"Presence, Not Power (Issachar, Naphtali, Manasseh)" 1 Chronicles 7:1-19 Sunday Evening Worship Service

The song we just sang had three stanzas to it, and each of those stanzas has its own promise and they work progressively.

And I assume you don't have your hymnals open, but I'll read you the first line of that song, the first stanza mine are days that God has numbered.

God knows us, He has numbered our days and our time, He has made us to walk with Him.

Even in times of despair, we know that God has given us His word to be a light for our feet.

He's at the very least numbered our lives.

The second stanza, mine are tears in times of sorrow, darkness not yet understood.

Through the valley I must travel where I see no earthly good.

That second promise is that God is going to be with us when we're walking through darkness.

The first promise is that God is going to be with us because He's numbered us, He knows us.

And the second is because we're walking in darkness, we have a sense of nearness to Him.

We can't see where we're going, but we know that He is near.

And the third stanza is that we are stranger on a pilgrim in a narrow way.

But it fits pretty nicely.

First half of 1 Chronicles 7 walks you through three tribes.

There's four tribes, but we're going to skip Benjamin and save him for when we get to chapter 8.

As you know, through 1 Chronicles, we're working our way through the 12 tribes.

And I hope you've noticed something that is holding true even tonight, that the 12 tribes all take on the character of their founder.

The 12 tribes are named after the 12 sons of Israel, of Jacob.

Each of those 12 sons were different people, real people with real lives, real people.

And they had offspring that took on their characteristics.

Some of that is providential.

It's the argument that is, you know, is it environment or genetics that made them?

Did their forefathers have the particular genes that produced those character traits and they were passed down?

Is it environments that they kind of married within the tribe and they amplified those traits?

Or is it simply providential intervention that God directed the tribes to take on the characteristics?

Is it answered prayer?

Because Jacob dedicated these 12 men.

Remember, at the end of his life, Israel prayed for these twelve, and in his prayer, he kind of captures their personality and promises that it will be passed down.

And then on top of that, when they enter the promised land, all 12 of the tribes, they then don't get their land the same way.

When you read Joshua, they don't get their land the same way.

They get it differently.

And the way they acquire the land and where they acquire the land also matches the personality of the tribes.

And then as 1 Chronicles brings it to you, the author of 1 Chronicles reorders them and then gives them to you in a way that is meant to encourage and challenge you in an appropriate way for each of the 12 tribes.

At the most basic level for the Israelites, they're going through these 12 tribes.

It's a review of their history.

Just like Americans might be reading about the life of some of the first presidents.

We don't know them, but as we hear about them, especially being in Virginia, we're like, what, all the presidents are from or something like that?

You know, we're reading their stories and like, oh, I know that place.

And that explains so much.

And this is why those lines come from the, you know, the Virginia Constitution, state constitution, wherever, into the American Constitution through these people and these places that wrote this and there.

Like all the stories come alive when you know that they're your history.

And so at the very least, the Israelites engage with 1 Chronicles like that.

But for us as believers on whom the fullness of time has come, the end of the ages come to us.

We read these and we see these fulfillments through these people as having a powerful spiritual impact on us.

So that's true with all 12 of the tribes, but we're going to look at three of them tonight.

These are certainly, well, I'm just going to say they're the three less known of the tribes, right?

Issachar, Napptali, and Manasseh.

You might know more about Manasseh than the others, but I mean, Issachar, really?

We likely don't know a lot about Issachar or Napali.

I'm not going to say none of you know anything about Issachar because then I don't know, Jack from the back row will shout out some fact about it.

These three tribes are counted among God's people.

These three tribes are known by God and they come back from exile.

That is not true with all twelve tribes.

All twelve tribes went into exile.

Not all twelve came back.

But these ones did.

They are not known tribes because they had priests, they don't have any priests.

Or because they have kings, they don't have any kings.

Or because they have prophets, I mean, I don't think they had any prophets, and all the prophets are easily identical by tribe, but I I don't know.

They don't have any generals, maybe one or two generals, we'll look at them tonight.

One or two famous warriors.

They don't have a temple.

They don't have really anything of value except they're numbered among God's people.

And so these three tribes are a bit of a a shout out to the little people.

They're a shout-out to the faithful guys that nobody knows their name except their wives, that kind of guy.

You know, it's possible they're not gonna preach or be an elder in a church or be known for any great acts of faithfulness, but they're they're the kind of guys that are always here on a Sunday evening service.

