Faithful Then, Faithful Now | Living in Light of the End - Genesis 46-47(Aug 20) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, we truly are here to praise you for what you have done, Lord.

And God, we come to you now in weakness.

We come to you now in humility, Lord.

We come to you now in the honest confession, Lord, that sometimes in our life, Lord, we can be blind to the work that you are doing and the work that you have done.

And so, God, we thank you for this time that we've had this morning, this time that we continue to have this morning, where we can feast on the goodness of all that you have accomplished in Jesus Christ, Lord.

You have made salvation sure for those who have placed their faith in you.

And God, we give you all the praise, and all the praise that we could possibly give, the loudest song that we could possibly sing, cannot even begin to scratch the surface of all the praise that is due to your name because of all that you've done.

And so, God, thank you for this morning.

God, would you use this time by the power of your Holy Spirit that is here with us to focus our hearts on your Son, Lord?

That is what we need.

Fill us with the joy.

Lord, fill us with the satisfaction, fill us with the peace that can only come when we gaze at the glory of your Son, Jesus Christ.

And in God, in a world that is so filled with consumption and the consumption of media, the consumption of entertainment, the pursuit of popularity and fame and riches, God, we are here for you.

Because, Lord, you've told us there's only one thing that can truly satisfy, and it's your son.

So satisfy us this morning, God.

We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

You guys can take a seat.

As you take a seat, you can grab your copy of God's Word or share with a neighbor beside you and open up to Genesis chapter 46.

Genesis 46 · chapter mention

We're gonna be in Genesis 46 and 47 this morning.

Uh much of the work that God is doing in the Word as He speaks to us, His people, as He speaks to His children, is this.

God is changing our perspective of life.

Changing our perspective of life.

That's that's much of the work that He really wants to accomplish in us this morning as we open up His Word.

That's why we sing these songs of praise over and over and over again, because really what we need as human beings is a perspective change.

We need to view our lives from a different place.

And we've been working through Genesis as a church, and we're nearing the end of Genesis, and Genesis, it's been really interesting as we've walked through it as a church because it really helps us as Christians and really as human beings place ourselves in the history of God's world.

Genesis has helped us answer this question.

Why did God make us?

Why did he put us here?

And what are we to do now?

And and really what God is doing as we've been working through the foundations of his redemption story is God has been changing our perspective so that we understand the story and so that we can view our lives both from the beginning, but now also from the middle of where we are now, so that ultimately we can achieve what God wants to do in us, to view our lives at the from the end.

To view our lives from the end.

This is the work that God wants to do in us.

He wants to change our perspective so that we think about our lives, we view our lives, rather than from the middle, we view it from the end.

Well, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

Well, maybe let me illustrate what that means for you.

I don't know if any of you are sports fans, but I can actually take this illustration outside of the sports world.

My wife and I, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but my wife and I are avid survivor fans.

Now, is anyone out there, can you put your hand up for me?

Can you put your hand up if you're an avid Survivor fan?

Okay.

Anyone here who would win Survivor if you're on?

Anyone?

Because I'm gonna put your name in, Dan.

I'm gonna put your name in Dan.

That would actually be amazing.

I'd love to see that.

Uh, and I do believe that he could win.

Well, something my wife and I love Survivor, and so whenever the new season comes on, we always watch it.

Uh, but we're always behind.

Like we can never keep up with it, so we're always behind.

And and there becomes this moment where like the season is over, and we still have a few episodes to catch up on, and we cannot go on the internet anymore because the moment we go on the internet, the algorithms figured out that we watch Survivor, and bam, here's the Survivor winner.

And if you know the winner before you get there, well, that kind of ruins the whole story, doesn't it?

All of a sudden, the the places in the you know, the show where you're supposed to be feeling like tension and anxiety that maybe your favorite person's gonna get voted out, well, all of a sudden you know they're not gonna get voted out or that they are gonna get voted out.

You already know the end.

You already know what's gonna happen.

And in a similar way, what the Bible does for our life is that it it tells us our story from beginning to end so that we can then view our life from the end, knowing the end, knowing where we're going, knowing what's gonna happen.

And in places where the world finds anxiety, lack of satisfaction, a lack of joy, the believer knowing the ends, can find peace, can find joy, can find satisfaction.

And this is what Scripture constantly is compelling us to do: to view our life from the end.

Here's the reality of you as a human being, believer or not, do you understand this?

That you are eternal?

You're eternal.

The reality of your existence here on earth is that it is like an inch in a journey that is a thousand miles.

If we are eternal beings, how small, how infinitely minute is this life in comparison to your eternal existence?

And much of the work that God is trying to do in your life is to get your attention off that little inch of existence that we call life and on to your eternal existence.

There's a whole book in the Bible dedicated to this.

You know Ecclesiastes, written by one of the richest men that ever lived in the history of our planet.

And the whole book is written for this very purpose.

Solomon, he's trying to extract as much joy out of the now.

He wants to answer this question.

Like, like if you just if if that inch that is life right now, if it were a sponge and you could squeeze as much out of it as you could, like gain all the material possessions that you want, all the friends, all the popularity, all the money.

Even Solomon talks about a whole choir of people that just followed him around singing, and that doesn't really translate to our modern day.

I don't we'd probably be more creeped out by that, but in that day that was really cool.

But you could have that too.

Solomon had everything.

He tried to squeeze everything out of the now, and you know what he realized?

That there it's actually not worth living.

If all you're living for is this inch of existence, you can actually can't find joy.

It's not until you take your eyes off of the now and focus them on the end that you truly can understand life.

And isn't this true?

Isn't this true in our own life?

When we kind of get a glimpse of the end, doesn't it change everything about us?

