The Story Of Redemption | The Promise | Kurt Petersheim

[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Kyle Brandon, and I'll be reading from Genesis chapter 15 verses 1 through 6.

Genesis 15:1–6

[SPEAKER_00]: After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not be afraid Abram.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am your shield, you're exceedingly great reward.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the air of my house is Eleazer of Damascus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Abram said, look, you have given me no offspring.

[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, one born in my house is my heir.

[SPEAKER_00]: And behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will become from your own body shall be your heir.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he brought him outside and said, look now towards the heaven and count the stars.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're able to number them, and he said to him, so shall your descendants be.

[SPEAKER_00]: and he accounted it to him for righteousness.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word of the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, thank you so much, God.

[SPEAKER_01]: You guys have a seat.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, we are thankful for you, God, thank you for your word, thank you for the story that you have written over history and you are continuing to write in our own lives, stories that we can trace back through the pages of scripture stories that we can see from the very beginning.

[SPEAKER_01]: stories that we can see of your faithfulness to the promises that you have made, your faithfulness to your people, to whom you made those promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your faithfulness to your own purposes, your own plan that you ordained from the beginning of time.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, we see just so constantly.

[SPEAKER_01]: How good you are, how true you are, how faithful you are, and how faithful you remain.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, God, I pray this morning that you would allow us to see your glory in the fulfillment of your word and of your will in our own lives and in this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, and when we cannot see these things, when we don't see the fulfillment here or there, when we are maybe in a period of waiting,

[SPEAKER_01]: and struggling, God, that at least this morning, you would allow us to rest on your promises, to rest right there today, and just know you have never once broken a promise, and you do not intend to start doing that now, and so God, we would just trust you, and take heart and have peace and truly rest in your word, in your promise.

[SPEAKER_01]: You are a faithful God, in Jesus name.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't been here the last couple of weeks, we've been going through this series called The Story of Redemption.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for the first couple of weeks, what we've done is really just started to set the stage for literally no pun intended set the stage.

[SPEAKER_01]: For really what God has been doing from all time, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So we talked about creation a couple of weeks ago and last week we talked about the fall of May and Genesis chapter three.

[SPEAKER_01]: and we see sin enter into the world, but really the point of last week was to see that even though this fall had happened that God's story had not ended here, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: God's story continues.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's story moves forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: No matter what, we, as human being, try to do to derail the providential story of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He will not be forited and his efforts.

[SPEAKER_01]: He will not be stopped in his commitment to his word and his promise and his purposes being fulfilled over all time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He will do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you will always do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so today, really, the point of today is for us to look at the fact that God is a God of promise.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is a God of faithfulness to the promise is that He has made and He will always accomplish His ends and His purposes because His Word never fails.

[SPEAKER_01]: His Word never drops.

[SPEAKER_01]: He never has one time spoken and I don't Word in all of history and He has never one time spoken something that did not come to pass according to His sovereign purposes and will.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're actually taking, this is the third week that really we're just in the book of Genesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you got your Bible, Genesis chapter 12 is where we're kind of starting, and we're actually going to read the entire rest of Genesis today.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just kidding, we do not have time to do that, but Genesis 12 through 50 is kind of the swath of scripture that we're covering today.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're spending three weeks in Genesis because it really does lay the foundation for us to see that the God who started it all.

[SPEAKER_01]: is going to bring to completion the purposes that he started because of his promises even through sinfulness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[SPEAKER_01]: God is still a God that is faithful to his promises to his word.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's committed to this.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're really spending three weeks there because it lays the foundation for all the rest of the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the other weeks, we're going to cover multiple books every single week.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to kind of do this fly over a view of the whole story.

