Alright, brethren, let's turn
now back to Genesis chapter 50. Genesis chapter 50. Now we are
very thankful today to be baptizing two brand new believers that
God has given faith in Christ. Very thankful for what God's
done for them. And as I thought about them this
week, I thought about how There are some who will be here today
who are brand new believers. There are some who have been
in the faith a little while, who are in the thick of the battle.
There are some who are nearing the end of faith. And yet through
it all, whether you're just beginning or you're coming to the end of
this life of faith, the same is true of every believer. God
blesses His people who trust Him. He's done it to give them
faith to trust Him and He continues to do it by His faithfulness,
by His faithful Word. He blesses His people. God gives
faith to make His child believe. That's the only way we believe.
He gives faith to make His child believe. And He makes us believe
that God has and shall fulfill all God's promises to us in Christ. In Christ. Faith in God will
never be ashamed. You'll never be confounded for
trusting Christ. In fact, Christ is the only one
you can unreservedly put all your confidence and all your
trust in, in whom you will never be ashamed for doing so. God
shall fulfill all His covenant promises in Christ to every single
sinner who rests in Christ. God shall fulfill every promise,
every promise to every sinner who rests entirely in Christ
through God-given faith. In this passage, Genesis 50,
the very last passage of Genesis, the Lord shows us that He who
gave us faith will keep us in faith until the end. And He will fulfill every promise
that He's made to us. He will keep us in faith and
He will fulfill every promise He has given to us. And the reason
that He will do so is because God is satisfied in Christ toward
His people. Now the first thing I want us
to see is by Joseph's long life, by his long life, We see that
God fulfills His promise to honor those who honor Him. Are you
with me? You got the first point? By this
long life that God gave Joseph, we see that God fulfills His
promise to honor those who honor Him through faith, by believing
Him. Look there in verse 22, Genesis
50, 22. Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and
his father's house, and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. What does that have to do with
honoring God our Father? This long life, what does it
have to do with honor? And with honor being given to
God our Father? Well, God said in the law, honor
thy father. Honor thy father. and thy mother,
that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee." There is one Son of God who fulfilled that. Just one. That one is the Lord
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. The first Adam disobeyed
God. The first Son of God disobeyed
God the Father. And He plunged His whole house
into death. Immediate death. And we all died
in Him. All mankind did. But the Son
of God came, the last Adam, and He obeyed the law fully. And He was obedient to the Father
all the way until the death of the cross. Obedient. honoring the Father until the
death of the cross, by which He highly honored the Father,
He highly exalted the Father, finished everything the Father
sent Him to accomplish. And God did just what He promised
in that law. God gave Christ, He exalted Him
to Heaven's glory to sit at His right hand and gave Him eternity. It's His. Talk about a long life. He gave him eternity. And therefore,
now listen, because Joseph was a child for whom Christ died,
a child at this time for whom Christ was surety, promising
he would go, which was as good as doing it because he is the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And so by him promising
to die for Joseph, Joseph being a chosen child of God, Joseph
being one God would do this for him. God gave Joseph faith to
rest in Christ. Faith to rest in Christ. Faith
to honor Christ. Faith to highly exalt Christ
by resting in Christ and trusting Christ and looking nowhere but
to Christ. And by that, by that, because
Christ fulfilled it, Joseph perfectly fulfilled that law and every
other law. Perfectly. Perfectly, through
faith in Christ. And not only that, because he
was constrained by the love of God in his heart, by the Spirit
of God showing him the Lord God, His salvation, and he was constrained
by God's free love to him. Joseph honored his earthly father.
He honored his earthly father. Well, the Scripture says Christ
said all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. And you do that through faith.
And Joseph did that. So he honored God the Father
perfectly by simply resting in Christ. And not only that, he
honored his earthly father. Now, his honoring his earthly
father was not perfection at all. He was mixed with sin. If
he would have looked to that to try to come to God, he would
have never been accepted of God. But the way he honored the Father
was honoring the Son, believing the Son, trusting the Son, who
honored the Father perfectly. Now, I want you to get this important
truth. Because he did this, He gave
him this long life on this earth. Now, does that mean He is going
to give everybody a long life on the earth? No. It doesn't
mean He is going to give all believing saints a long life
on this earth like He did Joseph. But it does show us something
better. He is going to give us eternal
life. Eternal life with Him in Heaven's glory. Eternal life. Now let me give you an important
truth to remember. The law, that law of honoring
the Father, it was not given at this time. No law was given
at this time. No law was given at this time.