My favorite kind of guys.

That's these three tribes.

When it comes down to it, they're not famous, but they're known among God's people.

They become a picture of, as I said, presence.

Not power.

They're not powerful tribes, but they are known for being in the promised land.

I'll give you an outline tonight, resting in God's presence.

All three of these tribes are resting in God's presence.

At the end of 1 Chronicles, they're there.

They haven't been forgotten.

Theirs is the key to Zion's city, they have it in their pocket.

There is the promise of the Savior that will go through Israel.

They believe that promise.

They have that promise, they're waiting for the Savior.

They came back to rebuild the temple.

They came back to retake the land.

They came back to reconstitute Israel and to wait for the Savior.

Theirs is indeed the key to Zion's city.

The first we'll look at is Naptae.

And Naptali is a picture of resting in God's promise through discernment.

Through discernment.

Sorry, I said Napoli, I meant Issachar.

Issachar is a picture of resting in God's promise through discernment.

As a tribe, Issachar models submission to the law, discernment about what the Word of God says, and steady faithfulness.

They do not represent ambition, they do not represent leadership, they represent discernment.

It's one of those tribes that never dominates the storyline.

But they play a quiet and strategic role.

They're not a headline tribe, but they are steady and faithful models of covenant obedience.

First of all, we are introduced to them, and Jacob blesses Issachar.

He describes Issachar as, I'll put it on the screen, a strong donkey.

Is that good or bad?

Don't know.

Crouching between the sheepfolds.

Alright, so you're starting to paint a pastoral image.

If you haven't grown up around a farm, maybe this image is foreign to you.

But you have the sheepfolds, you have the pins where they are, and they're in the middle of the flock of sheep is a donkey, not a weak donkey, not one of those weak sauce donkeys that's annoying, but a strong donkey.

They're just sitting there out in the middle of the sheep field.

I mean, what is that dude doing?

Who knows?

Who knows what any donkey is ever doing?

They're not the best communicators.

But he's strong, and he's there among the sheep.

He's there in the field where he's supposed to be.

He's not causing a ruckus.

He's just hanging out.

That's Issachar.

It's not really that negative, a strong donkey.

If it wanted to be negative, you wouldn't call him that.

But there he is.

And then it goes on.

He saw that a resting place was good.

I mean, if you know something about donkeys, you know that when they're happy with where they are, that's it right then.

Like when they reach where they want to rest, they are going to rest there.

You can hit them and kick them and eat them, and they're not going to move.

And so it is with Issach.

He found his good spot in the field.

He saw that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant to forced labor.

I mean, that is a classic donkey move right there.

So, Issachar, why is he there?

Why, just think of the promise.

This is from Jacob talking to the man, Issachar.

Remember, and the blessing to each of these becomes the paradigm for the tribe.

So Issachar has found his spot where he likes and he's going to hang out there.

He's not going to move.

As a result, though, he will have two things.

He will have rest and he will have work.

They are both there for him.

He's known as one who rests.

Because of that, he's going to be a servant of forced labor.

Now you can see, perhaps you have a child like this, and you're like, this child is just content and he's not going to be a hard worker.

I get it.

Like I look at my child and this stage, and he's not going to be a hard worker when he grows up.

I understand it.

And there's part of that that's great.

He's going to have a restful life.

There's another part of that that's not great.

He's going to be working for other people very hard, that boy will be.

That's Issachar.

But he sees that the land is good.

He makes a decision himself.

The land is good.

I'll take it even though I'm going to have to work.

Issachar represents strength expressed through submission, not dominance, unlike Judah.

Judah's going to have the scepter.

Judah's going to rule the sheep field.

Levi's going to be the priest for the sheep.

Issachar is just the ordinary guy who's happy where the Lord has placed him.

God's people are not all rulers, but they will all be with him in the kingdom.

God does not only take leaders and kings and priests and prophets to heaven.

He takes ordinary people who rest in faithfulness.

In Joshua 19, Issachar gets the fertile ground.

Joshua ascribes to Issachar when Joshua starts parsing out the land, he ascribes to Issachar the most fertile fields.

Maybe because of this prophecy.

He's thinking through, well, this is the tribe that's going to hang out in the sheep field.

Let's give them ground that'll grow at least.

Because of that, Issachar became stable.

And because of their stability, they became known as discerning.