[SPEAKER_01]: But today we're going to end up the book of Genesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I want to do for the first half of this message today, first few minutes,

[SPEAKER_01]: just some helpful, hopefully helpful tips as you read Scripture, how to get the most out of it as you read it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's important that when we come to the Word of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: We always come to it with a humility and a reverence, and a trust in God's Word as the written and revealed authoritative, inspired Word of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've done messages on this before you can go back and watch some of our YouTube videos or see much smarter guys than me talk about these things all over the internet as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: About why we can trust the authority, the veracity of the Scriptures.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when we come here,

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to know, and we need to trust that this is God's Word, and so as we do that, there are ways in which we can read it to get more out of it, hopefully that we understand it better, and then we can apply it better to our lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: Really, the first thing to be mindful of always, as we re-scripture, is to remember the context.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been kind of jokingly said.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's really three rules of biblical interpretation.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's context, context, context, okay?

[SPEAKER_01]: Always know the context.

[SPEAKER_01]: What that means is when was a particular book written?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why was it written?

[SPEAKER_01]: Who was it written to?

[SPEAKER_01]: Things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to know those things because it helps us as we read those things to understand, okay?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it being written that way?

[SPEAKER_01]: Who was it written to?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why was he writing it to that audience?

[SPEAKER_01]: What was going on in the world at that time?

[SPEAKER_01]: What was the historical context, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The book of Genesis, in particular, I told you all this last week, was written during the period of the Exodus by Moses, God gave Moses the words to write, and so Moses during the Exodus time probably while they're wandering around in the wilderness.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's beginning to write down the stories of creation, of the fall, of the promises to the patriarchs that God made to their forefathers, 400, 500, 600 years before the Exodus happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, they just needed to know, they had the oral histories, but they had it now written down so that they understood how did we get here, how did we get here, but something else that I want us to be mindful of when we're going to talk about this for a minute, as we read, especially the Old Testament, okay, as you read the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Something that because I know the Old Testament can be a little bit laborious at times to read through if you've done a like a whole scripture reading plan Sometimes you get to parts of the Old Testament, you know if you're in numbers in Leviticus, they like it can be hard I admit that to kind of get through some of those books, but Something that I do think is helpful as we read those things is to always just be looking for how does this point mean to Jesus

[SPEAKER_01]: How does this scripture, this story, this passage, this law, this ritual that God's describing, whatever it may be, how does this point mean to Jesus, the necessity of Jesus, the person of Jesus, the character of Jesus, the work of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is the main character of Scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: He really is, God is pointing all things to His Son.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we see that when it gets to the Gospels, because He says, multiple times, this is my Son.

[SPEAKER_01]: You listen to Him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's called the Word of God by John, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus is the fulfillment of all that we're talking about in this entire series.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so as you read through Old Testament passages, look for how those things point you to Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I want to be clear, that's not to say that as you read a story in the Old Testament, that it's just simply written as an illustration, that it's not a real historical narrative.

[SPEAKER_01]: It really is a historical narrative.

[SPEAKER_01]: It really is something that happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are historical stories, narratives written to tell us the history of the people of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they also, by God's providence, point us to His Son Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just helpful for us to know those things.

[SPEAKER_01]: First Peter, chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, Peter says that the prophets wrote about Christ in the Old Testament, but they didn't understand it yet.

1 Peter 1:10–12

[SPEAKER_01]: and Ephesians 3, 1 through 13, Paul says that the mystery of the gospel was not revealed like the mystery was kind of cloaked in the Old Testament, but it's been revealed to us as we have read through the New Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: So when we get to the New Testament, we're going to see how those mysteries are revealed in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't see it yet, but the mystery was there.

[SPEAKER_01]: The gospel's still there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the gospel's all throughout the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: We just need to pay attention.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a couple of ways in which we see that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Really, there's five ways I'm going to hit on two of them here up front and then we'll walk through the other three.

[SPEAKER_01]: The first two are types and shadows, ways in which we see Christ in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Through types and shadows, okay, types and shadows, types are a particular people where places where things in the Old Testament that bury resemblance to the person of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a shadow is a particular theme or idea or institution that foreshadows the ministry of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, those are types and shadows.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see these all throughout the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm gonna hit on more of those in just a minute But first let's just look at Genesis 12 through 50 like I said where do we see Jesus in some of these types and shadows?