That law had not been given. How then did Joseph know that
he was to honor God the Father? How did he know he was to honor
his earthly Father? Where did the rule come from
that ruled his heart to make him honor the Father by trusting
the Son and be constrained to honor his earthly Father? Where
did he get that if there was no letter of the law given? He
got it the same way you and I get it. He got it by God the Holy
Spirit teaching Him in His heart and Christ's love constraining
Him to cast all His care on Christ and honor the Father thereby
and thus seek to honor His earthly Father. Don't ever forget that. In Christ Jesus neither circumcision
avails anything nor uncircumcision. It doesn't matter if you lived
after the law at Mount Sinai was given or if you came before
the law at Mount Sinai was given. were saved one way, faith which
worketh by love. Faith which worketh by love.
When Paul over in Ephesians 6 said, children obey your parents, this
is the first commandment with promise that you might live a
long life on this earth, that God might give you a long length
of days in the land He'll give you. Paul wasn't saying that
to bring believers under the law. He was saying that to remind
us of God's faithfulness in honoring His law and saving us from our
sins by which we are constrained to obey our earthly parents.
How do I know that? Right before it, He said, Husbands,
love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for
it. Wives, submit to your husbands as the church submits to Christ.
He told us right there how you're supposed to preach that word
in Ephesians 6. You preach how Christ fulfilled
it. You preach how Christ honored the Father and how that we only
honor the Father through faith in Him and that we've done it
perfectly in Him. And by that Gospel, He'll constrain
His people. to honor their earthly parents.
You see, that's being under Christ's rule, not the letter of the law.
That's what Joseph was under. Way, way, way, way, way before
the law was given. Over 400 years before the law
was given. Alright, secondly. In Joseph's family, we see that
God fulfills His promise to bless those who believe on Him. We're
going to look at Joseph's family and we're going to see God honors
His promise to bless those who believe on Him. Look here in
verse 23. Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation.
The children also of Makar, the son of Manasseh, were brought
up upon Joseph's knees. And how is this an example of
God blessing those who believe on Him? By giving Him these children. Turn to Psalm 128. Psalm 128. Listen to this, Psalm 128 verse
4, Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the
Lord. You know, when God gives you
the fear of the Lord, you will have faith in the Lord. They
are almost synonymous. They are different, but they
are almost synonymous. Where you have one, you are going
to have the other. Thus shall the man be blessed
that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless thee out
of Zion, and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days
of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's
children. And peace upon Israel. Christ
is the reverential faithful servant of God. He's the one who feared
God, who reverenced God. He's the one who believed God
and did it perfectly without sin. That's who Christ is. In fear and faith to God His
Father, Christ established the whole law for God's elect people.
He honored God declaring God just in that His law is satisfied
and He's a justifier in that He justified all His people in
Christ. This is what He did out of fear and faith in the covenant
Word of God His Father. The Son of God came and took
the form of a servant, not to use His power as the Son of God,
but to serve God as a man in place of men, His people. To honor Him as a man for men. And He did that in perfect fear
and perfect faith. And therefore, God bless Christ
out of heavenly Zion. That's what He said in that psalm
He would do. The man who fears God, the man who believes God,
that man is going to be blessed by the Lord out of Zion. And
God blessed our Savior out of Zion. He raised Him to His own
right hand. God blessed Christ to see the
good of heavenly Jerusalem for all eternity. That's what He
said He would do. He said, that man who fears Me,
he is going to see the good come on Jerusalem all his days. That's
what Christ saw. The Lord said God would bless
that man who feared Him to see his children's children. And
God blessed our Lord Jesus Christ to see all His children and His
children's children and His children's children, whom He redeemed, eternally
saved. He shall see the travail of His
soul, that labor, that childbirth that He went through on the cross,
and He shall be satisfied. He saw all His elect children
saved by the work He accomplished. And God said, He would bless
the man who feared Him to see peace upon Israel all his days. He raised Christ, who is our
peace, and Christ gives His peace to all Israel. Now, since Christ
was Joseph's surety, God gave Joseph fear and faith to believe
on Christ the Lord. And he believed the Lord. He
feared. He reverenced the Lord. He reverenced
God. He reverenced His Son all His
days. And then just as God promised,
He blessed Joseph out of heavenly Zion. God blessed Joseph to see
good brought to his people all the days of his life. That's
what Joseph saw. He watched his people fall into
famine. That was for their good. He watched
as God exalted him to the throne in Egypt. That was for their
good. He watched as God shut them up
into famine and drew them to Joseph. That was for their good.