There are some in this room who have been faced with mortality themselves, who have been faced with the possible end.

And there is never a moment in your life that you are so crystal clear in your focus as the moment when you consider the end of your life.

Everything comes into perspective.

We've all had that experience where you go to a funeral and you walk out and everything's brought into perspective.

And this is why, because once you understand the end, once you understand your eternity, then only then can you truly live.

You see, the problem is that you and I, we get so caught up in the now.

In fact, maybe even in this moment the Holy Spirit's working in you, and you're already convicted.

You're like, Yeah, I know I do that.

I know I do that.

I know, you know, I'm eternal being.

I know that I should be living for you know treasures in heaven and rewards in heaven.

I should be living for that eternity that I'll spend with Jesus, but I just get so caught up with it.

And maybe even in this moment you find conviction, but you're gonna leave the doors of the service.

You know what's gonna happen?

You're you're gonna be caught up with the now.

You're gonna be caught up with that inch of existence that we call life.

And all of us, all of us are gonna be tempted to the materialism that comes up comes when we focus our life on that inch of existence, the worldliness, the busyness.

Don't you feel the busyness?

It's like right now in the summer.

It's like things are supposed to be, it's supposed to be the summer, right?

We're supposed to be relaxing.

And yet you just feel like you're always so busy.

There's always something to do.

And as you think about the things that you're doing, it just does not feel like when they add up, it's adding into anything that is meaningful.

Busy our lives with things that are not of the Lord.

And we're so caught up in the now that so many of us don't even care about growing our faith.

Don't even care about preparing our souls for that day that we'll stand before the Lord.

Now, Jacob in Genesis 46 and 47, he's gonna be forced to view his life from the end.

And the reason is because God's gonna appear to Jacob and he's gonna um tell something to Jacob that I don't think any of us would want God to appear to us and say, look at verse 4 of chapter 46.

At the very end of that verse, God's gonna say this to Jacob Joseph shall close, Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.

Here's God's message direct of revelation directly to Jacob.

Hey, Jacob, you're gonna die.

You're gonna die.

You're gonna go down to Egypt, and you're gonna die.

And we find in these next chapters, specifically these two, that the end gives Jacob great clarity.

And it's gonna teach us what it means for us to live in light of the end, what it means for us to live in light of our eternal existence.

Well, I want you to see this.

We're gonna work through this text together this morning and kind of work through it chunk by chunk.

But the first thing I want you to see is that when we live in light of the end, well, his presence settles my fear.

If I'm living in light of the end, if I'm not living in that inch of life that is now, then his presence will be settling my fears.

Now, in verses one to four, Moses is doing something really interesting as he writes this story of Jacob.

Moses is comparing Jacob to Abraham.

Abraham is the father of faith.

Abraham is even in the New Testament, when Paul comes around, he's really the model of what it means to be righteous, what it means to place your faith in God's promise.

And Genesis 15, 6 says that because Abraham places faith in God's promise, righteousness was accredited to him.

So here's the model of salvation we have.

If you follow in Abraham's footsteps, by the way, this is true for you this morning.

If you place your faith in the promises of God, you will find righteousness, you will find salvation.

And so what Moses is doing in these first four verses is he's showing us how Jacob has become like a man, a man like Abraham.

And it's really shocking.

If you've been walking with us, the fact that Jacob has kind of reached the level of Abraham is like, wow, that's a makeover.

That's a makeover I'd like to see, because Jacob was nothing like Abraham during his life.

Now I want you to notice a few ways that Moses is drawing our attention to Jacob to show us that he's much like Abraham.

Look at the first verse there.

It says, So Israel took his journey with all that he had.

And notice that that Moses here uses Jacob's new name, the name that God had given him.

The name is Israel.

This is like Abraham had been given a new name, his name once being Abram.

So Jacob had been given a new name that he is now identified as.

But not only that, he takes all that he has to Beersheba, and look at what happens.

He offers sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.

And by coming to Beersheba, Jacob does what Abraham did in Genesis 21, 33 at Beersheba.

He offered worship to God.

He creates an altar just like Abraham.

Isaac also does this in chapter 26, 33.

And so here we find Jacob following in the steps of his fathers Isaac and Abraham, living a life of worship.

Verse 2 goes on.

Moses says, And God spoke to Israel in visions.

Reminded that God had spoken to Abraham in visions as well.

And look what God says to Jacob in this vision.

He says, Jacob, Jacob.

And Jacob says, Here I am.

And the same thing happened in Abraham's life.

You remember when Abraham took Isaac up the mountain in that super intense moment in Genesis where he's got him tied on the altar of sacrifice.

And it's and the knife is over Isaac, and then from the heavens, he hears an angel call who represents God, and this angel says, Abraham, Abraham.

And what does Abraham say?

Here I am.

Here I am.

My life is at your service, God.

Here I am.

And here's Jacob.

He's taking up this very same heart.

This is what God says to Jacob in verse 3 again.

So much like Abraham.

Then he said, I am the God, the God of your father.

Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt.

You know, there is a time when God appeared to Abraham in the midst of a famine.

These similarities are not by mistake.

These are very purposeful.

God called Abraham in the midst of a famine to go to Egypt.

And lastly, in verse 3, God says to Jacob, I will make you into a great nation, which is the very promise that he gave to Abraham, that from Abraham's descendants would come a nation, a nation that would be given land, a nation that would be a blessing to the world.

Now, this is striking that this revelation now comes to Jacob, and that we find that Moses can draw such a significant and deep comparison to Abraham.

Weren't some of you guys like, okay, six ways that Jacob's like Abraham.

You should have just given us one, okay?

We get it.

We're over it.

But Moses wants to keep driving this home that Jacob is a changed man.

