Genesis 46-47

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you can go ahead and open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 46.

Genesis 46 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: We are inching our way closer to the end of this almost year-long study in Genesis, which has been a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen along the way the creation of the world, the rebellion of the sons of God against him.

[SPEAKER_00]: the great flood that was kind of a reset button, the tower of Babel, the division of the nations and the assigning of land to them, we watch as God selected one man Abraham from which to make a great nation that he would call his own.

[SPEAKER_00]: After all the others rejected, God, we saw the covenant that God made with Abraham, the ups and downs of his life, the mistakes that he made along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we followed the journey of Abraham's son Isaac and his two twins, Esa and Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now we're with Jacob in the land of Canaan, the promised land, but things haven't been so great lately.

[SPEAKER_00]: After deceiving his brother Esa, yet again, and settling in Canaan, Jacob's oldest sons sold his younger son, his second youngest son into slavery on a trip to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: They made Jacob believe that his favorite son, Joseph, had been killed by a wild animal and Jacob mourned the loss of his son from that point on.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he had another son, another son from the same mother as Joseph.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so Benjamin then became his pride and joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when the entire region experienced a famine that threatened to destroy the family,

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob was forced to let his youngest son Benjamin go with the older brothers to Egypt because there was this bizarre ruler there who insisted on seeing all of Jacob's sons personally.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's up with that?

[SPEAKER_00]: and Jacob probably then lived in fear for the next few weeks as all of his sons went off to Egypt to meet with this ruler wondering if his favorite son Benjamin would ever come back praying that he would not lose him like he lost Joseph.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: A servant came running up

[SPEAKER_00]: to Jacob's tent to tell him that a caravan was headed their way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it should be just Jacob's sons coming back, but the group is larger and more impressive than when they left, there are more people, more animals and wagons loaded with supplies and expensive goods.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had left for Egypt with all the best gifts they could afford to give to this mysterious ruler, but now it looks like they're coming back with more than they left with.

[SPEAKER_00]: The group finally reaches Jacob, and the suns cannot wait to tell him, Joseph is alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it turns out he was the strange ruler in Egypt all along, the one that insisted on seeing Benjamin and all these extra supplies and wagons are so that they can move the whole family back to Egypt where they can live close to the food and build a new life at least temporarily for themselves in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Jacob is stunned.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he's also excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Joseph is alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gets to go and see him again.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has to go to Egypt and since they have this opportunity to move the whole family there and save themselves from this famine, they begin that journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the recap that brings us to Genesis 46 and Genesis 47.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are our two chapters for today's message.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to cover that journey to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: and how life goes for Jacob's family in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're also going to look at some unexpected, but really wise leadership, Joseph shows during a really difficult crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: I opened by telling the story from Jacob's perspective, because I want you to kind of feel a little bit of how he felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have followed the journey back and forth of these sons going back and forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know what happened with Joseph, but Jacob is in the dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob doesn't know what's going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's spending all of this time in fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know he was a fearful man.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was fearful about Levin.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was fearful about Esau.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was fearful about the surrounding rulers.

[SPEAKER_00]: His life has been governed, at least from the stories we have of him, by fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was fearful about Benjamin, afraid that he wouldn't come back.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the older brothers knew this.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were so clear on this that they said, if he doesn't come back with us, then our father will die.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob's in the dark, and now he's leaving the promise land to move the family to Egypt, and it probably feels a little bit like giving up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is the land where his parents and his grandparents are buried at the land that God promised to them, it's the land that God took them to, and now they're there, they made it victory success, and because of this famine they have to leave, and move the family to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's 130 years old now, Jacob is.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a scary thing to do, and it's filled with unknowns.

[SPEAKER_00]: How will the Egyptians treat them when they get there?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would they be able to care for their flocks in the land of Egypt?

[SPEAKER_00]: Will there be enough water?

[SPEAKER_00]: What was Joseph like after all these years?

[SPEAKER_00]: Would they ever come back to this land that God promised would be theirs forever?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that brings us now to Genesis 46 verse 1.