He watched as Joseph was given strength to feed them with all
the grain that he had stored up. That was for their good.
All his days Joseph saw God shower good upon his people. Now you
might not see God shower good upon your earthly family. That
might not happen. But what we are talking about
here are spiritual blessings. Every child of God will see God's
good come upon all his spiritual house all our days. That is all
we see come upon his people is good, good, good, out of sight. Now back there when his father
pronounced God's blessing on Joseph, he said, God's going
to bless you with blessings of the womb. Did he do it? Joseph feared him. He loved him.
Because God gave him the fear. God gave him the faith. Isn't
that amazing? God gives you the fear and the
faith to trust His Son. And He promises you, you believe
My Son and you reverence Me and I'm going to give you to see
your children's children. And then He makes good on the
promise. He gives the faith, He gives the fear, and then He
makes good on the promise. Now you might not see your earthly
children. You might not see your children's children in the flesh. But God's elect see all His elect
brought to faith in Him. And that's our children. That's
our children. That's our children. And God
blessed Joseph to behold Christ our peace upon all His redeemed
church. Brethren, faith in Christ. may
cost us our children. That's right. Faith in Christ
might cost us our children, our earthly children, our fathers,
our mothers. It may do that. Because God's
not going to have any competition between Him and His people. Whatever comes between us and
Christ, God's going to sever His child from it. Painful as
it will be to us, God will do that. He'll sever us from it. If it means killing our loved
one, or making them fall out with us to where they won't speak
to us the rest of our days. But He will make certain that
there is no competition between His child and Christ. But listen
to what Christ said, brethren. Verily I say unto you, there
is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sister, or father,
or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake and the
Gospels, but He shall receive a hundredfold right now in this
time. Houses and brethren and sisters
and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in
the world to come eternal life. He blesses those who honor Him. He gives you the faith to honor
Him. He gives you the fear to honor Him through faith in Christ
and then He fulfills that by giving you all His blessings.
Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Thirdly,
in Joseph's last message to his brethren, in Joseph's very last
message to his brethren, we see that God fulfills His promise
to make His believing child love our brethren more than ourselves. God is going to make His child
love our brethren more than ourselves. We won't do that left to ourselves.
We won't do it. But God's going to do that. He
gives you the faith to trust Him and He's going to make you
seek His kingdom and the good of His people above yourself.
That's what He does in the hearts of His people. He's promised
to do it and He does it. Look here in verse 24. Joseph said
unto his brethren, I die. And God will surely visit you
and bring you out of this land unto the land which He swore
to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob. Now we know from Hebrews 11,
God records there, the Holy Spirit records in Hebrews 11 this word
right here that Joseph spake and the next word we are going
to see that Joseph spake. God recorded that in Hebrews
11 to tell you and me this is an example of great faith, of
great faith. He said, by faith Joseph, when
he died, made mention of the departing of the children of
Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. He said that was by
faith. That was great faith in Joseph.
How so? How was this great faith? You
could think of all the things that happened to Joseph and all
the things Joseph endured and how faithful he was and you mean
this right here was the thing God said, look at, this is the
great thing? Why? By God's appointment. Christ loved God and He loved
His people more than Himself. Christ was Joseph's perfection
of love. Christ loved God and His people
more than Himself. That is the fulfillment of the
law. Remember He said that? He said the fulfillment of the
law, the righteousness of the law is love God and your neighbor
as yourself. Christ did that. He did that. Look at Calvary's cross. There
He is, for God and for His people, forsaken of both, willing to
be forsaken of God, bearing the sin of His people, bearing the
judgment of God to fulfill the righteousness of the law while
He justified His people. That's the righteousness of the
law. That's perfect love. You and I don't have perfect
love. That's perfect love. And that's the only love we want
to speak of that's going to make us accepted of God, is Christ's
love. That love of Christ, that's perfect
love. That's perfect love. That's the love by which all
His house shall be saved. They are and they shall be. That's
perfect love. Now, Joseph was made to believe
on Christ, rest in Christ. And indeed, he had been his family's
salvation throughout their life. God used Joseph as the preeminent
type of Christ. He was His family's salvation.
Joseph was. He saved them from famine. He
saved them from starvation. What a beautiful picture of Christ.