1 Chronicles 12, those 32.

Men of Issachar, who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.

They did not become leaders.

They aren't the ones that led Israel into battle, but they were the ones in the days of the kings that told the kings what to do.

They weren't prophets.

They didn't have supernatural revelation from God.

They didn't direct the kings because they were in charge.

They directed the kings because they knew what was up.

They're listed then here and not critiqued.

I mean, the classic Issachar person is the first one you meet in verse 1.

The sons of Isar Tola.

So Tola is a judge.

He's listed in the book of Judges.

And he's repeated here a few times.

He's the son, the sons are listed there in verse 2.

The houses of, namely of Tola there in verse 2, mighty warriors that are generations there.

Tola is the repeated guy.

Well, Tola is like the most famous dude from Issachar.

He's a judge listed in Judges chapter 10, I think.

Judges 10 · chapter mention

And nothing's said about him there.

He's just a judge.

And you move on.

That's Issachar.

By the way, he was a judge after the whole fiasco with Abimelech.

Abimelech, if you remember, put himself forward.

Abimelech is the in Hebrew means my daddy is king.

That's not a very humble, and he named himself that kind of thing.

You know, not very humble.

He didn't mean it as like God alone is king.

He meant it as like the line is in my family, look out.

There's a whole millstone incident from the window where they're crushed to death.

It's a fiasco.

He's kind of, in a sense, Israel's first king, and it does not go well.

Well, Tola is left to pick up the pieces.

And he leads Israel out of that mess.

And he's the one who's remembered.

By the end in verse 5, they have all kinds of fighting men.

Their kidsmen belong to the clans of Issachar.

We're 87,000 warriors enrolled by genealogy.

Again, Issachar is listed, not critiqued, nothing good or bad about them beyond the fact that they're discerning.

This is a great pattern of something for believers to follow.

Ephesians 5, understand what the will of the Lord is.

Colossians 1, verse 9, walk in wisdom and fruitfulness.

Colossians 1:9

1 Thessalonians 5.

Discern the times.

There's a basic principle that maturity in belief.

You can rest in the Lord's presence when you are discerning.

You're not easily spooked, you're not easily put to flight.

There's a difference between horses and donkeys.

Donkeys rest better.

Horses scatter.

There's a virtue of being like the donkey if it's a discernment.

Issaqar teaches that with discernment you can rest in God's presence.

The Christian life is not about being in charge, it's about knowing what obedience requires right now.

That's a huge difference.

I'll say that sentence one more time.

The Christian life is not about being in charge.

It's about knowing what obedience requires from you at any moment.

Way better to have the kind of people leading you that aren't aspiring to leadership but know how to obey at the moment in difficult situations.

That leads to a way more restful Christian life.

And those that run to and fro and this way and that.

That's Issachar.

Verse 6, you get Benjamin.

We're going to skip Benjamin altogether for now.

That's verses 6 through 12.

And we're going to shove those into chapter 8.

Most of the names that are here in 6 through 12 will be repeated in chapter 8 for Saul's genealogy.

Saul is from Benjamin, so we'll skip over Benjamin.

Plus, the outline works a lot better when Benjamin shifts to after Easter.

Second, though, is Naphtali.

Naptile.

Napptali is a picture of how to rest in God's presence through darkness.

Issachar is resting in God's presence through discernment.

Napptali is resting in God's presence through darkness.

Napptali reflects the law's demand for faithfulness, even on the edges.

Naptali is a border tribe.

They don't have their fruitful valley.

They're up on the northern end.

They're in the part of Israel.

No one really wants.

You almost need to know the topography of Israel.

I don't want to make a geography lesson, but it's just a little geography lesson.

From the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the Jordan River runs down.

Up on the west side of that is a mountain range.

This is the mountain range you'd walk from Jericho to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem's up in those mountains.

But there's a mountain range that kind of cuts that land in half.

You don't get over the mountain ranges very easily.

Naptali's on the other side of the mountain range, not the fertile side of the mountain range, but the bad side of the mountain range.

The side of the mountain range with the Sea of Galilee on it.

That's where Napptali is.

It's land that nobody really wants.

The Sea of Galilee is great for fishing.

But it's not going to have crops and fields that are there.

That's Naptali's land.

It's a highway.

The road from Egypt up to Lebanon goes through there.

So it's a transient area.

It's populated with Gentiles.