Genesis 46:1

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob set out for Egypt with all his possessions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when he came to bear Shiba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the journey that they took through Bershiba, to Egypt in case you're curious.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how they got there.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the place in Bershiba where Abraham, Jacob's grandfather, had made a treaty with King Abimlek and then Abraham worshiped God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Later on, it's where God appeared to Isaac, and extended the covenant of Abraham to Isaac.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Isaac also made a tree with King of Bimlek in the same place.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now, in this place was so much rich family history, Jacob stops and has his own worship service.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it means by he offered sacrifice to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had a worship service.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here in Beirchea with a place where his father and grandfather also had significant events happen here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then, verse two, during the night, God spoke to him in a vision.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob Jacob, he called.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here I am, Jacob replied, I am God.

[SPEAKER_00]: The God of your father, the voice said, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: For there, I will make you make your family into a great nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again.

[SPEAKER_00]: You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your...

[SPEAKER_00]: eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, anytime an angel or God says, do not be afraid.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a pretty good clue.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were afraid.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob was not sure what was going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was hesitant about this trip to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he stops and he has this worship service.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then that night God appears to him and says, don't be afraid to go to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a plan for all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to bring your family out of Egypt back to the Promised Land just as I promise you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will keep my promises.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you will die there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You won't be back.

[SPEAKER_00]: but your family will and Joseph will be there with great reassurance from God for Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then verse 5, so Jacob left Perchiba and his sons took him to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: They carried him in their little ones and their wives in the wagons.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pharaoh had provided for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They also took all their livestock.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all the personal belongings they had acquired in the land of Canaan.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob and his entire family went to Egypt, sons and grandson's daughters and granddaughters and all of his descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the next 18 verses you can see there and your bibles list the names of all the descendants.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you are welcome to read through that if you're looking for baby names.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what's most important is the very end.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a summary at the end that goes like this in verse 26.

[SPEAKER_00]: The total number of Jacob's direct descendants who went with him to Egypt, not counting the sons' wives, was 66.

[SPEAKER_00]: In addition, Joseph had two sons who were born in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: So all together, there were 70 members of Jacob's family in the land of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you might wonder, oh, why would we even want to know about that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who cares how many of their words?

[SPEAKER_00]: Family moved to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: 70 is a very important

[SPEAKER_00]: number in the ancient Hebrew culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was considered a number of wholeness or completion.

[SPEAKER_00]: It would be a little something like us giving a nice round number like a hundred and saying there were a hundred of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But 70 was a big deal to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's some significance to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The descendants that were listed for Noah after the destruction of the world in the flood were also 70.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those 70 that are listed became the 70 nations that were distributed throughout the earth, divided up in Genesis chapter 10, those 70 nations that would reject God.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: And God said he would make his own nation that would be a blessing to the other nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: And people from every nation would eventually return to him the 70 members of Jacob's family in Egypt would become the foundation of that nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob's 70 would become the nation that would bless the 70 nations that rejected God and became all people on earth and God would bless all of those seven nations through these 70 people and Jacob's family and all of this is pointing us toward the sovereignty of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has worked through all of the mistakes and faults and failures of all of these different people in order to still bring about His plan, to still accomplish His purposes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the people in Jacob's 70 were the result of some really poor choices and some sinful decisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob didn't want to marry Leah at all, remember?

[SPEAKER_00]: He was tricked into it by

[SPEAKER_00]: but some of her children are part of the 70.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel and Leah pressure Jacob into taking servant wives because then they thought they would get credit for the extra children that were produced from them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so because of their pride and selfishness, we have this growing set of wives that Jacob has that led to all sorts of problems later on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet those wives children are also part of the 70.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel and Leah pressured that, but it resulted in good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about this, two of the people in the 70.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joseph's two sons would not have existed if Joseph were not sold into slavery in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so God took things,

[SPEAKER_00]: To work out his plan, took the failures and mistakes and the faults of all these people and is working through them to accomplish his mission and Moses is trying to tell us by giving us this number of 70 and saying, God is still at work in all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is still doing something in all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this should change our perspective on our past mistakes.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know the ones that you carry around like a backpack full of bricks, the ones that the enemy seems to remind you about with his fiery darts at just the wrong time, the sins, the mistakes, the things that you've done

[SPEAKER_00]: And just to say a quick thing about that, there are a couple of things there, there are sins and there's mistakes.