[SPEAKER_01]: In Genesis 12 through 50 in this period of Genesis what we call the patriarchal period the period of the promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so an Abraham story Genesis 12 through 22

[SPEAKER_01]: How is Abraham a type of Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: He is a man of faith who trusts in all of God's word and promises, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's who Abraham is.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the man of faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Jesus was a man of faith in the sense that He trusted his father implicitly, perfectly, holy, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus didn't need faith to be made righteous.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is righteous in and of himself.

[SPEAKER_01]: You and I need faith to be made righteous.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in that way, in fact, Abraham is also a type of us, the faithful, the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham sort of foreshadows who we would be as a man of faith, who as Kyle just read Genesis 15, 6, and said, Abraham trusted in God, and it was credited to him as what?

[SPEAKER_01]: Righteousness.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans, he harks back to that verse to say, you and I, as the church, as we trust in Jesus, it is credited to us as righteousness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham's, Abraham received righteousness by faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: We receive righteousness.

[SPEAKER_01]: By faith, but he's also a type of Jesus just in the fact of he's a man who trusts in the promises of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a man who trusts in the Word of God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also serves in a way as the type of God the Father because he is the Father of the nation of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen that ever seen that song Father Abraham, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So God's our Father Abraham's sort of a type of the Father in that way of the physical lineage of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is the Father really of Israel and of the spiritual Israel, the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Abraham's son Isaac, Genesis 21 through 28, how is he a type of Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we see Jesus in Isaac's story?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, who is Isaac?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the son of the promise.

[SPEAKER_01]: God made a promise to Abraham and I bless the whole world through your offspring.

[SPEAKER_01]: Isaac is the son, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the son promised Abraham through whom the whole world will be blessed.

[SPEAKER_01]: and God's blessings are so evident upon His life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does this not sound like who Jesus would end up being perfectly totally, wholly, completely, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's who Jesus is.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Isaac was kind of the initial blessing, the initial one, the offspring of Abraham, who received God's promising God's blessing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And also in that story, Isaac's story, you'll know the part where God tells Abraham, take Isaac and sacrifice him now to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He takes him up on this mountain, I did a message on this last year and we saw that that exact mountain would be where Jerusalem would one day be built by the way pretty cool the temple mount would be on this mountain where Abraham took Isaac his son to be sacrificed the place for the sacrifices of Israel would hundreds of years later be brought to offer to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he takes him and God stops him before he sacrifices his son and provides a ram, right, and that ram is now sacrificed.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now Isaac is replaced with this ram who becomes a type of Christ because the ram is the substitutionary sacrifice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is who Jesus is, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So do we not see the gospel throughout the story, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's the point.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's just hope you guys kind of get excited about that as you read some of these Old Testament stories to look for Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look for the illusions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look for the types of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: He represents Jesus and that He has been an anointed one of God, chosen for God's purposes.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Spare Evidence in His life in particular, because He is a twin brother.

[SPEAKER_01]: He and E.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: are twin brothers.

[SPEAKER_01]: E.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: is actually born a little bit of force, says that Jacob, this is so weird, says that Jacob comes out like holding on to E.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: He'll let's so crazy, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is sort of indicative of who Jacob would be.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a, he's a struggling, he's a wrestler, he's one who always wants the upper hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's like literally holding his brothers' foot as they come out of their mother crazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's the second twin born, and God makes it clear, I'm choosing Jacob to carry on my promises, not E-soft.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just pointing to God's sovereignty over the salvific story.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jacob is the one that he would choose.

[SPEAKER_01]: The word Christ, or the word Messiah, actually means what, anointed one, chosen one.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God chooses Jacob, not E-soft.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because God can choose.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's up to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just picks Jacob to carry on the lineage, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Joseph, Genesis 37-250.

[SPEAKER_01]: Genesis 37 through 50.