Jacob for his whole life had worked for his own advancement.

You remember, remember when Jacob stole the birthright of his brother Esau in order to like kind of place himself in the path of blessing, thinking that God wouldn't do what he said he would do, so he had to do it himself?

And now here is Jacob, and he's a man that is filled with faith.

So that is set what is said of Abraham in chapter 15, verse 6 is now true of Jacob, that Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness.

And so now Jacob believes and it is counted to him as righteousness.

And what you need to understand this morning is that the very same is true of you.

Very same is true of you.

What is needed in your life?

What is the most necessary thing that needs to be accomplished in your life before you stand before the Lord?

And it is this you need faith.

You need faith.

So in Galatians 3, 7, Paul says that through faith we are all children of Abraham.

Faith is what links us to the father of faith, Abraham.

Faith is what credits to us the righteousness that Abraham received.

This is what we need.

We need faith, and we need this faith to cause the same transformation that happened in Jacob.

Isn't it significant that Jacob's experienced this transformation?

And what happens in Jacob's life?

Well, he's given a new name, he's given a new worship, he's given revelation, so that Jacob now wants to hear God speak.

Jacob responds to that.

He says, Here I am.

And he's given a promise.

And I want you to know that if your faith is in God this morning, you've been given all those same things.

Do you understand that?

You've been given a new name.

So the Bible says that once you were a child of wrath, destined for eternal destruction, that you have now been chosen.

You are a new person, you are a new creation.

And the Bible says that if that if you're in Christ, you've been now given the Holy Spirit so that you are a temple.

You are a temple of praise and worship to God.

Your life is to be lived, not to worship the things of this world, not to worship this inch of existence that we call life, but to worship God.

You're given all these things.

See, this this transformation that happened in Jacob needs to be true of you.

Faith, faith is a belief in our heart that leads to this transformative event.

Everything changes because God is now with you.

Everything changes.

This is what faith is.

Faith is like if I were to go outside and I were to climb one of those uh hydro poles and I were to grab onto one of those wires and just hang, you know what would happen?

I actually saw it happen two weeks ago to this very day.

I was driving here, I'm not lying to you.

I saw a duck fall out of the sky.

Like straight.

Like it wasn't like it, you know, it broke a wing or something.

It just fell straight out of the sky.

And I looked up and there's a power line, and this duck had flown right into the power line and fell straight thud onto the ground, and his life was never the same.

He was actually dead.

And that is very comparable to what happens to us.

Faith is like grabbing onto that line, and everything has changed.

If I came to you and I said, hey, just before the service, I was hanging out on one of those, you know, power lines, you would be like, okay, listen, something would be totally different about you.

And so it is with faith.

Faith changes everything about us, it gives us a new name, it gives us a new worship.

Now we listen for a new word, we have a new service, we we believe in a new promise.

Faith unites us to the presence of God, and when we're in the presence of God, everything is different.

Wasn't it true for Joseph?

Like when Joseph was in the lowest of his lows, what was it that Moses kept drawing our attention to that made it different for Moses?

Why could Moses be in jail after being enslaved and yet still have this perspective that you know God's gonna work all things out?

Moses tells us because God was with him.

God was with him.

Why did everything go so well for Adam and Eve when they were in the garden?

It was because they they walked with God.

It was true of Joseph, now it's true of Jacob.

And the question for us this morning is, is it true of me that the presence of God is changing everything in my life?

That I've experienced this transformation that must happen when I place my faith in him.

You know, this is what the Bible calls, this is how you determine if faith is genuine or not, because genuine faith leads to lasting transformation.

Genuine faith leads to lasting transformation.

You are not the same.

Everything's different.

Is it true of us that the presence of God is changing everything?

Well, one of the ways that you know that the presence of God is changing everything is that what God says to Jacob in verse 4 becomes true of you.

Look what he says in verse 4.

I myself will go down with you to Egypt.

There's God's presence.

Jacob, I'm going with you.

You've done a lot of things in your life, Jacob, that I wasn't with you in.

You've done things your way a lot, but here, when you go down to Egypt, I'm gonna be with you.

And I will also bring you up again.

Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.

And so look what his word is to Jacob in verse 3.

Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid.

Why would going down to Egypt be a fearful thing for Jacob?

Well, if you know Jacob, you know that Jacob, his comfort zone is the place.

Jacob loves the place.

You remember at Bethel?

God appeared to Jacob at Bethel.

You remember that?

He appeared in a dream, and Jacob saw the ladder reaching from the heavens to the earth, and all these angels going up, and God has this like magnificent vision that all of us would would love to just have like a second of And Jacob has this vision and he sees God.

And you know what he says?

Instead of saying, What an amazing God, Jacob says, How amazing is this place?

This ground is so incredible.

Bethel is amazing, and he worships the place instead of the God.

Jacob loved the place.

Jacob's comfort was the place.

Now he's being asked to leave this place.

And this place that he's being asked to leave is very significant.

Canaan, you'll remember as we walk through Genesis, Canaan is the promised land of God.

Like God said he was going to do something for Abraham.

Remember?

He was going to provide land, seed, and blessing.

Canaan was the land.

Jacob was already in the land.

And now God's saying, hey, you got to leave the land.

This land that I'm going to win for you someday, you've got to leave it.

You've got to go down to Egypt, and I am going to go with you.

There's this idea running through Scripture that Jacob would have been very well aware of that to be in the land that God has chosen for you is to be in the land of life, and everything outside of this land is death.

Remember what was in the middle of the garden, this temple, sanctuary for God?

It was the tree of life.

And this idea was that everything outside of the garden was death.

And the work of the garden was to work and keep the garden and to expand the borders until one day the garden would cover the whole face of the earth and the world would be full of life.