[SPEAKER_00]: If there are sins that continue to haunt you, but you've trusted in Jesus as your Savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember this, Jesus gave his life, so you could be forgiven for your sin, don't hold on to guilt that Jesus already paid for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't hold on to guilt that Jesus already paid for.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is working something even through your past sins, as he did with Jacob and Abraham and Isaac and their family.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe they're not sins, maybe they're just mistakes that you regret.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I should have done that differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should have said that differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should have made a different choice here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, trust in the sovereignty of God includes, believing that God can work through your mistakes to accomplish good things even if you can't see them yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's even the mistakes of your past can be used by God to do incredible things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we should actually appreciate the fact that God allows us to freedom to make those mistakes and that God will do something good and work through them.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to acknowledge that the crooked path we've walked is both regrettable and also now part of God's masterpiece.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to look back and recognize that.

[SPEAKER_00]: God allowed us to make those mistakes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there are mistakes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, we wouldn't want to make them again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, all of those things in the past that sometimes haunt us and keep coming up in our minds, all of those things are now a part of our story.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are part of what God is using to do his things, what he's used to grow us and teach us, and maybe other people as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we get to see the good things that God is doing from the ashes and sometimes we just have to trust that he's doing something.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we got to get back to Jacob on his way to Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: So look at verse 28.

[SPEAKER_00]: As they near their destination, Jacob sent Judah ahead to meet Joseph and get directions to the region of Goshen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when they finally arrived, their Joseph prepared his chariot and traveled to Goshen to meet his father, Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Joseph arrived, he embraced his father and wept holding him for a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, Jacob said to Joseph, now I am ready to die.

[SPEAKER_00]: Since I have seen your face again and I know you are still alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Joseph said to his brothers and to his family,

[SPEAKER_00]: I will go to Pharaoh and tell him my brothers and my father's entire family have come to me from the land of Canaan.

[SPEAKER_00]: These men are shepherds and they raise livestock.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have brought with them their flocks and herds and everything they own.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he said, when Pharaoh calls for you and asks about your occupation, you must tell him we, your servants, have raised livestock all our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: As our ancestors have always done, when you tell him this,

[SPEAKER_00]: He will let you live here in the region of Goshen for the Egyptians despise shepherds.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here's some real wisdom from Joseph.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, without this coaching, these sons might have already picked up on the fact that the Egyptians despise shepherds.

[SPEAKER_00]: They might have downplayed their occupation, and that Joseph says, no, no, no, guys, lean into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: lead into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want your own place.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want your own land.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to intermingle with all of the Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so lead into the shepherd thing and Pharaoh will let you have this nice land up here where there's lots of water, but not as many Egyptians live up here.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're more focused in the middle and southern areas, what they actually call upper Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you want to be in lower Egypt, which is northern Egypt, and that's where you want to settle,

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly what they do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Pharaoh lets them live in the land of Goatian.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, I find this super fascinating.

[SPEAKER_00]: So bear with me for a little bit of an archeology moment here.

[SPEAKER_00]: But archeologists have found loads of evidence of a Semitic people in that region.

[SPEAKER_00]: People from Canaan people that match the Hebrew people.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had their own city, and Goshen called a virus.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a house there that's been discovered that's a tell-tale style of a Hebrew home.

[SPEAKER_00]: What would become the standard layout of a Jewish house in Israel?

[SPEAKER_00]: We find it here in the land of Goshen.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an Egyptian style at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you don't find it anywhere else in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it actually matches a style that comes from her on where Abraham was from.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's likely that Abraham brought this style with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: They continued to build the style of home.

[SPEAKER_00]: They built it in the land of Goshen, and then they built it all over Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a tell-tale Jewish home style.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's also a palace that was built on top of that house.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the palace has made an Egyptian style, but the ruler that lived in it was a Semitic ruler.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that because there's a statue of the ruler, and they've got the head bust and fragments of the statue,

[SPEAKER_00]: and the different elements of the statue and the paint that was used in the features of the statue tell archaeologists that this is not an Egyptian.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is someone from the land of Canaan.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is an outsider who came there and clearly had great prominence because he lived in a palace.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he had the statue made for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has a staff which shows that he was some kind of ruler, some important figure.