That's where Napptali ends up.

Why does Napoli end up there?

Well, let's look at Napoli's promise.

This is all that is said about Napoli by Jacob.

Napptali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful words.

I don't know.

I don't know.

A doe that's less loose, let loose that bears beautiful words.

That's what you got right there.

There's virtue in Naphtali, but you almost have to let it go.

And it's beautiful when he's running on the fringes, kind of thing.

We see deer that run in our backyard and they run by the window.

And sometimes there's big groups of them that run by our window and they're they're fun to watch.

You know, we don't name them or anything.

We don't go to live with them, they just run by.

Like they're they're fun, they're pretty, and there they go.

That's that's Naptali.

They're beautiful, but you don't, you know, bring them in.

They're outdoors.

That's that's all you get.

It's not like there's a verse after that.

I dropped off.

That's it.

That's Napptali.

And that about captures their genealogy to look at verse 13.

The sons of Napptali, and you you get them, and then you're done.

There they are.

Naptali is marked by freedom, swiftness, and fruitfulness of speech.

So, what does that mean?

You have to almost you don't get enough here.

You have to keep tracing Napptali's story.

Joshua 19 is where Joshua settles them on the northern part of Galilee, far away from Jerusalem.

They live on the edges of Israel's life, exposed to Gentile influence, exposed to invasion.

Tiberias is in Napoli.

That's the big city in Jesus' lifetime that he never went to, by the way.

It's not mentioned in the New Testament.

It was the biggest city in the province where Jesus lived.

It's not even mentioned because there was, it's practically a Roman city.

That's Napptoli.

Yet its location makes it a strategic gateway.

It's like the place out in California, you know, Barstow, where two freeways come together to get up to Las Vegas.

You know, you kind of don't want to live there.

You need a Barstow with a truck stop, but you don't want to live there.

What's the Virginia equivalent?

I could say, I'm thinking Harrisonburg, but I wouldn't say that out loud because some of you like it there.

Like you need a place like that.

But I mean, it's just two freeways meet.

That's Naptali.

Famous people from Napoli or Barak.

He's the classic Naphtali leader.

He was the general or the judge that led them to deliverance with the battle with Cisera and the tent peg through the head.

That's Barak.

But remember, Barack wouldn't fight without Deborah.

He wasn't like the leader kind of guy.

He's like, I guess I'll lead Israel as long as I have a lady to lead with me.

That's Barak.

And that's not meant as a good thing, by the way.

And remember, they do the prophecy that the victory will go to the lady.

The victory that goes to the lady is not Deborah.

It's Sisera.

It puts the tent peg.

They don't even know about it.

The word just gets to Barak and Deborah.

They write songs about it and everything, but it's not exactly the paradigm of military strategy right there.

And yet God gives them victory under shared leadership.

That's classic Napptaly right there.

They're courageous but not independent.

Faithful but not dominant.

And because they're on the fringes, they're, I think, the first tribe to get exiled.

The first tribe on the right side of the Jordan River to get exiled anyway.

By Assyria.

Assyria takes them over.

I mean, it's the first stop in Israel.

If you're going to conquer someone, it would be Napoli, and they go down fast.

And yet, God remembers them.

That's the promise in Isaiah.

We fixate on the promise of the Messiah that the Savior will be from Nazareth, but born in Bethlehem, and we wonder how's that going to be?

How's that going to be?

And you get the census, and that solves it, that we lose that for many Old Testament Jews, what the most prominent feature of the Savior was as far as geography, wasn't that he was going to be a Nazarene, and it wasn't that he was going to be born in Bethlehem.

The most prominent feature of him was that he was going to launch his ministry in Naptale.

Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

In the former time, he brought in to contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Napptali, but the light is going to shine there.

That's why Matthew chapter 4 calls Jesus a light of the Gentiles, the light of Naptal.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Something that wouldn't click our the tripwire in our mind, but it is a classic Yahweh kind of promise.

Here's the tribe that is, in a sense, the weakest and the most on the fringe.

But I'm going to bless them with the ministry of the Savior, Capernaum's innaptile.

Jesus did almost his whole ministry in Napptali.

Why would God send the Savior to Napoli?

Why not Judah, where kings come from?

Why not Benjamin out of homage to Saul?

There's so many other tribes.

You can make a case for any of the tribes except almost Napptali.

Why Naptali again?

Because it's the light to the Gentiles.