But to be cast outside of the garden, once Adam and Eve sinned, was to be cast in the land of death.

Where instead of life reigning, death reigned.

And so, therefore, to go out of God's land, to go out of Canaan, the land that God was winning for his people, was to go to Egypt, which was scary.

Well, God has a word for Jacob.

I know this is scary, I know this is fearful, but what can I give you that's going to settle your fear?

And this is the thing that God gives his children.

This is the gift that God has given to you if your faith is in him that settles your deepest fears.

It's his presence.

It's his presence.

Can I ask you this question?

This is a pretty heart-searching question, and you really got to approach this question in honesty, I think, right now, and humility to answer it.

But what is your greatest fear?

What is the wor the worst possible thing that could happen to you?

What if that thing were to come true?

Maybe it's like the death of a loved one.

Maybe it's like losing your job that you've like you've put so much time to get this act, you know, this acclaim, and maybe it's like losing your money.

What's your absolute worst fear?

If that were to come true, would the presence of God still be satisfying to you?

That's what Jacob's being told by God right now.

This is the worst thing that could happen to you.

You're coming near to death.

You're an old man, and I need you to go down to Egypt.

I need you to leave this place that you love and go to Egypt.

But don't worry, Jacob, I'm going to be with you.

Listen, listen.

Is that comforting to you?

If that's not comforting to you, in the face of your greatest fears, the presence of God, can I just suggest you do not know God like Jacob knows God?

Because you know what Jacob does in response to knowing that God will be present with him?

Look at verse 5.

Jacob set out.

Jacob set out.

Jacob dove into his deepest fears because he knew God would be present with him.

It was the same thing that Joseph did.

Joseph was willing to face the deepest suffering because he knew God was present with him in the deepest suffering.

And the reality is, if God's presence isn't a comfort to you in the face of your deepest fears, you just don't know who God is.

It's not genuine faith.

God's promising his presence.

You know, I've exposed the Survivor fans.

Can I expose another group of fans this morning?

Are there any Lord of the Rings fans in here?

Put up your hand, Lord of the Rings.

Okay, anyone can do a good Gandalf impression.

It'd be great now, time to come up to do that.

There's a moment in uh Lord of the Rings that I think, no matter who you are, you'll probably know this moment.

It's during the Council of Elrond.

And Frodo's standing there, and he's with all these important people, and these elves, and these dwarves, and these humans.

And Frodo's facing like this really scary task.

He's got to bring this ring to Mount Doom.

Some of you guys are like, I gotta leave.

This is getting so nerdy.

I'm ready to get out of here.

But hold on for a moment, okay?

Because there's truth and illustration here for you.

He's got this ring and he's got to bring it to Mount Doom, and Frodo is this little hobbit with incredibly hairy feet, and he's like, not the person to do it.

There's no way that Frodo can do this.

It's not built for it.

Something amazing happens over the course of that scene that Tolkien writes about.

These people step forward and they tell Frodo that they're gonna go with him.

And so, you know, Gimli, the little dwarf, he says, You know, you have my axe.

I'm not gonna do an impression, but that's the most I'll do.

And then Lagola steps forward and says, Well, you have my bow.

And I think Aragon's the first one who says, you know, you have my sword.

And all of a sudden, like there's there's this excitement and anticipation that's building in your in your heart as you either watch or read this story because you're like, Frodo, you might actually make it.

You have all these people with you.

And if that scene kind of stirs that anticipation in us that Frodo might actually make it, how much more comforting it should it be for you to know that the God of this universe, who no one even closely remotely matches his power, has promised you, if you are a child of faith, that he will be with you in the face of your deepest fears, in the face of your hardest journeys, how much more should the Christian's fear be settled by the presence of God?

The reality is that in Kelowna there are some people there right now that are facing their greatest fears.

And the wildfires are really rampant there.

They have been over this past week.

And we have a sister church in Kelowna that we need to be praying for, Hope Kelowna.

And um Pastor there has been keeping the pastors of GCC in Canada just up to date on some of the things that have happened, and sent an email a few days ago that one of their church members had lost their home.

He sent an email this last week, uh or sorry, on a Friday, and I think it it really uh illustrates what happens when you have the presence of God.

He says this: he says, We're walking through a nightmare, and the days ahead will reveal great devastation and loss.

But our prayer, and listen, this is only a prayer that you can pray when the presence of God is with you.

Our prayer is that God would make all of this count.

Not simply, listen, this is what I would be praying.

So I was so appreciative of this, and this stirred my faith so much.

Not simply, God, take away the fires, send rain, God make it better, or save our homes.

He says that's those those aren't our prayers, but rather God make it count.

God, your will be done.

Use this for your glory, release our hands and hearts from stuff, turn our hearts back to you, and save many souls from the fires of hell.

And there is a pastor and a church who, in the face of their greatest fears, in the face of losing everything, they are saying, God, because I have you, I have everything.

And so make it count.

Make it count.

Use this.

It doesn't matter if we lose our homes.

It doesn't matter if we lose all of our possessions.

What matters is that you use it and that we have you.

No matter what these fires burn, they will not take the Lord away from them.

Well, this is what his presence does, it settles our fears.

His presence settles our fears.

But I want you to see this also in this text that his promise strengthens my faith.

When we view life from the end, his promise strengthens our faith.

Now, in verses 8 to 26, sorry, 27, Moses is going to recount a genealogy, and it's a really significant point for him to include a genealogy, and I want to tell you why.

I want to point out two things from this genealogy.

The first is in verse 21.

And I want to point this out because these are my favorite names.

And if you are, you know, a parent who's having some kids and you love to name your kids after biblical names, I want to suggest these two names for your next two sons, okay?