[SPEAKER_00]: He even has, they can tell from the paint, a multicolored coat on, which is pretty interesting as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a pyramid tomb inside that palace where its leader was at one point buried.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where they found the statue.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an Egyptian leader, but it's someone from Canon who got a royal Egyptian burial.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, at some point, the bones were completely taken out of the tomb.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are many other tombs around there where the bones remain, but here the bones were taken out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you might think, well, it was in that grave robber.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, grave robbers don't take the bones.

[SPEAKER_00]: They take the gold and the jewelry and everything else, but here is the only tomb.

[SPEAKER_00]: or no bones remain.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what's interesting about that is that you fast forward to Exodus 13, and you see that Moses took the bones of Joseph out of his tomb and brought them to Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Behind the palace, in a garden behind the palace, there are 12 tombs for other Semitic people, where the bones still remain.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's also pottery there from southern Canaan,

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob and his family had lived.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is also Elsa and Egypt a list in papyri of a bunch of slaves and about half the names on this list are actually Hebrew names.

[SPEAKER_00]: So well, this list of archaeological finds that I'm describing does not

[SPEAKER_00]: directly prove or connect to any specific people in Scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: What it does prove is that there were Hebrew people living in Egypt who eventually became slaves, but at times held positions of great authority and prominence and settled in the land of Goshen lines up pretty well with what the Bible says about these people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now back to Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse seven of Genesis 47 says, then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: How old are you Pharaoh asked him?

[SPEAKER_00]: He must have been curious because how we looked.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob replied, I have traveled this earth for a hundred and thirty years.

[SPEAKER_00]: But get this.

[SPEAKER_00]: My life has been short compared to the lives of my ancestors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that interesting?

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh again before leaving his court.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Joseph assigned the best land of Egypt, the region of Ramsey's to his father and his brothers and he settled them there just as Pharaoh had commanded.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Joseph provided food for his father and his brothers in a mountain appropriate to the number of their dependence, including the smallest children.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the most interesting part of that is 130 years old.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then Jacob's saying, yeah, but I'm a youngster.

[SPEAKER_00]: My life is short compared to my ancestors and the reason that so interesting to me is because we talked many months ago about the long lives that the Bible says that the first humans had and how some people try to dismiss those and explain those away and know that can't be true.

[SPEAKER_00]: compared to my ancestors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those stories have been passed down from father to son, and he understood that his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers and beyond all lived much longer lives than he did.

[SPEAKER_00]: So next Moses shifts the narrative from Jacob's family, and their time on their journey to Egypt, and their time in Egypt, she's talking about Joseph's leadership during this famine.

[SPEAKER_00]: The famine is still going on, and Joseph is at the forefront of the emergency food

[SPEAKER_00]: that he implemented in Egypt, he's in charge of that, and Moses is going to give us a little bit of a window into how he handles a very challenging time, because remember, this is a famine of seven years.

[SPEAKER_00]: This could have a devastating effect, not only on the region, but on the country of Egypt in particular.

[SPEAKER_00]: How do you make sure?

[SPEAKER_00]: that the people in the country come out strong on the other side.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ready to be productive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ready to capitalize on the end of this famine that God has told Joseph will end after seven years.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jacob and his family arrive, there are two years into the famine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Joseph has knows there's five years left to go.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how will he manage the supply of food, not run out of the supply of food, and make sure that the country is ready to thrive after this famine ends, as God told him it would.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Moses is going to tell us about.

[SPEAKER_00]: So look at verse 13 of Genesis 37.

[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, the famine became so severe that all the food was used up, and people were starving throughout the lands of Egypt and Canaan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's not the food that Joseph had stored up, that's everybody else's food.

[SPEAKER_00]: By selling grain to the people, Joseph eventually collected all the money in Egypt and Canaan.

[SPEAKER_00]: He put the money in Pharaoh's treasury.