That's what He did for His people. That's what Christ did. But they
all looked to Joseph. They all looked to Joseph. All
this family looked to Him because He had done so much for them.
They were living in the land of Goshen. They had the best
of the best because of Joseph. And they looked to Joseph. But
Joseph loved his brethren more than he loved himself. He loved his brethren more than
he loved the honor that would have come in exalting himself
before his brethren. or having them exalt Him as their
Savior. He loved them more than Himself,
more than that glory and that honor He would receive from them.
He loved them more. And so He made sure right here
when He was dying to assure them He was not their Savior. He was
not their Savior. God had used Him and used Him
mightily. But He's telling them here, everything
God used me for, God did it. I didn't do it. And I'm going
to die right now. But God will visit you. Surely
He will visit you. And He will bring you out of
this land and He'll bring you into the land that He's promised.
God will do that. I'm not going to do that, Joseph
said. God will do that. That's love. That's love. You know what love does? Faith
and love doesn't exalt self. Faith and love doesn't stand
up and preach for the people to look at the preacher. It stands
up and preaches for the people to look at Christ. Faith and
love doesn't tell sinners that they can do something to save
themselves and brag on how, I did something to save myself, now
you do something to save yourself. True faith and love abases the
sinner, abases those to whom we speak and says, God alone
is the Savior. That's true faith and love. And
he was given a heart to love his brethren more than himself.
By God-given faith and God-given love, it made Joseph tell his
family, they must not settle in Egypt. They must not settle
in Egypt. That's what he's telling them.
God will surely visit you and He's going to bring you out of
this land into another land. Don't settle in this land. God's
bringing you out of this land. This is not the land of promise.
And I'm here telling you, brethren, we're in Egypt right now. But
this is not. Don't settle here. If riches
come, don't set your heart on them. This is not. our eternal home. God shall surely
visit us again and bring us out of here and bring us to our eternal
home. Joseph saw the bondage that they'd
fall under after his death. Why? God told him. And he believed
God. But the love of God made him
tell them, don't be fearful of that bondage. Don't be fearful
of Pharaoh and his taskmasters. God's ruling everything that's
coming to pass. We're going to see later, Lord
willing. Do you know that when this new
Pharaoh arose and he set his heart against the children of
Israel, do you know why he did that? God put it in his heart. God put it in his heart. God
put it in his heart to afflict his people with heavy burdens
and make them slaves? Yes, He did. Why? That God might
show them, I'm your Lord God. I'm your Deliverer. I'm the one
that's going to bring you out. That's what God did in the garden
for us, brethren. He allowed that old evil Pharaoh
Satan to bring us under bondage. Why? That he might show us that
he's not the ruler, God is the ruler. And God's going to save
His people out from under that bondage. So that's what love
did. We must not settle for this Egypt,
brethren. Look beyond this life, look beyond
the afflictions, look to Christ. Because your life is already
settled in the new land. Did you know that? You are already
in that new land. Your life is already in that
new land. How so? Paul said, if you then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where
Christ sits at God's right hand, for you are dead in your life. is hid in Christ at God's right
hand. That's where your life is at.
This is not our life. This is not our home. Look beyond
all this to Christ. That's where your life is. That's
where your home is. That's where God is going to
make us settle one day. There. So we must not look at
this place. Now, let me ask you this. Where
did Joseph get this love? Where did it come from? Where
did he get it? It came from God's great love
and God's great faithfulness. God is love. And he that dwelleth
in love, God dwelleth in him. That's how come you have love.