Ready there in 21?

Mupim and Hupim.

I love that.

And so there's a suggestion, I think those would be great names.

Okay?

Well, that's my first observation that really counts for nothing.

But the second thing I want to point your attention to is in verse 26, where Moses says, All the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including Jacob's sons, wives, were 66 persons in all, and the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were two.

All the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were seventy.

Remember that God had promised to Abraham and then therefore his family through Isaac and now Jacob, God had promised three things.

If you've been with us through Genesis, these three things, like if you don't have a tattoo of them on your body by now, then we're failing, okay?

You remember these three things?

Land, seed, and blessing.

What was the work that God wanted to accomplish through his people?

What was the purpose that God was accomplishing in the world?

Well, it was to work through Abraham's family and to fulfill these promises that Abraham would be given a land that would be like the Garden of Eden that would one day cover the whole earth.

That Abraham would be given seed, told by God himself that your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand and the sea.

And that his people will be a blessing.

They'll be a blessing to the nations.

This is the threefold promise.

And in this story, we actually see all three of these promises are coming to culmination, so to say, in Jacob's life.

So that when we read this genealogy, it's really significant.

Like if we were reading the story for the first time, our jaws would be dropping because finally, finally, God's answering his promise.

God said that he was gonna make Abraham's family as numerous as the stars in the sky.

But it didn't really seem like God was winning so far.

Remember, uh, remember Sarah?

Like she struggled with infertility.

And then you remember Rebecca came along, and you're like, okay, well, with Rebecca, she she she better just like take after some of the women in Redemption Newmarket and just start pumping out kids, you know, like 33% of our attendance is in the kids' ministry right now.

And so Rebecca's gonna start doing it.

And Rebecca doesn't do it, she struggles for 20 years with infertility.

And now here's Jacob.

And here's an extensive list of his family, and there is 70.

And God's accomplishing his purpose.

The seed of Abraham is growing in God's timing, and the land is gonna be really significant in here too.

We're gonna read of this in a moment, but but when Jacob goes down to Egypt, he is gonna be given the best of the land.

He's gonna be given, we're told in verse 28, Goshen.

It's the best land in Egypt.

And God will reserve it and even work in a way in the Egyptians' hearts that it will be given to Jacob and to his family.

And so God accomplishes the land promise, but he also accomplishes the blessing promise that we're gonna see as we work through this.

But I want you just to see it really quickly here in verse 7.

It says, Joseph brought hit in Jacob, verse 7 of 47, then Joseph brought in Jacob, his father, and stood him before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.

All the things in Jacob's life are coming to a point.

God is answering the promises that he has given to Jacob's family.

And my question is this as Jacob goes forward into this really scary thing that is going down to Egypt, what is giving him confidence?

You know, you and I, you and I are gonna have to do really scary things in life, aren't we?

In fact, there's probably some things on the back that you kind of are putting on the back burner right now that are really hard things to do.

There's that person that the Holy Spirit's been, you know, prodding you.

Hey, you gotta have that person over, and you just gotta tell that person the gospel.

And it's this hard thing in the face of rejection, it's this hard thing to do.

And there's that conversation that you need to have with a brother or sister or a person in your family.

That's a hard conversation that you know it's gonna lead to life, but it's just like you do not want to have this conversation.

God's calling us to do these hard things, and we need confidence.

And so my question is what gives Jacob the confidence to kind of march into the hardship of going down to Egypt?

And you know what it is?

It's that Jacob looks at God's promise and he sees its fulfillment, and so then of course it's easy for him to say, Yeah, God, if you're telling me to go to Egypt, I'm gonna go.

Because you you also said that you're gonna do all these impossible things and you've been doing them.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.

You're thinking, okay, well, that's good for Jacob.

Like, like that gives Jacob confidence, but what about me?

Doesn't it feel sometimes like God isn't really working in our midst?

Doesn't it feel sometimes like like God like He's not really doing anything?

And we have this idea of God, God, would you accomplish this work?

Maybe some of you guys, you've been praying for years for this thing to happen, and it's like you're even starting to wonder, God, are you even listening?

And you're hearing it right now, and you're like, of course I have no confidence.

I don't know if God's even hearing me.

I don't know if God's doing anything in my midst.

I don't want you to understand that it's your faith in the promises of God, that they are as good as done, that will give you the strength to march forward in your life, and that this is what's causing Jacob to march forward, but what God has given you is infinitely even more than what God has given Jacob.

You know what happens, I think, sometimes in our life as we try to like discern why does it sometimes feel like God's not working?

Why does it sometimes feel like God's not speaking?

I feel like sometimes God is working.

We're just looking at like the wrong part of our life.

It's it's almost as though like we hire a renovator and we're like, hey, listen, I got this beautiful idea for like a remodel of the kitchen, okay?

It's gonna be so good.

And I want you to work on this.

And so they say, okay, we're gonna be back tomorrow, and then we don't see them in the kitchen, and we're looking in the kitchen, you know, where are you?

I I want this kitchen remodel.

But we don't understand that these people, maybe they gotta work on the foundation of the house first.

They gotta do all this other work first.

And this is what so often happens in our relationship with God.

See, we have this idea of what we want God to accomplish, and because God's not doing that thing, then we look at God and we say, Well, you're not you're not working.

You're not working on my behalf, you're not doing anything in my life.

And the problem is that we're we aren't looking to where Scripture's pointing us to look, we're looking to some other thing.

And I want you to understand this that that Jacob sees the promises of Abraham being fulfilled in kind of like minor ways, but we have seen all of the promises God fulfilled, all the promises God made have been fulfilled in the most major way.

This is what Paul says.

He says that all the promises of God find their yes and amen in Christ.