[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, about Jacob, Jacob would later be named Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know that part of the story, Jacob's name would be changed to Israel or actually read that and read Joe that in just a little bit in Genesis 35.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he would be a type of all of Israel, really a man conflicted who struggled with men and with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Israel means wrestles with God.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it is real means.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's kind of who Jacob slash Israel was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Joseph, Joseph, how does he represent Christ?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the victorious victim.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see who he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the guy that his whole story is victimhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just like bad things happen to him over and over and over again and yet in the end, what do we see of Joseph story?

[SPEAKER_01]: Victory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Victory and this is Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, Jesus would come and he would perfectly fulfill this type that Joseph thousands of years before him would would represent in his story.

[SPEAKER_01]: So just got in his sovereignty, got in his providence,

[SPEAKER_01]: writing these stories, true stories, true historical narratives that have their own lessons in them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yet at the same time, we get to see this common thread.

[SPEAKER_01]: We get to see Jesus in his story and his character throughout all of these other characters.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, here's five ways in which God explicitly or implicitly, so either like super clear or kind of through shadowy figures and representations that he foreshadows the gospel in the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Five ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number one and two, I just talked about persons who are types and shadows also illusions.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's other types in Scripture, like Moses, Samuel, David, Esther, Elijah, all these people represent in some way, some character part of Jesus, something about Jesus, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Or illusions, other shadows that kind of speak of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about Jonah and the belly of the fish for three days.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus mentions this in Matthew 12.

[SPEAKER_01]: as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days, so I will be in the belly of the earth for three days, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is an illusion, this is a shadow.

[SPEAKER_01]: 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, right, chosen by God, chosen by Christ, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: All of these things, allusions to the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: But number three, prophecies, obviously, we know about prophecies,

[SPEAKER_01]: prophecies are specific ways in which God foretells what He's going to do or interprets what He's currently doing through spokespersons that He calls prophets, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So these prophets write down or they speak to the people of Israel, the words that God gives them to say to and at times, specifically predicting things that would come about for in the story of Christ, in the story of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think about second Samuel chapter seven where it is told to King David that one would come in his line who would rule over Israel forever, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a prophecy clearly of the Messiah, clearly of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Israelites always held on to that one.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know somebody's coming in the line of David who would rule over us forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were prophecies about where Jesus would be born in the book of Micah and the book of Isaiah that he'd be born in Bethlehem, that he'd be born above a virgin, things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: System number three.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number four is the priesthood.

[SPEAKER_01]: The priesthood also speaks to the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk a little bit more about that next week with the Exodus.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where the priesthood gets established.

[SPEAKER_01]: But right at the center of Jewish culture and religion and government was the priesthood.

[SPEAKER_01]: The priesthood was really at the center of everything that the Jewish people were when it began in the Exodus and throughout their history and the priests themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: What did they do?

[SPEAKER_01]: Who were

[SPEAKER_01]: They stood in the gap between holy God and sinful man.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's who a priest is, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Jesus, as he enters in, who is he for us?

[SPEAKER_01]: He is our eternal and perfect priest.

[SPEAKER_01]: The one who stands in the gap between holy God, his father, and sinful man, as a man himself and God, the perfect one to stand in that gap.

[SPEAKER_01]: God, man.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's who Jesus is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Read the book of Hebrews.

[SPEAKER_01]: If that has to make sense to you, Hebrews helps us understand a little bit more about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even the sacrifices themselves that the priests offer day after day after day.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sacrifices themselves are a type in an illusion pointing us to Jesus who he would be.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why you and I didn't walk in the doors today with goats, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because Jesus has fulfilled that for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't have to shed blood for the forgiveness of our sins.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been done.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus did it, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's fulfilled that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the fifth thing is promises, promises, okay, so real quick again, yeah, they're still up on the screen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Persons, illusions, prophecies, priesthood, and promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are five ways in which we see Jesus pointed to through the Old Testament.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's look at the promises of God through Genesis 12 through 50.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have time to read all these.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll read one or two of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: To Abraham, he makes this promise, and in Genesis chapter 12 verse 7, this is where Abraham's story starts, he promises him several things.

