promises to him.
SPEAKER_01: That means that God's promise to Jacob is stronger than death itself.
SPEAKER_01: He believes that even though he dies, Canaan still belongs to him, and death cannot thwart God's purposes.
SPEAKER_01: Jacob already gets that.
SPEAKER_01: And he believes in a promise that will extend so far beyond his death because the cave at Maqbalah doesn't just belong to Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: He's making sure his sons know it belongs to them too.
SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: This man dies with the promises of God on his lips.
SPEAKER_01: Because they're sturdy enough to bear the weight of your death.
SPEAKER_01: There's no better way to die than with the promises of God on your lips.
SPEAKER_01: Paul taught us in Philippians, sitting in chains, maybe even awaiting his execution, Paul says that he has complete confidence that Christ will be honored in his body, whether by his life or by his death.
SPEAKER_01: Because for Paul to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_01: Either way, living or dying, it makes no difference.
SPEAKER_01: It makes no difference.
SPEAKER_01: The promises of God should be our song all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, beaten and bruised, drugged out before a mob for his confession of faith, mocked and spit upon.
SPEAKER_01: This is how Jesus died.
SPEAKER_01: He died with the words of a pilgrim on his lips, saying, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, and he breathed his last in perfect faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so, like Jacob, dying in the hope of the promise of Canaan, Jesus died in the hope of the promise of resurrection glory promised to him before the world began, and he lives forever now as a guarantee of the promise.
SPEAKER_01: That death has no power over the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: And in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have the sure and certain promise made to us that our sins can be atoned for.
SPEAKER_01: That our bodies will be redeemed from all the evil our lives see.
SPEAKER_01: Our hope is what it is because of Jesus and his death in faith of the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see it?
SPEAKER_01: And so we must follow.
SPEAKER_01: We must follow.
SPEAKER_01: This is what it is to follow Christ unto the grave.
SPEAKER_01: What shall we sing?
SPEAKER_01: Christ He lives.
SPEAKER_01: And what reward will heaven bring everlasting life with him?
SPEAKER_01: There we will rise to meet the Lord, and then sin and death will be destroyed, and we will feast in endless joy when Christ is ours forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: That's our song.
SPEAKER_01: We belong to the family of God by faith in the Lamb who was slain, and we await an inheritance in him because Jesus Christ is the lion of the tribe of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ is the one foreseen by a blind grandfather, the one foretold by a sojourning patriarch, and believed upon by a dying pilgrim, and his promises are for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe in his name, you can have Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And he is sturdy enough to bear the weight of life and death.
SPEAKER_01: May we live and may we so die by faith in his precious and very great promises.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God help us to be like Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to trust your word and help us to live and move and choose and act.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of our own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: But because of you.
SPEAKER_01: None of your promises have ever failed.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, it has been thousands of years since you promised to never flood the earth again.
SPEAKER_01: None of us could ever keep a promise like that for that long.
SPEAKER_01: And trusting you teach us to live that way.
SPEAKER_01: Because your promises are enough to secure our hope.
SPEAKER_01: We love you.
SPEAKER_01: We're humbled by your wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: That you would see fit to either reveal this many things to Jacob so far in advance, or establish them so brilliantly by your providence.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we trust you that you can work out all the details of our lives too.
SPEAKER_01: Until that day when all things come together and we say worthy is the Lamb.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to sing of our faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to live in that hope, we pray.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.