Now, you know what that means theologically right now, and really practically for your life.

You know what that means?

All the work that God wants to do in your life, he accomplished on the cross through Jesus Christ.

It's all been done.

The work's been done.

And we're looking for God to do something as though he could do something better than he's already done.

And God is continually drawing our attention back to the cross, saying, look to the cross.

That's why we celebrate communion.

That's why God, like Jesus designed communion for us to say this.

Like, like you're gonna do this often.

You're gonna remember the blood and the flesh that was pierced, blood that was poured out.

Because I want you to understand this is the work.

This is the work.

That's why in heaven, you know what's really interesting in heaven?

You know, in Revelations, when the book in the Bible that talks about the very end, it what happens is John sees this um this vision and he sees this throne, and he says, There's myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands, live living creatures and elders singing, like going around this throne.

And what are they singing?

For all, like 24-7, these angels are singing this song.

You know what the song they're singing is?

Worthy is the lamb who was slain.

All day in heaven.

They're not praising God that you got that job promotion.

They're not praising God for like that work that he's doing in your kid's life.

You know what they're praising God for?

For the lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

John goes on in chapter 5 of in verse 13 of Revelation, he says, I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, the Lamb who would be slaughtered for sin on the cross that we just celebrated in communion, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

For all of eternity, they are worshiping the cross, the the work that they're worshiping God for the work that He did on the cross.

Listen, all the work that God has promised to do, he's done through Jesus Christ.

This is why as a church we are cross-centered.

This is why every sermon, every song always goes back to the cross, because we have this belief that we will never falter on, that your greatest need is to be reminded and to dig deeper into an understanding of what the cross, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, signifies for your life.

That's why we regularly have baptisms at this church.

Because the first thing that you do when you come to faith is you make this declaration.

It is a picture, a symbol of the work that Christ has done for you on the cross, where you are standing in the waters of baptism and you're an old creation, and now because of your faith, you enter into the waters of baptism.

There you're united with Christ in his death, in the tomb, and you are brought up with new life and you're resurrected.

It's a picture of what God has done on the cross, and now a picture through your personal participation in baptism of what he has done in you.

An outward symbol of an inward reality that the church gets to celebrate.

And so listen, when we feel like God's not working, you know what the remedy is?

And it's so simple, and some of you are gonna hear this and you're gonna say, That's not it, and you're gonna pursue all these other things, but but there this will always be the answer.

The answer is to look to the cross.

Listen, are you here and you feel like God doesn't love you?

You feel like there's no way God could ever love a person like me.

Well, you need to look to the cross, you need to hear what Paul said in Romans 5:8, but God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Maybe you're here and you feel alone.

You feel like I just don't feel like God is with me.

I don't feel like he's speaking, like what you're saying is right up my alley.

I just do not feel like God is working in my life.

And you need to hear this promise.

In Galatians, that Paul writes of when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman born under law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive his adoptions as sons.

And listen to this promise, because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father.

Because of what Christ did, God is now in you.

You you're never alone.

God is in you.

And we need to hear what Paul says in Ephesians 1.

The same power that raised Christ from the dead is working in us.

And listen, this this is the reason why so many of us have such a weak faith, because we have such a light view of the the cross.

Because we don't meditate deeply enough on the cross.

We think like there's some other information we're missing, like we're missing something else.

It's not the cross.

I get the cross, like that's the beginning of Christianity.

And I gotta tell you, like, it is not the beginning.

It is the beginning, it is the middle, it is the end, it is all of eternity.

When we join in that song and we say, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, we give God all the glory and honor that is due to his name because of the work that he is doing.

And so can I ask you this question?

Is the cross fueling this worship in you?

Listen, this should change the way that as a church we worship.

This means like when we worship on a Sunday morning, there can't be like any of this kind of worship.

You know, singing like this, shoulders slumped, like, oh, here we are again, doing this thing again.

Are you joking me?

I wish you're singing about it.

Your whole eternity has been set in a new direction.

You've been changed forever, and you can sing like this.

I mean, listen, I know some of us aren't like the emotive type, and that's fine, but at least inside your heart, are there times when you sing where your heart's just leaping for joy?

Like you just feel like there's not enough, like the walls in this room, it's too small a room to contain the love that you have for Jesus Christ because of what he has done for you on the cross.

You ever feel that?

I tell you, if you don't, you're missing out on the greatest, greatest thing.

His steadfast love.

The psalmist says is better than life.

It's better than life.

All those things you're pursuing right now, so worthless in comparison to knowing the steadfast love of Jesus Christ.

His promise strengthens my faith.

Lastly, I want you to see this: that his plan solidifies my future.

When I view the end, life from the end, his plan solidifies my future.

See what happens in us when we view life from the end is we're so much more concerned about what God wants of us rather than what we should do.

And isn't this the story of Jacob's life?

Like Jacob was all concerned about what he should do.

He was fighting for his own blessing.

He was fighting for his own way, and now he's given his way to God and he's experienced the blessing of this.

And so this is what happens in our life.

All of a sudden, my way becomes God's way.

All of a sudden, my will becomes God's will.

All of a sudden, my time becomes God's time.

All of a sudden, my money becomes God's money.

And instead of my question of the question of what should I do?

My question is like, what does God want to do through me?

When we understand the work that God is doing, it solidifies our future.

It tells us exactly what we should be doing.

And so we ask this question, what's the plan, God?

Like, what do you want us to be after?

What do you want us to be doing?

Verses 28 to 30 of chapter 46, Jacob and Joseph meet each other, and you can imagine the tears that are coming.

And Jacob's even ready to die.

He's just like, life is so full, life is so complete.

And yet Joseph has work for Jacob to do.

He says it in verse 31.