Genesis 12:7

[SPEAKER_01]: If you if you're in Genesis 12, you'll see these several things.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will make you into a great nation.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will bless you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will bless the earth through your offspring.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will give your descendants this land.

[SPEAKER_01]: He takes him into the Promised Land of the Palestinian land, the Israel land, takes him in there, says I will give your descendants this land.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Genesis 15 verse 1, he tells him, I am your shield and your very great reward.

Genesis 15:1

[SPEAKER_01]: takes him outside, shows him the stars in the universe, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The stars in the universe.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, as many as the stars are, so will your offspring be, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I will bless you like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: In Genesis 17, 8, he tells him this, I will be your God and the God of your descendants forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who are the descendants of Abraham?

[SPEAKER_01]: The Israelites, and really now today, us, we are the descendants of Abraham, very good answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: I heard John Leone said that, we are the descendants of Abraham, because we have faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just said that right?

[SPEAKER_01]: All who have faith, now in Jesus Christ who is the promised one of God, they'll promise by the way, again, fulfilled in Jesus, all who have faith in Jesus are the descendants of Abraham.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have received that blessing.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is our God forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then to Isaac, he makes this promise, Genesis 26, 1 through 5.

[SPEAKER_01]: He tells Isaac, I will be with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will give your descendants these lands.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just reiterates the promise you made to his father, Abraham.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then to Jacob, let's look at Genesis 35.

[SPEAKER_01]: To Jacob, he says this, and this again, this is Jacob who would later be named Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, there's just Jacob's story, is really a fascinating story if you get to read through.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, this couple of weeks ago, read the Bible front the back at some point if you haven't done that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Think in your discipleship as a Christian that's just helpful to read the whole story.

[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of helps make sense of all these things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob's story in particular is just a fascinating one in chapter 32.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob literally wrestles with God, God himself comes down and fights Jacob in a river.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob sort of on the run from his brother, E.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: all right there at enmity with each other all the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's on the run from him and then God meets him in this river at night by himself and fights him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They wrestle, neither one of them really gets the upper hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: I told you, Jacob's story is all about getting the upper hand,

[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody gets the upper hand.

[SPEAKER_01]: The sun begins to rise and finally God touches his hip, knocks it out of socket like humbles him, makes him bow before him and then he renames him in Genesis 35.

[SPEAKER_01]: You no longer is your name.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jacob, your name is Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to read that to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: After Jacob returns his Genesis 35-9.

[SPEAKER_01]: After Jacob returned from Padana Ram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.

[SPEAKER_01]: God said to him, your name is Jacob.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you will no longer be called Jacob.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your name will be Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he named him Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God said to him, I am God Almighty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Be fruitful and increase in numbers.

[SPEAKER_01]: This sound like a common theme we've heard so far in the series.

[SPEAKER_01]: Be fruitful and increase in number.

[SPEAKER_01]: God keeps telling people that Adam and Eve told Noah that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling Jacob that here.

[SPEAKER_01]: A nation and a community of nations will come from you and kings will come from your body.

[SPEAKER_01]: The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I give also to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then God went up from him at the place where he talked with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so just this reminder that God, the God who promised Abraham, the God who promised Isaac, he's the same God who promises Jacob, Israel, and he keeps his promise.

[SPEAKER_01]: His word has not failed.

[SPEAKER_01]: His word has not stopped.

[SPEAKER_01]: Three generations in and then we get to Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna get to Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: I told you Joseph's story, Genesis 37 through 50.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a pretty good long story.

[SPEAKER_01]: You guys know the story of Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the second youngest brother of Israel of Jacob.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second youngest son of his Benjamin is the youngest, by the way, all his brothers, these 12 brothers become the 12 tribes of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why they're called the 12 tribes of Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: The 12 sons of Jacob slash Israel.