Christ loved us and gave himself for us. He loved us and laid
down his life for his people. He loved us and came under the
fierce justice of God for his people. And when the Spirit of God forms
Christ in you for His great love for you, for His people, for
those He redeemed, when He does that, you are going to know something
of God's love for you. And you are going to have something
of that love in you. And you are going to love for
the first time through faith in Christ. Truly love. Truly love. All sin is mixed
with what we do. And we could never look to our
love to gain us acceptance with God. We could never look to how
we love our brethren for God to accept us. No way. Christ
is that perfect love. But when Christ is in you, you
will have the love of God in you. And you will be constrained
by the love of God. So that you want to put Christ's
people and Christ's Kingdom first. First. This is something that
we learn and grow in the longer we're in faith. You learn ever
so slowly, little by little, by His grace and by His knowledge,
you learn that everything that you thought was
life and riches and treasure and so valuable that you couldn't
do without it, It's like holding on to a puddle of puke. Clay,
don't be so graphic. It's that bad. Oh, I can't afford
to do that. Why? Because this treasure right
here, this puddle of treasure I have, I have to hold on. If
I looked and put God's people first, I might have to let go
of some of this. God will make you let go of it. The more you
seek Christ, the more you seek Christ who loved us so that He
came down from glory, He left glory, He left all the ease and
all the glory that He had with the Father behind Him, and for
a little while He came down to serve in this cesspool of humanity
for His people. Is that not enough to make me
be constrained to put God's people first? He came down and He did the work. He did all the work. He provided
unsearchable riches in Himself by His Word for His people and
freely just showered us with those riches. In every part of
our life before we believed Him, all up to now, He has given us
everything we needed and made certain we can do without nothing,
but we have everything we need in this life. Is that not enough? to make me realize that man that
is called my boss here on earth, he is not controlling where my
riches come from. That job right there is not controlling
where my riches come from. God is controlling that. My Redeemer
is controlling that. Now I want to serve my employer
to the best of my ability and I want to be faithful to him
because God's grace makes me want to. But I can Put God's
people first, and God's gospel first, and God's church first,
and I can be guaranteed, guaranteed, I can guarantee you this. God
will honor that. God will bless that. And you
won't do without. You won't do without. And if
He is pleased to do it, He will strengthen that faith and love
in your heart where He will cause you to put His people first.
That's what Joseph did. Joseph said, I am not your Savior.
God is. God will surely visit you. God
will bring you out and God will bring you in. The psalmist said
this, If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, if I forget God, if I forget
Christ, if I forget His people, seek ye first the Kingdom of
God, His people, and His righteousness, Christ Jesus. Seek ye first Christ
and seek you first His people. God will add everything else
to you, everything you need. And the psalmist said, if I forget
thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. You know what he is saying? That right hand is the power
of a man's strength by which he so wisely maneuvers himself
through the world and gets this job and that job and does this
job and that job and rises to a level of success. He says,
if I forget your people and my Savior, Cut every bit of that
off. Just cut it off. And he said,
If I don't remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. I don't know if I could pray
that. Because God will do that. I do want to put His people first,
but man, I'm scared of that. I'm scared of my unfaithfulness
causing such a serious pain to sever me from it and bring me
to follow Christ. But God will do it. God will
do it. Now fourthly, in Joseph's oath,
we see that God fulfills His promise to make us persevere
in faith right until the end. right until the end. And even,
anybody even uses beyond the end, beyond death. Watch this,
verse 25. Joseph took an oath of the children
of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry
up my bones from hence. Carry up my bones from hence. Because God was pleased with
Christ, God visited Christ, and He carried him up. to glory. He didn't leave him in this Egypt. He carried him to that promised
land called Canaan. That's where Christ went. Because
God's pleased with him. And by God's sovereign hand,
Joseph lived now in Egypt the majority of his life. Now I want
you to think of what great faith this is. God said this was great
faith. To say, I want you to carry my
bones out of this land. Joseph lived the majority of
his life in Egypt. He was a loyal citizen there. He performed the work God gave
him to do faithfully like nobody else ever did in Egypt. Nobody
ever did work as faithfully to serve Egypt as Joseph did. Nobody
ever worked as faithfully to serve in this Egypt as Christ
did. But Joseph did. He served faithfully. And he had untold riches in Egypt. He had been exalted to the prime
minister of Egypt. He had honor and glory like you
can't imagine from all the people in Egypt. He had an Egyptian
name given to him. You know what that name meant?
Bow the knee. Bow the knee. That's honor. That's tempting. But by this oath, By God's keeping
power, by God preserving him, he is saying by this oath, the
whole time I've been here, this has not been my home. He renounced
Egypt, he renounced Egypt's gods, he renounced Egypt's riches,
he renounced Egypt's customs, he renounced Egypt's glory, he
renounced everything about Egypt through this oath saying, I'm
God's, I'm my Savior's, and I'm with His people. I'm an Israelite
indeed. That's what he said by this oath.
That's who I belong to. And he only did this by God's
keeping power. You and I, if left ourselves
faced with all that temptation and those riches and that honor
and that glory, we'd go after it. But God preserves His child
in faith. And He kept him ever looking
to the Lord. Kept him ever looking to the
Lord. Now I want you to see how great faith this was. Now when
Jacob died, Jacob said, I want you to carry my body back to
Canaan. I'm not going to live in this
Egypt. Jacob said the same thing by his death. But why isn't Jacob
listed as being the greatest faith as Joseph when he did this?