Look what Joseph said in verse 31 and 46.

Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, I will go up and tell Pharaoh, and will say to him, My brothers and my father's household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me.

And the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of livestock, and they have brought their flocks and their herds and all that they have.

When Pharaoh calls you and says, What is your occupation?

You shall say, Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers, in order that you may de dwell in the land of Goshen.

For every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.

Something really interesting is happening here.

Of all of Egypt, all the Egypt, of the most powerful country or nation in the land of this time, the most bountiful land, the best land, is Goshen.

And yet, because of Egyptian customs, they've got this hatred for shepherds.

And so there's kind of this dichotomy here.

We're like, Goshen is the best land to live in, but you've got to give the best land to the shepherds so that they can raise livestock.

You know, if you're gonna be a powerful economy, livestock is the most important thing.

And so you've got to give the best land for to the shepherds, but the shepherds are an abomination.

Like you don't want to live among the shepherds.

So Egypt kind of has this view of the world that they're cutting themselves off from the best because of this kind of cultural understanding they have.

And and Jacob comes in and he says, Hey, we're gonna get into the best land.

God has for us Goshen, and we're gonna get in there.

Now listen, there's some really powerful application for us here.

You know what the application is?

What the world says is the best thing for you, is often in many ways counter to what God says is the best thing for you.

This is really significant.

In fact, this is gonna provide some substructure for us here, okay?

What we need to do then, if God's plan is that we pursue God's best, it's gonna come up on the screen right now.

Ready?

Pursue God's best.

Nice.

We're gonna work on the timing of that, so it's more like magic, but we'll get there.

Pursue God's best.

See, the the world's understanding of what's best and God's understanding of what's best is often at odds, and here you see it is.

Egypt says, hey, you can't live with shepherds, so we're not going to Goshen.

And Jacob comes in and says, hey, it's okay to live with shepherds.

God doesn't say anything about that, so let's pursue the best land.

Well, what are some of the ways that right now, culturally, you know, at times this is changing.

What are some of the ways that our world says, or some things our world says is best that God says quite the opposite?

Well, I think a great illustration is in marriage.

What does our world believe about marriage?

Well, in every way, they're tearing down what God says about marriage, that it is between be to be between a man and a woman, and they are lifting up really a hatred for marriage, but but in reality an attempt to redefine the very thing that God has created in marriage.

And part of what we're doing in our witness to the world, part of God's plan for us, is to compel people to God's plan, not to give up on that, to say, okay, well, we'll win the world if we just kind of concede on this one point and say, you know, okay, fine, we'll we'll take your view on marriage, but can we just tell you about Jesus?

Instead, what we do is we live lives where we pursue God's best, we pursue God's will for us, we pursue God's plan for us, and we show them that that way of life actually leads to more joy, more satisfaction, more peace.

This is what we need to do in these times where the world's way, so conflicts with God's way, we need to pursue God's way and in gentleness compel the world to that way.

So critical now that we don't give up on what God has called marriage to be.

It's true of our finances too.

Isn't it true that if you are a Christian, the way that you deal with your money will be very different than the way that the world deals with money?

It's true of your time.

Isn't it true like right now, some of your neighbors are like, man, I cannot believe those Smiths.

Every Sunday morning on a beautiful Sunday like this, they're going to church.

Some of them for like hours to serve in the kids' ministry on like the one of the two days they have off.

Like, what are they doing with their time?

It makes no sense.

But but you're saying this.

Listen, I know that I know that this is the best place to be.

And that's why I'm inviting you to come out and spend your Sunday morning like this, because this is the best place to be.

This is God's best.

This is how God wills to accomplish his plan through us.

It's in living in accordance to his word, not in accordance to the world.

And this is what Jacob's life looks like.

So then in verses 1 to 6 of 47, the plan works and they're put in Goshen.

And it's such such an absurd picture in verse 8.

Now, Jacob, who's like this run-down old man, just traveled all the way from Beersheba to Egypt.

I'm sure he's rugged, messy.

He's standing in front of Pharaoh who, like, you gotta Google images of the Egyptian Pharaoh, okay?

Like, this is the most made-up, like, makeup, like they cared a lot about beauty, about robes.

Remember when Joseph was called into the court of the Pharaoh?

He had to like clean up.

And here's Jacob standing in the presence of Pharaoh.

And who's got the blessing?

The richest man in the whole world at the moment, Pharaoh or Jacob?

It is Jacob.

It's Jacob.

Jacob even says of his life, he says, the days of my life have been few and evil.

He's like, My day, my days have been filled with suffering and affliction.

But who's got the blessing?

It's Jacob for Pharaoh.

And so it is true of you.

Your life at times will not look like success in the world's eyes.

And yet you are the one, because you know Jesus Christ, you are the one with blessing.

You are the one who's able to look at the world and say, I have what you need.

Even though I am poor according to your standards, I am rich according to eternal standards.

I've pursued what's got what God I've pursued God's best.

The second thing, though, that you need to do if you're gonna follow God's plan is you need to proclaim God's salvation.

We we really are just gonna fly through this, and there's a lot of really interesting things happening.

But in verses 13 and 14, the famine has kind of come to a pinnacle, so much so that everyone in Egypt has run out of money.

Like they can't come to Joseph and buy food anymore.

And so Joseph says, Well, then give me your livestock and I'll give you food.

So the Egyptians come and gladly give their livestock so that they can have food, but they run out of livestock, so then Joseph says, Well, give me your land and I'll give you food.

And so the Egyptians come and give their land, and then finally Joseph says, Give me yourself as really slaves.

And what the Egyptians have found is that every time they go to Joseph, you know what they find?

They find salvation from this famine.