[SPEAKER_01]: They become the 12 tribes.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's the second youngest one.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a bit of a brat.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a bit of a tattletail to be honest with you because he's his dad's favorite son of his favorite wife You thought your family was dysfunctional.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a dysfunctional family.

[SPEAKER_01]: Favorite son of the favorite wife.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a weird sentence to say But that's who Joseph is and so he's a bit of a brat.

[SPEAKER_01]: His other brothers don't like him very much He often tattles on them when they do stupid things stuff like that

[SPEAKER_01]: his dad has also given him a coat of many colors to kind of single him out which does no favors to him because the rest of his brothers obviously don't like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So one day they have enough of Joseph, they throw him into a sister and pretend that he's dead, they rip up his garment, his coat covered in blood, take it back to the dad, tell him that he died.

[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of killing him, they actually sell him into slavery.

[SPEAKER_01]: They sell him into slavery.

[SPEAKER_01]: Much better if I don't know if that's better.

[SPEAKER_01]: They sell him into slavery.

[SPEAKER_01]: He goes in

[SPEAKER_01]: While he's in Egypt, he begins to be sort of the head slave, and then he gets in trouble, gets accused of rape, didn't actually do that, but got accused of it gets thrown into prison.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he's in prison more suffering, more victimhood, but while he's in prison, he becomes closer to the head of the prison, because he's the best prisoner, and you just continue to see the story of like victim to victor, right, in Joseph's like victim to victor, bad things happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: then God brings good out of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so finally, the Pharaoh has some dreams.

[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody who is in prison with Joseph remembers, oh, Joseph can interpret dreams.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he goes and gets Joseph, Joseph comes to the Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_01]: He interprets his dreams.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pharaoh lets him at a prison and now Joseph becomes the governor over all of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Second to the king.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And think about again, types of Christ sitting at the right hand of the king is Joseph now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sitting at the right hand of the King, literally ruling over the entire nation, he sets into motion a plan to save all of Egypt and people around in that empire because they knew a famine was coming.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what his dreams were about in Joseph plans to save food for seven good years so that when the famine came they would have enough food.

[SPEAKER_01]: So while that happens, what happens to Joseph's family, they have to travel to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: to get food.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they show up at Egypt.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't even know it's Joseph.

[SPEAKER_01]: They hadn't seen Joseph in many years now.

[SPEAKER_01]: They think he's probably died in this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: They show up in Joseph sees them and he actually blesses them.

[SPEAKER_01]: He gives them food and he sends them back home to get their younger brother Benjamin.

[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He hadn't seen Benjamin.

[SPEAKER_01]: They come back with Benjamin anyway.

[SPEAKER_01]: Long story short.

[SPEAKER_01]: Joseph does reveal himself to his brothers.

[SPEAKER_01]: They realize it's him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Can't believe it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They all repent.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have this beautiful moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of crying.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of tears.

[SPEAKER_01]: In that story.

[SPEAKER_01]: But here's what happens at the end of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're all very worried that Joseph would be super angry with him, like any of us would be, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're family, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody, is that happening by any of my family sold them in this slavery?

[SPEAKER_01]: Anything like that?

[SPEAKER_01]: If your family did that, you would not be happy with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're certainly thinking, this guy who's the second most powerful human being on the planet, now, is going to just have a murder thrown in prison or just hold a grudge against us.

[SPEAKER_01]: But here's what happens, Genesis 50 vs 19.

[SPEAKER_01]: Joseph said to them, don't be afraid.

[SPEAKER_01]: am I in the place of God?

[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, that right there is a great question rhetorically to ask yourself every day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Am I in the place of God?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I call the shots of this life of this world of history?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I get to decide whether it's sunny or rainy today?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I get to decide whether good or bad comes in my life today?

[SPEAKER_01]: I do not.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am not in the place of God and Joseph just says this to his brothers.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not in the place of God, verse 20.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a foundational verse for the providence and sovereignty of God, Genesis 50, 20.