Jacob said, carry me back now. Carry me back right now. Joseph
trusted God's promise so much. He said, you can just mummify
me, put me in a sarcophagus and wait until God brings you out
two, three, four hundred years from now. God's going to make
good on the promise. You'll carry me out. That's faith. That's faith. Wait on God. That's what he did. He was waiting
on God. It was because God preserved him in faith and he saw what
the unseen carnal eye could not see. When he heard his father
say, God shall be with you and bring you again into the land
of your fathers, spiritual eyes, faith, saw something other than
just God bringing his bones out of Egypt into Cana. He saw and
heard the doctrine of the resurrection and knew God's going to bring
me into heavenly Canaan. This little work of carrying
me out of this little earthly Egypt into an earthly Canaan,
that's nothing. He's going to carry me into heavenly
Canaan. And he trusted God. He looked for a city whose foundation
and builder and maker is God. And God made good on every promise.
Exodus 12-41 says, Even the selfsame day it came to pass that all
the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. Exodus
13, 19 said, And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for
he had straightly sworn to the children of Israel, saying, God
will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones away
hence with you. So Moses did it when they all
went out. And then they got into the land of promise, and they
went a good ways in the land of promise. And the bones of
Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt,
buried they in Shechem. God brought to pass every single
thing He promised Joseph He would do. But even more than that,
when Joseph died, God brought him into glory with Him right
then and very soon, along with all the rest of His redeemed,
He is going to raise our body perfect into God's heavenly Canaan
to be with Him forever. He will fulfill it to the very
time that God appointed. Nothing is out of His control.
Everything is in His control. Just like He controlled Pharaoh,
and the taskmasters, and Moses, and the plagues, and everything
that was transpiring, and even made His people... He said, you're
going to go out with great abundance. They just showed up at the Egyptians
where the Egyptians were and said, we're leaving tonight.
We don't have anything to take with us. And the Egyptians said,
take all our gold with you. And they went out with all of
it. God said, Christ is yours and everything is yours. You
are going to have it all. It is all yours. And that is
what we see in Joseph. He is with him right now. Christ
said this, He said, If I go to prepare a place for you, and
He was going to the cross to prepare the place for His people.
He said, If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also. God reconciled His people to
Himself by the death of His Son. Christ justified us from all
our sins by His blood. The Holy Spirit has given us
life and taught us these great and precious promises of God.
And God is not a man that He shall lie. He is not a man that
He shall go back on His Word. He has promised it. He will do
it. He said it is going to come to pass. He will bring it to
pass. We are going to be risen with Christ and be with Him where
He is. Do you believe that? Are the temptations of this world
and its glory and its honor and its riches pulling you away to
that? Are you saying, no, I renounce all this. This is not my home.
God's carrying me to my home. That's what God makes His people
persevere in to the end. And then He even uses us beyond
the end. Now lastly, we see an illustration
of faith's object. An illustration of faith's object. and all our assurance of all
these promises that God shall bring to pass. How do you know
God is going to bring all these promises to pass? Because of
the object of my faith. That's how I know. And we got
an illustration here of the object of that faith. Why did Joseph
do what he did? Why did he say, don't bury me and don't give
me an Egyptian funeral and don't give me all that pomp they give
their great men? Take my body. mummify it, put
it in a coffin and wait. Put it in Goshen, wherever, out
of the site, out of the Egyptian site, where you know it's at,
and wait on the Lord. Why do you do that? Look here,
verse 26. So Joseph died being 110 years
old and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. In a coffin in Egypt. Now, understand
this. Joseph was a great type of Christ,
and even in this place he rested all his days, he was a preeminent
type of Christ in this coffin. I almost title this message,
Christ in the Coffin, because that's who we see typified in
Joseph being put in this coffin. How so? They embalmed Joseph's
body just like they did in Egypt. And they put it in one of those
coffins, not like our coffins. You've seen their coffins. Those
coffins that are shaped like a person's body. They put it
in one of those kind of coffins. So it's preserved. I don't know where they put it.
I know they didn't put it in that tomb everybody says is by
that Pharaoh's tomb. They say there's a tomb in Egypt
that's got Joseph's name on it. And they didn't put him there.
Joseph said, I'm flat denying that. I'm not of this Egypt.