[SPEAKER_00]: So people are coming, they're bringing their money, and they're buying the food, and eventually they've run out of money, they can't buy food anymore, and you might think to yourself, why not just give the food to the people for free?

[SPEAKER_00]: If the government had collected all of this stuff and stored it all up, they've got these huge stock piles of food.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why would they not just hand it out to the people and say, here you go, we're gonna take care of you as long as you need.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, eventually hopefully you won't need it, and hopefully we won't run out along the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we're just going to give it away to you for free.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's actually some really good reasons not to do things that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Joseph being led by God and dealing with this crisis avoids the pitfalls of just giving it out to the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are several principles that are worth knowing when it comes to helping people without hurting them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The unfortunate reality is that a lot of the charity work that happens around the world is actually doing more harm than good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw this firsthand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of you know that for almost a decade, I led a ministry that did work all in all sorts of countries overseas, many places, just about every continent.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I got to see firsthand the difference between ministries that did this well.

[SPEAKER_00]: and ministries that did this poorly and I learned the principles of what makes for an effective long-term successful ministry to impoverished peoples versus one that actually creates problems and dependencies.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then when I ended that ministry, I found these two books.

[SPEAKER_00]: One has called when helping hurts, and one has called toxic charity, and those are books that are foundational for us in understanding how to best help people without hurting them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're books that are recommended for our benevolence committee, for instance, as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: They read to make sure they're ready to do this well and wisely, they're Christian books.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those two books teach important principles that Joseph follows perfectly.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let me just share a few of those principles with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of these is the principle of exchange.

[SPEAKER_00]: One way charity hurts the recipient in the long run, even if it helps in the short run continued.

[SPEAKER_00]: One way we're just giving and giving and expecting nothing in return actually hurts the dignity of the person who is receiving that handout over and over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, both of the books talk about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: By expecting an exchange for the food, Joseph was actually communicating to the people that they had something of value to contribute.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had said, they were not getting this as a handout.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were not completely destitute.

[SPEAKER_00]: They still had something they could offer, something that they could contribute to this solution.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they could engage in commerce to get the food that they needed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will earn the food that they receive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's the second principle, which is the principle of relief versus development.

[SPEAKER_00]: temporary relief is sometimes necessary in an emergency.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's triage in a crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this was a famine of seven years and there were several years left in the famine.

[SPEAKER_00]: On going relief for nothing in return, that one way relief creates a dependency that tends to ruin work ethic and creativity and innovation.

[SPEAKER_00]: by not creating a massive welfare state in Egypt and just giving everyone all the stuff for free.

[SPEAKER_00]: The people were forced to be good stewards of what they had.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were forced to ration the food carefully.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had to be resourceful and trying to find food from other sources wherever they could.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their entire nation's food supply lasted longer because it wasn't all just distributed to them for free and all given away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that kept the nation ready and able to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Great development would be possible as soon as the famine was over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Principle number three, the principle of progressive dependency.

[SPEAKER_00]: Robert Lupton talks about this in his book, Toxic Charity.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what happens when handouts are given repeatedly over a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, one gift results in appreciation.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second gift results in anticipation.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a slide that goes with this if you can put that up on the screen.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second gift results in anticipation.

[SPEAKER_00]: The third gift results in expectation.

[SPEAKER_00]: The fourth gift results in entitlement.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the fifth gift results in dependency.

[SPEAKER_00]: And any parents of adult children who've gone through these stages can verify.

[SPEAKER_00]: This can absolutely be true.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's true of a lot of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's true of all of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just our human nature.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we get the same things over and over, just hand it to us when we don't have to work for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then it becomes an entitle and expectation and entitlement at a dependency.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now Joseph disrupted this degrading process of dependency.

[SPEAKER_00]: He disrupted it by ensuring that the people were always part of the solution to their problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he had all the food under his control, but they still had something to offer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we continue in the chapter in a few minutes, you're going to see him continue to skillfully avoid the problem of making them dependents who are completely dependent on the government and enoughing to contribute to the solution.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then number four, after those three principles, there's a theology of work.