The point of the Savior, he'd be the light to the nations.

So if you want him to be the light to the nations, you light the torch in the city of the Gentiles.

That's the point.

The Jews didn't understand that, remember?

They find out where Jesus is from.

Nazareth and Napoli, like can anything good come from that part of the world?

Answer no.

The one prophet from that part of the world, remember, was Jesus.

Jonah, who also went to the nations.

That's the point.

Napoli shows that you can dwell in darkness and still rest in God's presence.

Napoli is on the fringes and the very outside.

And yet God not only allows them to rest in his presence, but uses them to bring the Savior not just to the world but to the nations.

If Issachar shows how to live wisely, Napoli shows us that God brings light into darkness first.

God often brings his greatest light into the places that have known the deepest darkness, and such it is with Napoli.

Third, you can rest in God's presence through discernment, like Issachar, through darkness like Napptali.

And third, through repentance like Manasseh.

Manasseh, when we see Manasseh in verse 14, the sons of Manasseh.

First of all, a quick word on Manasseh.

Remember that Joseph had two sons.

Joseph was at the end of the line there.

He's the one that had the coat of many colors, Joseph was, that was sold into captivity, slavery, that went into Egypt, became the prime minister providentially of Egypt, and then rescued the rest of the 12 tribes, bringing them into Egypt.

So as Jacob is giving the blessings to all of his sons, Joseph has a long blessing, but there's no tribe called Joseph because Joseph has two sons, and remember, Levi's not going to have any land here.

And so Joseph's blessing becomes divided between his two sons.

His two sons were Manasseh and Ephraim.

We're going to look at Ephraim next week, but Manasseh for now.

Manasseh gets a double blessing because Joseph had a double blessing.

From the beginning, Masseh represents displaced privilege.

He's the first to become second.

Manasseh was oldest, but Ephraim's elevated above him.

And yet Manasseh gets a massive amount of land.

Judah had the largest territory, but most of Judah's land was not habitable.

Manasseh probably had the largest land that you could live in.

But it was a weird-looking territory, a weird-looking land.

Like all the other lands who have kind of neat borders, like they follow a river or a mountain range or something like that.

Not Manasseh's.

Manasseh's land looks like a gerrymandered congressional district.

That's Manasseh's land.

And I looked, I don't know if you have looked, but you should have a grid for Manasseh right now because of this.

Do you know Virginia is proposing redistricting and all the things?

So there is Emmanuel Bible Church, and there is my house, just right down the street.

There are no stoplights between my house and Emmanuel Bible Church.

And then the other side of my house is the Emmanuel Christian High School.

Again, no stoplights between us.

We are all in literally the same neighborhood, and all three of us, the high school, my house, and Emmanuel Bible Church, will be in three different congressional districts.

The high school will be in with like Virginia Beach, for goodness sakes.

There could be value to that, I guess.

I don't know what the value would be, but that's where they'll be.

But they won't be in my congressional district, and I can throw, I can hit the building with a rock, and neither will IBC.

That's Manasseh.

A river splits them.

They're on both sides, but one side of the river, they snake down it.

And the other side of the river, I guess if you take a ferry upstream, you can maybe get to the other part of Manasseh to connect it.

Barely.

That's Manasseh.

It's all messed up.

Manasseh becomes the picture of divided loyalties.

It's gerrymandered beyond recognition.

It's geographically divided because the two sons were divided.

Remember, all the characteristics of the people are played out in the tribes.

The two sons were divided with divile loyalties.

They were flip-flopped on top of each other.

That's Manasseh.

So their own territory gets divided like his, like he and his brother were divided.

Manasseh failed to drive out the Canaanites.

So they became perpetually divided.

The lesson from Manasseh is that long-term compromise produces long-term weakness.

Strength that covenant of faithfulness leads to collapse.

And that's their story.

It's a sad story.

Manasseh had Israel in verse 14.

The Aramean concub who was born from the Aramean concubine.

Look at verse 16.

Makab, the wife of Makir, bore son, called his name Peresh, the name of his brother was Shuresh, sons of Ulon Recham.

They have brothers that seem to be divided as well.

Manasseh becomes a picture of divided loyalties.

They were also one of the first to go into exile, massively.

After Napoli fell, Manasseh fell closely after.

They had divided inheritance, divided obedience, and divided outcomes sent into exile early.

But here's the crazy thing with Manasseh's early exile.