They didn't put him there. I don't know where they put him.
They put the body. I don't know. But if they put
it somewhere, they would know where it is. And they could see
it. They could see it. Through all their years of suffering,
through all their years of bondage, there was that bodily shape of
Joseph in that coffin. So when Pharaoh and his taskmasters
made their life bitter with hard bondage, and they were serving
with rigor in Egypt, and they began to doubt and fret, They
could come home from a long, hard day of work, and they could
look at that coffin and remember, God will surely visit you, and
He'll bring you out of here, and He'll bring you into the
lands He's promised. Brethren, we've got something so much better
to remind us of God's promises. Something far better. Not a full
coffin, but an empty tomb. not one whose body is yet with
us, but the forerunner who has already entered into glory for
us. When we get burdened down in this life with all the trials
and the tribulations and all the temptations and all of the
hard labor, we can come home from a hard day's work and we
can open this book or we can turn on a sermon or we can go
hear the gospel priest and we can look once again to Christ
Jesus at God's right hand and we can know of a certainty God
shall visit you. And He will bring you out of
this Egypt and He will bring you into the land He has promised.
Don't you know that thrilled them? Don't you know that was
the strength to just keep them going a little bit further to
see that coffin? Our strength is to behold Christ
at God's right hand. That being said, I'll say this
to the brethren we're going to baptize and to every other believer
here. Let us live in this Egypt as Joseph lived. How's that? Believe in God, looking nowhere
but to God. Trust in Christ Jesus alone and
loving our brethren. Let us seek His kingdom first
in everything, especially the furtherance of the gospel. Do
you know that from the day they threw him in that pit and he
was sold into slavery and God was bringing him down there to
Egypt, Everything Joseph was doing in his life, when he knew
it and when he didn't know it, was for the good of God's people.
It was putting God's people first, everything he did. But when he
was conscious of it, he always put his people first. First. Put his people first. His gospel, his church, first. That's the only reason you're
here. If you believe God, one reason
you're here right now is for the good of His church. That's
it. That's it. That's the reason. It's not to build our estates.
It's not to build us a big inheritance to give to our people. It's not
to build a great name so everybody remembers us in years to come.
It's to serve God in the service of His people, spreading His
gospel. That's the reason. That's it.
And if we are not doing that, we are saying there is something
more important to me, something else that is first to me. Put
His people first. Secondly, let us do the everyday
work God has given us to do more faithfully than anybody else
around us because we know our Lord Jesus Christ and everything
He has done for us and everything He is doing for us and everything
He shall do for us. It gets hard sometimes. Retaliate. Trust me. Over the past five
months dealing with folks I've been dealing with on this building,
I have just been so frustrated at times. God's ruling everything. I don't have to be ugly and show
out. I can just trust God. Trust God. Take five minutes, cool off,
and come back and say, all right, I'm going to trust God on this.
It's hard. Do everything you do more faithfully,
more honorably in this life because you know what Christ has done
for you. You know where we're going. This is not our home.
You look at those pyramids over there in Egypt. Man, those slaves
did some mighty fine work, didn't they? I don't know how those
pyramids were built. I know who built them. God's Israel built
them. That's who built them. The Egyptians
didn't build them. God's people built them because they were
slaves. That means while they were working,
they said, I might be a slave. I'm going to be the best slave
Pharaoh's got. I'm going to build and work and do the most best
craftsmanship that can be done. Because this ain't my home. God's
carried me out of here. This is all they got. This is
all they got. God's carried me out of here.
And let us not fear this world, knowing God's ruling and providing
all things for us, and that all things are yours. And here's
another thing. Let's end with this. Now listen. Joseph said,
put my coffin there. Put me in this coffin. Joseph
wanted to be remembered, but not Joseph. Listen to this statement. Let
us live so that when we die and our brethren think of us, they
do not remember us. but they remember God's promise
salvation in Christ. Wouldn't it be good to live that
way and leave that memory? Where when people thought of
you, they didn't think about what a great man you are, but
they thought about what a great Savior you proclaimed to everybody
that would listen. Wouldn't that be wonderful? That's
a memory to leave. And just as they look to that
coffin to hear Joseph's last word, let us ever look to Christ
at God's right hand and hear Him promise. God will surely
visit you and bring you out of this land and to the land which
He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. He surely will
do it. Look to Christ and hear Him say
that. He will do it. Amen. We're going to take a few
minutes to change.