[SPEAKER_00]: God actually created human beings to work, gave us the ability to work, and the need to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Work is not a result of the fall of Adam and Eve.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the very beginning, God said, here is a garden, it is awesome, but it needs to be tended to.

[SPEAKER_00]: It needs to be managed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He actually built the breakdown of the garden into his perfect design and said, Adam and Eve, I want you to care for this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So even in his sinless world, there was work.

[SPEAKER_00]: and Paul the apostle Paul doubled down on this idea of a theology of work in his letter to the Thessalonians.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he said in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now dear brothers and sisters, we give you this command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stay away from all believers who live idle lives and don't follow the tradition they received from us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's told them about this before.

[SPEAKER_00]: For you know that you ought to imitate us, we were not idle when we were with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We never accepted food from anyone without pain for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We worked hard day and night, so we would not be a burden to any of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We certainly had the right to ask you to feed us.

[SPEAKER_00]: That wasn't the problem, but we wanted to give you an example to follow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even while we were with you, we gave you this command.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the key.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those unwilling to work,

[SPEAKER_00]: will not get to eat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not those who cannot work, because that exists.

[SPEAKER_00]: But those who are unable and are unwilling to work will not get to eat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet we hear from some of you that you're living idolized, refusing to work.

[SPEAKER_00]: And meddling other people's business, we command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and work to earn their own living.

[SPEAKER_00]: As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters never get tired of doing good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Take note of those who refuse to obey what we say in this letter, stay away from them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they will be ashamed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't think of them as enemies, but warn them as you would a brother or a sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what is Paul saying here?

[SPEAKER_00]: These are strong words from a possible, about those who are able to work, but refuse to do so.

[SPEAKER_00]: because God designed us to be productive.

[SPEAKER_00]: He designed us to be a part of the solution to our own needs and sustainability.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we fail to do that, even though we're able to, that's actually a sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where a belly and against God's design for us and his commands in Scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the way God told the land owners and the Old Testament to take care of the poor people was not to bring them food.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember what it was?

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, don't harvest the corners of your fields, let them go gather the grain there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you're still providing for them, but you're not doing all the work for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They need to have skin in the game.

[SPEAKER_00]: They need to have work.

[SPEAKER_00]: They need to do something with their hands to be a part of the solution, and hopefully be able to then work their way out of that situation because they're continuing to work and not creating that.

[SPEAKER_00]: expectation entitlement and dependency.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Joseph actually does far better for the people by selling them the food, even though it ends up taking up all their money than by giving it away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this worked for a while until the money ran out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the famine is still going strong, and it's going to last for a couple of more years.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, verse 15 says, when the people of Egypt in Canaan, ran out of money, all the Egyptians came to Joseph.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our money has gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: They cried.

[SPEAKER_00]: Money is gone, but please give us food or we will die before your very eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Joseph has a choice.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can just give him the food.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he decides to break the cycle or that progression of dependency once again.

[SPEAKER_00]: He replied, since your money has gone, bring me your livestock.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will give you food and exchange for your livestock.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they brought their livestock to Joseph and exchange for food and exchange for their horses, flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle and donkeys, Joseph provided them with food for another year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you might wonder, well, why wouldn't they just eat the livestock?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that would feed them for a while, but it's not gonna feed all of them for a fully year.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so eventually they exchange their livestock for more food than their livestock would actually provide.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how they survive for the next year.

[SPEAKER_00]: But verse 18, that year ended.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the next year they came again and said, we cannot hide the truth from you, my Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our money has gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all our livestock in cattle or yours.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have nothing left to give but our bodies and our land.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why should we die before your very eyes?

[SPEAKER_00]: Buy us and our land in exchange for food.

[SPEAKER_00]: We offer our land and ourselves as slaves for Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just give us grain.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we may live and not die.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that the land does not become empty and desolate.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at this point, sir, should say, no, you keep your land, you keep yourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the food for free, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not what he does again.

[SPEAKER_00]: the same principle still apply.

[SPEAKER_00]: The exchange of land for food actually protects the dignity and the work ethic of the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this slavery piece will get two in a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 20, so Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: All the Egyptians sold them their fields because the famine was so severe and soon all the land belonged to Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: As for the people, he made them all slaves.