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: So then don't be afraid.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will provide for you in your children and he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

[SPEAKER_01]: You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.

[SPEAKER_01]: That verse, seriously, if you're thinking about God's sovereignty, God's providence over human history, in the way that God works, even in the midst of evil and suffering and pain in this world and in your own life, that verse sets the stage in Genesis 50, 20 sets the stage for the doctrine of God as in control.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's hands.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's strength.

[SPEAKER_01]: God's goodness.

[SPEAKER_01]: It governs all things in human history.

[SPEAKER_01]: It reminds me a lot of Jesus and his own story, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you, as you read these stories, look for Jesus, look for the foreshadows of Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think about him on the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: Father, forgive them.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't know what they're doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus said, right, they meant this for evil.

[SPEAKER_01]: They mean to kill me for an evil purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I'm on this cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: God forgive them.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have no idea that by killing me, it's the only way for their salvation.

[SPEAKER_01]: The brothers of Joseph had no idea that by sinning him into slavery was the only way they would be saved from the famine that would come years later.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because Joseph was put there to set up a system to save them from the famine.

[SPEAKER_01]: You see, God's hand?

[SPEAKER_01]: You see, God's providence.

[SPEAKER_01]: You see the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's there, the whole time, and God's trying to help us see, I am a God who keeps my word.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, again, I told you at the beginning, let's make sure as we read these stories, as we hear them, that we are mindful always of the context, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: That we have seen, God is the creator.

[SPEAKER_01]: God is the sovereign, Lord, who started this whole thing in the beginning, who spoke all things into existence.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even through the fall, even through sinfulness,

[SPEAKER_01]: even through the brokenness and the shame and the guilt of humankind, who have turned our backs on him, his plan has not fallen, his plan has not stopped, he has not given up on humanity.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the flood happened, but still he spared humanity in that, and then kept humanity going, continued to make them fruitful and spread out over the face of the earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now he has called a family to himself through one man Abraham,

[SPEAKER_01]: to make his family into an entire nation, to bless them and keep them and be their God forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here's the context of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, don't forget this.

[SPEAKER_01]: When was all of that written during the period of the Exodus?

[SPEAKER_01]: This was all written while the Israelites, the family that these stories are about, the descendants of Abraham, the descendants of Isaac, the descendants of Jacob, the descendants of Joseph, who are now in Egypt because Joseph was sold in the slavery there, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: They're hearing all this and I, oh wow, okay, like I get it, I can see it, I understand it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But now where are they?

[SPEAKER_01]: They've come out of Egypt, they've crossed the Red Sea.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been wandering around the wilderness for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: Moses writes these stories to remind these people who are now sitting in the wilderness, wondering, does God really keep his promises?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is God really faithful?

[SPEAKER_01]: God's hold are great, great, great grandfather Abraham.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was gonna give them, he was gonna give him this land.

[SPEAKER_01]: He told him, he was gonna bless the whole world through his offspring.

[SPEAKER_01]: He told Isaac, he was going to be with him and be his God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He told Jacob that kings and kingdoms were going to come from him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they hear that Joseph, the one who went before them into Egypt, the first of their family to make it to the land of Egypt, who used to rule over the whole kingdom 400 years before this time in the Exodus, that he's the one that said, whatever was meant for evil, God means it for good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was him that said that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Moses, by the hand of God, by the providence of God, writing these stories down for the Israelites, is just simply to give them a foundation, a firm foundation to remember that this God is the same as this God.

[SPEAKER_01]: The same as this God, all the way through that he hasn't stopped being the sovereign Lord who keeps his word from generation to generation to generation.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's been doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why would he stop doing it now?

[SPEAKER_01]: Just because you're sitting in the wilderness, just because you can't see the promise land yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, that was their own fault.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had committed sins against the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: And God told this generation, you guys are not going to get in, but the next generation will.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as they're waiting for that to happen for 40 years, you can imagine it would be hard to believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: It'd be hard to really see.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that God actually keeps his word.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so Moses wrote this down.