Because they were taken away into exile, they weren't all taken away together.

The Assyrians thought they'd get all of them, but they only got like one half.

They forgot the gerrymandered half that went down the river.

And so what that half did is they then reassociated themselves with Jerusalem.

Under King Hezekiah, they came back to Jerusalem.

They were the first of the northern tribes to go back to Jerusalem and say, we want to go back to worshiping at the temple.

Will you take us?

And Hezekiah said, Yes.

Come on back.

Because they were compromisers and divided, they were split.

But God used their split loyalties to bring them to repentance.

They had a displaced privilege, they had divided identity, compromised obedience, but it resulted in participation back with the temple again.

You can live for a long time with split loyalties.

It wrecks your life.

But you can live that way.

And it's so easy to come back to God.

It just, no matter how far away you walk from God, repentance is always one step away.

That's the idea.

You can spend 10 years walking away from the Lord.

It takes one moment to turn back to Him.

That's the lesson of Manasseh.

Go as far away as you want.

It'll hurt you and it'll hurt your family.

But God receives his children back.

So Abisakar shows us wise living, Napoli shows us that God shines light into darkness, and Manasseh shows us the danger and the hope of a divided life.

It's dangerous because, again, they ended up in exile with massive tears, but it's hopeful because you can always repent even from exile.

Notice that the lesson from all three of these tribes is so different than Levi and Judah and Benjamin and Simeon.

Those guys had positions of power because they were clinging to where the temple was.

They were trying to elevate themselves.

They had roles to play in the kingdom.

Not so with these three tribes.

They did not seek control.

They didn't seek to expand their borders.

You know, it's Jabez, who's from Judah, who's like expand the borders.

Not these guys.

They want to be secure in the presence of God.

They want to rest in his presence like a donkey in the field, like a doe who is beautiful out the window.

They just want to rest in the presence of God.

That's it.

And so God brings them back from exile.

He doesn't bring Dan back from exile.

They're gone because they're compromised, but he brings these groups back.

Now, I want you to see that all three of these tribes play into the life of Christ, of course.

We've talked a few of those examples, but Jesus embodies them perfectly.

Jesus doesn't go to rule in Jerusalem first, he rules from where the Gentiles are, like Naphtali.

He doesn't assert dominance, but he exemplifies discernment of his father's will, like Issachar.

He didn't come to be served, but to serve and lay his life down as a ransom for many.

That's Issachar.

And he didn't grasp at power, but humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant, becoming obedient all the way to the point of death, even death on the cross.

That's Manasseh.

Now, all three of those, we would put those under the category of communicable lessons.

Like all three of them, you can learn from.

Jesus is the way he acts in the strength of all three of these tribes, it's not something that's beyond you.

It's something that's available to you.

Napli teaches you the importance of knowing what to do in any situation.

Issachar teaches you you should do it in hard places.

And Manasseh teaches you that when you fail, you can always repent and come back to God.

That's not a best-selling book on leadership or anything, but it is the basics of discipleship.

Know what to do, do it when it's hard, and when you fail, turn back from the Lord.

You can ask yourselves: do you feel like you need discernment?

Do you feel like you're standing in darkness?

Do you feel like you have divided loyalties?

And these three tribes show you that even in those places where you are now, you can rest in the Lord's presence.

God is not looking for powerful people.

He's looking for people who show up, who are present and who are counted.

And these tribes are here because they made it back from exile.

Not because they were impressive, but because they were present.

God isn't building his kingdom through powerful leaders, but through those who remain present, discerning his will, willing to obey in difficult situations, standing in darkness, and returning to him when they fail.

Lord, we're thankful for your word that models for us patient obedience, long-term faithfulness.

As we prayed for tonight, faithfulness is your yes, yes, and your no-no.

We see that modeled, of course, by Christ, whose very word was his bond.

But also by these tribes.

Even in their failure, they came back to you.

Lord, we in a sense want to live out the best of these tribes.

We want to be discerning, devoting our minds to the word of God to know how you'd have us to live.

We want to be restful, content with where you've put us, not always angling for a better pasture, but just content with your assignment, as 1 Corinthians 7 says.

And we want to be like Manasseh, not of course in their divided loyalties, but in their eagerness to return and their restoration.

We know that sexually immoral and liars and adulterers and murderers will not inherit the kingdom of God, and yet such were some of us.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMS.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.