[SPEAKER_00]: From one end of Egypt to the other, the only land he did not buy was the land belonging to the priests.

[SPEAKER_00]: They received an allotment of food directly from Pharaoh so they didn't need to sell their land.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this sounds terrible to our modern ear because we think, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, good guy Joseph, just made all the Egyptian people slaves.

[SPEAKER_00]: What's up with that, but see, we have an idea of what slavery is that does not match the ancient world's idea of slavery.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the ancient world, slavery was a very broad concept that included a lot of different types of working relationships.

[SPEAKER_00]: So just hold on to that for a minute, reserve judgments

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 23, then Joseph said to the people, look, today I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will provide you with seeds so you can plant the fields.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the seed is important, I wanna pause there because we're now in the last year of the famine.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've made it to year seven, and that's why he's giving them seed.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Jacob's family, they arrived two years into the famine, the Egyptian ran out of money in year five, and year six, they tried their livestock for food, and now we're in year seven, and they're trading themselves in their land to get through the last year of the famine.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Joseph is saying, I'm going to give you seeds, so that as soon as his famine is over, you can plant again, the crops will start growing again.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he agrees with the people's request.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're offer of, hey, we will sell you ourselves in our land and exchange for food, but this is really, really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of slavery are we talking about?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very different in the ancient world than today.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the ancient world, sometimes slavery could look very bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it just looked like a contract laborer.

[SPEAKER_00]: a person has rights to your work or some portion of your work.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we call these people independent contractors, and they enter into a contract to do something for an organization, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there was a wide range of arrangements that could be made that were all under this umbrella term that we translate as slavery, but it could look very different.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here is what their slavery contract looked like.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had a contract here it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 24.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you harvest it, the seed that Joseph is giving them, one fifth of your crop will belong to Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may keep the remaining four fifths as seed for your fields and as food for you, your household and your little ones.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what their slavery contract looked like, a 20% income tax.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was it!

[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got to be careful not to read too much into this too quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: They get the seed for free.

[SPEAKER_00]: The government had all the seed now, so they had to get the seed from somewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: They would be able to work the land even though it was technically owned by Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all they had to do from that point on was to give 20% of what they grew to the government.

[SPEAKER_00]: And since it's a percentage, if they had a bad year, they give less if they have a good year, they give more.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, the Egyptians are thrilled with this agreement.

[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 25, you have saved our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: They exclaimed, may it please you my Lord to let us be Pharaoh's servants.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joseph then issued a decree still an effect in a land of Egypt that Pharaoh should receive one fifth of all the crops grown on his land.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only the land belonging to the priests was not given to Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that is the story of how Joseph managed and led through a very difficult crisis and did so in a way that set the Egyptian nation up for great prosperity coming out of seven years of famine.

[SPEAKER_00]: You think about how significant that is?

[SPEAKER_00]: We've gone through major crisis in our nation in our world recently.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know what the pandemic was like and how challenging and difficult that was, but seven years of no food,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's huge.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet Joseph threw it all, kept the people ready to be a part of the solution, ready to develop the nation, ready to be a successful nation moving forward instead of one that became dependent and idle over those seven years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's get back to Jacob because Moses takes us back there in verse 27, back to Jacob's story, kind of starting to wrap up Jacob's story.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says meanwhile, the people of Israel settled in the region of Goshen in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are the acquired property and they were fruitful in their population grew rapidly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob lived for 17 years after his arrival in Egypt so he lived 147 years in all just a youngster.

[SPEAKER_00]: As the time of his death junior, Jacob called for a son Joseph and said to him, please do me this favor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Put your hand under my thigh, that's how they did it back then, and swear that you will treat me with unfailing love by honoring this last request, do not bury me in Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I die, please take my body out of Egypt and bury me with my ancestors.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Joseph promised I will do as you ask.

[SPEAKER_00]: So where that you will do it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob insisted.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Joseph gave his oath and Jacob bowed humbly at the head of his bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember what a big deal this was for Jacob.

[SPEAKER_00]: To leave the promised land where they had settled.