[SPEAKER_01]: God wrote this down for them through Moses to help them remember.

[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all, I don't lie.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said I was going to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said I would be your God forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: You trust me.

[SPEAKER_01]: You walk with me.

[SPEAKER_01]: You follow me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, some of us, so here's, I think, just an easy application for us today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you are probably in a place right now where you can't see the end of whatever season you're currently in.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, whatever that may be, whether it's just some kind of grief or suffering that you're going through trials.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's your own sinfulness that you're having to deal with the consequences of that or addictions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's just some sort of thing that you know God has led you to that God has called you to, but you can't really see the fulfillment of that yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or you just believe that God has meant this for your life, but you still just haven't seen that come to fruition, whatever that may be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, sometimes we get to see the why behind our waiting and the why behind our pain and the why behind our suffering.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we get to see that while it's happening, sometimes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the time we don't, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And most of the time we don't get to see the why.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't get to see the purpose.

[SPEAKER_01]: You give it, I'm saying, most of the time, that's just reserved for God.

[SPEAKER_01]: God can see the purpose is, God knows his ways, he knows his will, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, his ways are higher than our ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: and when we can't see God's purpose, and I believe this is why Genesis was written right here.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Genesis.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is why I was written.

[SPEAKER_01]: When we cannot see God's purposes, when we can't yet see the end, the end is out here somewhere, there's more to the story, but when we can't yet see the end, wherever it is, when we can't see the purposes, we can still see the what, the promises.

[SPEAKER_01]: We still see it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We still hear it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We still know it.

[SPEAKER_01]: God has always kept his word.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's never failed.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's never lied.

[SPEAKER_01]: He'll keep his word.

[SPEAKER_01]: And his word says, by the way, second Corinthians 120, that every promise of God is yes in amen in His Son Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: That He's already given us Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all, we get to live on this side of the cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: We get to live on this side of history, where Jesus has already done what He's done, and where the book of Ephesians opens up with we've been given every blessing in Christ.

[SPEAKER_01]: Already, if God does not one more thing for us in our lives, we have Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's done.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're good.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're all good.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't get the money you want, the job you want, the promotion you want, the family you want, the house you want, whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Promise fulfilled.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: We hope in Him and Him alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, whatever else God does, we simply open our hands and we trust Him with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we know He's given us His word, He's given us His promises, He's given us His Son, and we know Romans 828, which is exactly the same as Genesis 50, 20.

[SPEAKER_01]: You meant it for evil, God meant it for good, Romans 828 says, God works all things for the good of those who love them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Same exact idea, Genesis 50, 20, God is sovereign in all things.

[SPEAKER_01]: You trust him today, you trust him tomorrow, you trust him in the light and in the dark.

[SPEAKER_01]: You trust him through that and through this, because he's still a God that's faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: To his word.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, as we end up today, here's what I want to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll just simply to give you an opportunity to let the Lord apply this to your life, that we just go to him together in prayer.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just power a heads.

[SPEAKER_01]: really just want to give you time.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to sing here in just a minute.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, we're just going to continue to sing to God, a couple more songs, but before we do that, I just want to give you a chance to sort of just say to God, God, however you need to apply this to my life today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever I'm waiting for, whatever I'm struggling through, whatever wilderness I feel like I'm sitting in right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever tunnel I can't see the light

[SPEAKER_01]: Help me to believe and trust that because you've already fulfilled your promises and Christ, that I can trust your promises for me today, that you are working all things for the good of those who love you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So would you just take that to the Lord out now, just pray to Him right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're on the prayer team, you can go ahead and come down.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to come down to you while we begin to sing in a minute.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to continue praying, continue praying, if you want to stand and sing, do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just let the Lord lead you, let the Lord apply this word to your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is a faithful God, who keeps His promises.