And they gladly come at the end to Joseph.

In verse 25, look what it says of chapter 47.

They said, You've saved our lives.

May it please the Lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.

And every time they come to Joseph, they find that Joseph is it his life is like a conduit of salvation.

He offers salvation to Egypt.

Now, this isn't a spiritual salvation, but it points to a greater salvation that we have to offer.

Really, there's there's two applications here.

One is this is your life, as you reflect on your life right now, is it a blessing to those that are around you?

Do you make life better for unbelievers?

That's why Jesus said that the church was to be a salt of the earth, like this preservative, necessary thing.

The world, if the church were to cease to exist in Newmarket, Newmarket should be a worse place because of it.

We've got this so mixed up because we we understand that the gospel's offensive, and so we think that if we're doing our job, we should be like offending people.

And you need to know that the Bible very clearly separates the offense between the person who's sharing the gospel and the gospel itself.

It says all the offense is in the gospel, but it should not be for any reason that you are the reason for offense.

It should never be that someone's like, Well, I love that news, but I'll never hear it from that person.

You should be a blessing, you should be salt of the earth.

Jesus was the example of this, wasn't he?

Jesus had a message.

And when they tried him, they tried to find anything that was morally wrong with him, and there was nothing.

They couldn't think of anything.

He was the salt of the earth.

I want to ask you this question too, then.

Second application.

Is it your life's work to see lost people saved?

This has got to be part of your identity.

To see lost people saved.

Like if what we believe is really true, that there is the possibility of eternal salvation.

Does anything else matter in our life?

Yes, obviously we've got to work.

Obviously, we've got to raise our family, but all of these should fall under the umbrella of the fact that God has given us this mission, and this mission is to go and make disciples.

And I think what what we say as a church is so helpful here that making disciples is seeing lost people saved, saved people matured, and mature people multiplied.

And it all starts with lost people saved.

Is this your life's work?

To see lost people saved.

I'm not saying that everyone needs to be a Billy Graham, but I am saying that everyone needs to be praying for God to open a door that you might preach the gospel and see those in your sphere of influence saved.

And last thing I want you to see here is that if we're following God's plan, we advance God's mission.

We advance God's mission.

Look what happens in verse 27.

As Moses kind of reflects on the story, he says, Thus Israel, Jacob, settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and gained possessions in it, and they were fruitful and multiplied greatly.

Those are really significant words.

When God created Adam and Eve, he gave them a mission.

He gave them a purpose.

And his purpose for Adam and Eve, the fathers of all humanity, was this to be fruitful and to multiply.

To be fruitful and to multiply.

And here is Jacob in Egypt, and Moses reflects on his life and he says, He has done this greatly.

Do you understand?

God has a purpose in creating the world.

He wants to accomplish something through you.

I think that this is one of the greatest weaknesses of like if you were to capture North American theology.

I think this is one of the greatest weaknesses of typical North American theology.

That we kind of believe that God is like this personal God.

The reason you should follow God is because He's gonna like bless you, He's gonna be with you, and He's gonna support you, and He's gonna be your strength, and we've got all the mugs with all the sayings on it, and like God is like this personal God.

But you need to understand that when God calls you, He's calling you to partake in a mission, in a mission.

How missional is your mindset of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

I'll tell you how missional Jesus' was.

It was infinitely missional.

This is why when Jesus was asked, What's it mean to follow you?

He doesn't say, if you want to follow me, well make sure you buy this mug that's got Isaiah 4 41, 10 on it, and every time you're scared, you pray.

Jesus says, if you want to follow me, take up your cross and follow me.

Jesus says, if you you're gonna participate in this mission of bringing God's kingdom to earth, you're gonna participate in seeing people fruitful and multiplied.

And when Jesus shares his last words with his disciples, he fulfills really and advances this mission.

He says to the disciples that they are to go and make disciples.

Jesus is still about multiplication.

The question is, are you about multiplication?

You know what God wants to accomplish in your life?

He wants to accomplish multiplication.

He wants you to be influential in discipleship.

He wants you to pour into other people's life.

He wants you to be used as an instrument to see lost people saved and saved people matured and mature people multiplied.

Listen, this isn't, that's not a mission just for like, you know, that's for our church.

That's that's for the leaders to figure out.

This is the mission that God has given to his people.

That we make an effort at making disciples, that we work to advance God's mission, that we work to go and make a disciple.

This is what we're working for.

This is what God is accomplishing in us.

This is what happens when we view life from the end.

We're reminded of God's presence, reminded of God's promise, and reminded of God's plan.

And the question for us is will we take it up?

Will we go forward with God's presence?

Will we go forward believing in God's promise?

And will we go forward with our lives consumed with God's plan, saying, God, all of my life, for all of life, I want to do what you have set out for me.

And that's the question for us this morning.

And so we're gonna take a time to respond.

And I want you to know this response is really important.

The worship team's gonna come up right now.

This isn't just us singing a song, this is us responding to God's word to say exactly what Jacob said, to say, God, here I am.

And there's one actually bridge.

We're gonna sing the song, Greater You Lord, and I'm gonna ask them to bring up this bridge right now.

And uh, I think this is especially so relevant to the plan that we've been talking about.

It says this all the earth will shout your praise.

Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing.

And the next tag there is, Great Are You Lord.

And I wonder if that's truly your heart's desire.

Your heart's desire is that you would be used so that all the people in your sphere of influence are shouting God's praise, are saved and now able to sing this song together with you.

That they once were like Jacob.

They thought the things of this world were great, but now they've been saved and they know there's truly one thing that is great, and that is the Lord.

So maybe when we come to that bridge, we sing that extra loud just to declare God, God, this is what we're about.

We want to see the whole world saved for your glory.