[SPEAKER_00]: To leave the place where his parents and grandparents were buried.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob wants to join them in the place that he knows one day.

[SPEAKER_00]: God will bring his family back to.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has faith that God will take them back there.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what do we take away from all these stories?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there are a lot of good takeaways.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are certainly good takeaways about how to manage difficulty in crisis, how to make sure that when we try to help people that were not actually hurting them and creating a bigger problem, then we're trying to solve.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there are two statements.

[SPEAKER_00]: that I put on the screen earlier that I think of the best ones to walk away with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two things that I would love to remind you about and have you think about today and maybe the rest of the week.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first is about the sinful things that we've done in the past.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sins just like Jacob and his forefathers made so many sins, but remember this, Jesus gave his life so you could be forgiven for your sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: So don't hold on to the guilt.

[SPEAKER_00]: that Jesus already paid for so many of us, carry that guilt around with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think about it often.

[SPEAKER_00]: We let it keep us from being everything that God wants us to be, from serving in the way God wants us to serve, from being the kind of loving and helpful people God wants us to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: So many of us just hold on to that sinful baggage from the past, not letting it go because God has paid for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus to fully wash away that sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes the mistakes of our past are not sinful ones.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're just things that we regret, things that we regret doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: We regret saying we wish we had done differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so for those things, I say trust in a sovereignty of God, includes believing that God can work through your mistakes, to accomplish good things, even if you can't see them yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've made lots of mistakes in my life, sinful and otherwise.

[SPEAKER_00]: mistakes that sometimes come up to you as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: It helps my faith to know that God isn't surprised by my mistakes that he actually works through them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not holding them against me so I don't need to hold them against me.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a hard thing to come to terms with.

[SPEAKER_00]: I get that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we have to acknowledge the fact that even in our past mistakes and our past sins, God uses those to accomplish great things in our lives and other people's lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we own up to them and humbly confess them, then it's actually the best way to show God's grace to people around us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember what Paul said.

[SPEAKER_00]: His strength is shown to be perfect through our weakness.

[SPEAKER_00]: So our weakness is in our fault, in our flaws, in our mistakes, in our failures, actually highlight the goodness and the grace

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you go to someone and say, I'm sorry, I messed up.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you say to your kids, I was wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't have done that.

[SPEAKER_00]: To your spouse, that was my mistake.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should not have done that.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you own up to and confess and are humble about your weaknesses, it actually shows the grace and the goodness of God, because you can tell people, Jesus has forgiven me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll forgive me too.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has done a work in my life, and that's why I recognize I was wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: I need to do things differently, and so in your faults and your flaws, just like Abraham Isaac and Jacob, God can do an incredible work.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can be a part of magnifying and lifting him up in the middle of all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is one of the ways that God takes the stuff of our past, the mess in the baggage, and actually makes beauty out of ashes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm gonna invite you all if you would to bow your heads with me right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And let's just pray to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There may be things from recent times or even in the past that you need to confess to God right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: and you need to apologize and seek forgiveness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Confess what you've done and admit that it's wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: And recognize that God has promised if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

[SPEAKER_00]: There may be things that you've already confessed many times and yet they still come up in your life and you need to ask for God to help for the Holy Spirit to help you to see those in the proper perspective as things that God allowed to happen that are regrettable,

[SPEAKER_00]: but they are part of your story and a part of how God is working in your life and use those mistakes of the past, those sins of the past, to make a better future, to magnify God's grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for the work of Jesus in our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, we are so thankful that you came and died on a cross, to pay for our sin, so that we don't have to live, full of regret.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to live full of guilt and condemnation.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no condemnation anymore

[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes we don't live that way, and we look at a story like Jacob's, and we see a man who was constantly fearful.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see a man who made many mistakes in his life, some that he did on his own, something that he was pressured into, and yet we also see your sovereignty through all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: How you took even his mistakes and his family's mistakes, and you ended up with this group of 70 people who would become a nation that you would use to bless all the people of the world ourselves included in this room and watching online right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, thank you for that work in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to live in the freedom and the truth of what you have done for us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We praise you, we thank you, and it's in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.