Let's be turning to Genesis chapter 47. In this chapter, we see a contrast between Joseph's provision for his family as opposed to Joseph's provision for the world, the rest of the world. Now, all are treated well. but the family of Joseph, it costs them nothing. They are freely provided for by Joseph. Whereas the rest of the world, seen in Egypt and Canaan, it says the rest of the world, not Joseph's family, it cost them everything. It cost them everything. So the first relation that we're gonna look at in this chapter, is the relation of God's chosen people seen in the relation of Joseph to his father and his brethren. So let's look here in Genesis 47 verses 1 and 2. Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have are come out of the land of Canaan, and behold, they are in the land of Goshen. And he took some of his brethren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh." So the first thing we note here, spiritually speaking, is in this presentation. of Joseph's brethren to Pharaoh. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ does for his people. He's the one that brings us into the presence of his father. Without him, we would have no audience, no ability to come into the presence of the father and live. We would have no ability for that. But Christ presents his brethren, his people, to the Father. If you would stand before holy God and be received of him, if you would hear the Father speak peaceably to you, him say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into thy rest prepared for thee from before the foundation of the world. If you would hear the peace of God, you must come through the Son. You must come in the Lord Jesus Christ. We would have no audience with the Father except by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord tells us in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. These brethren would have no audience with the Pharaoh if it were not for Joseph. Joseph is the one that brings them to the presence of the Father. So it is. We would have no audience, no acceptance with holy God. except by the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why the Father sent Christ into the world. This is why he sent his Son into the world was to save his people, to deliver them from darkness, to redeem us from death, to give us life in himself. And he's the one that brings us into the presence of the Father. For this purpose, the Son of God came into the world to save Sinners, turn over to Hebrews chapter 2. And we'll be back in Genesis 47, but when you get to Hebrews 2, leave a marker because we're going to come back in a couple minutes to another passage as well here. But in Hebrews 2 verse 11 through 13, for both he that sanctifyeth, It sets apart for his use, for his purpose, for good. And they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. And you think about the weight of that truth of what we are by nature in ourselves. fallen, ruined sinners in need of his grace, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ, who is perfect, spotless, holy in all that he does in his very being, is not ashamed to call us brethren. And saying, verse 12, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. I'll teach my brethren. I'll teach my people. the truth of the Lord by spirit and truth. I'll teach them. I'll declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold I and the children which God hath given me." And the beauty here is that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot lose any who are given to Him by the Father before the foundation of the world. He cannot lose any who are given to Him by the Father according to the election of God. who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to restore all that was lost in Adam and to redeem us by his blood. Ephesians 1, 4, and 5 says that it's according as he hath chosen us in Christ, according as God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. having predestinated us, right? Speaking of the walk whereby we should come into that day of grace, that having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, so that we should be made the family of God, as Joseph had his brethren, so our Lord Jesus Christ has his brethren, his family, given to him of the Father for his inheritance. And so by his grace, his power, his holiness, his righteousness, all that he is, we come into the presence of God. As we saw there in Hebrews, behold I and the children which thou hast given me. He loses none. Now in this relation that we are the family of God, by grace, by being chosen of the Father and given to Christ. We are the family of God. This Egyptian world is not our inheritance. Don't set your heart upon it. It is not our inheritance. It's not our home. We are called in scripture pilgrims and sojourners, strangers in this land, strangers. So that they replied back in Genesis 47 when they were asked by Pharaoh, why are you here? What are your intentions here in this land? At the end of verse three, it says, thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers. We are generational shepherds. They said moreover unto Pharaoh, for to sojourn in the land, to come, we're not laying down roots here forever, we're here as sojourners in the land, for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks, nothing to feed upon in the land, for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshem." Which, by the way, is exactly what Joseph told them to say. Joseph, our spiritual Joseph, teaches us. He instructs us in spirit and in truth how we are to come into the presence of our God by his grace, his power, under his authority and instruction. We come before him. And what we see here is that the family of Joseph, they're sojourners just like Abraham was. And so are we, brethren, who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, are sojourners, pilgrims, strangers in this land. Abraham, who is called the father of the faithful, that is those who are of faith and not of works, but those who are of faith, we are strangers and pilgrims here, just as Abraham was. Now go back to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11, verses 8-10. Verse 8, By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place where he should after receive foreign inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country. dwelling in tabernacles or in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And so we are called to live unto our Lord, to live unto our God, dependent upon his grace, feeding upon him in this strange land, which is not our inheritance. It's not our lasting habitation. And you look at Jacob and his sons, they're thrust into this strange land. and everything they knew is turned upside down. Everything they understood about the land and raising their cattle there is gone. All their creature comforts are removed from them, and they're entirely dependent on the Lord to provide for them as strangers and pilgrims. And that's what the Lord shows us that we are. He brings us to have no confidence in ourselves. He brings us to the end of ourselves, that we must find our all, that we are cast upon him for our good. It's for our good. It's for our learning and our instruction, lest we should love this world and grow comfortable in this world. Our Lord gives us trials and afflictions, hardships and difficulties to keep us ever looking to him. And Peter, when he's writing, the apostle Peter, when he was writing to the believers, he writes to them calling them strangers scattered. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered. And he goes on to describe us as elect according to the foreknowledge of God. That is that the Father foreknew us in love. He knew that He would be gracious to us in the Lord Jesus Christ through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That is cast upon His obedience and washed in His blood, all that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. And so he's reminding us that we are sojourners here, that we are strangers here in this land. And in the second chapter of 1 Peter 2, 11, he says to us, beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. which come to us and speak of this world and try to unite our hearts to this world. He says, abstain from those things, put those things away. And so Jacob always dwelt in tents, and the picture there is that the stakes of tents, they get pulled up very easily. You can move very easily. You can be moved very easily wherever the Lord is leading you. It's a reminder to us of the brevity of this life. of how short this life is, to know that what we have here is momentary and it's passing. Don't set your heart upon it. Set your heart upon the Lord. Trust him. Hear his word. Seek him to provide for you. The psalmist wrote it this way in Psalm 39, four and five. Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am. We're not invincible. We are weak, and the Lord is able to show us just how weak and insufficient we are in ourselves, that we would seek him, that we would be stripped of our vain confidences that we would find our all in him. Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand-breath, a short time, and mine ages as nothing before thee. Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. And so as strangers and pilgrims, our Lord is teaching us, this is not your lasting habitation. Don't seek the riches of this world. Don't seek to build up yourselves in this world because it passes very quickly. Seek the Lord. Seek His kingdom, His righteousness, and all these other things that you need will be added unto you, and you'll have the blessing of seeing how that the Lord graciously provides all that His people need. It's contrary to the flesh, but it is food for the soul that feeds upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in the next verse, We're told in verse 10, in Genesis 47, 10, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh didn't bless Jacob. Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before Pharaoh. And this is a wonderful view here, right? Without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better. showing us that Pharaoh, in all his royalty and governing of the world here, he was blessed by Jacob, a frail old man in himself, but a man rich in the riches of God. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And it speaks to the purpose of the church being here. Why are we here? We are servants of the Lord. And because we are here for the elect's sake, this world continues. The only reason why this world continues is that our Lord has a people whom he has yet to call to himself, yet to give them that gospel, yet to wash them in the blood of Christ, yet to reveal to them the light and life, the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the church is here. This is why the church is put here and a people gather together to minister the Spirit through the gospel, to preach Christ, to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may gather all men, all his people to himself, all that were given to him of the Father. And so while we are here, let us seek to do good, as Jacob did for Pharaoh. The Lord only provided for Egypt for his family's sake, for Jacob's sake. all of Egypt was blessed to provide for the seed, to provide for the people of God and Jacob. In Matthew 5, our Lord says this, ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. Do that. Pray for them. Pray for those that trouble you. Pray for those that speak ill of you. Pray for them, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And the sense there is, seek to love your enemies. Seek to love those, forgive those, be patient with those, and long-suffering with those, that use you and don't care for you, that aren't mindful of you or your needs or being kind to you, be kind to them. Because the Lord teaches his people many blessed things. The reward isn't greater riches in heaven. That reward speaks of a greater understanding, a greater light in how the Lord is gracious to me. To minister as the grace that we've been ministered to by the Lord, that we may be gracious to others. And in doing that, oftentimes we see more about our own selves, more about our own needs, and learn something of the patience and long-suffering of our Savior for us, that we might be more patient and long-suffering, gentle and kind, with others who don't deserve it. Trust the Lord in that very thing. Now, to close this first point here, let's read in Genesis 47, 11 and 12. Verse 11, and Joseph placed his father and his brethren and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And look at this verse 12 here. Joseph nourished his father and his brethren and all his father's household with bread according to their families. You think about who Joseph's feeding here. It's one thing to feed his father who loved him. He was the well-beloved son of his father, Jacob. But he's also feeding all his brethren. those other ten older brothers who hated Joseph, who sold Joseph into slavery, who did Joseph wrong, treated him as an enemy, despised him, and yet Joseph here is freely feeding all his brethren, freely providing for his whole family who despitefully used him, who spoke ill of him, and treated him evil, in an evil manner. And so we see here how that Joseph provided for his family freely, without cost to them. They didn't earn it. They didn't merit it. It's all of grace that Joseph did this for his family. And again, it's a picture of what the Lord does for us. in grace and in mercy, what he does for us freely in giving us all that we need, the bread of heaven to feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to establish the word of his grace here as a beacon of his light, raising up the Lord Jesus Christ to gather his people to feed, to be nourished, to be comforted, to fellowship with the brethren, with other sheep, and feed upon Christ to be comforted of him and provided for in all that we need. Our Lord has settled us in the land. And a picture of what our Lord does in preparing the land of our hearts to make it good ground, ready to receive that word, that it might take root and bear fruit in his kingdom, bear fruit to help, to encourage, to support the people of God. And he's blessed us that we might feed upon the bread of heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, through this gospel of his grace. And all without cost to us, free to us because it cost our Lord everything. He paid the price in full. He paid it with his own blood. He fulfilled all righteousness for his people that we might gain an entrance. and hear from God our Father peaceably in the Lord Jesus Christ. But now we come to another set of verses here. We see Jacob, or Joseph, providing freely for his brethren, for his people. And we come to These verses here that speak of this world also in the midst of a great and severe famine, a famine of soul. And it's going to cost the inhabitants of this world everything, everything. And our Lord is showing us here, what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his soul? What good is it if you gain riches, and influence, and power, and satisfy the lust of your flesh in this world, when at the end of it, you've lost everything? For what, 80 years? And to lose your soul for all eternity in the torments of hell? Now, it begins in verse 13 here, Genesis 47, 13. And there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very sore. so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine." And this is a spiritual way, spiritually looking at this, it pictures and speaks of the famine of our soul. It speaks of our ruin, our destruction and sin in Adam, in the fall. And so this famine here, it describes the famine in the soul of every man by nature. He's starved. He does not have the bread of heaven. He does not feed upon that good bread of heaven. He has no nutrition, no nutrients. His belly is empty. And you know when you have a full belly and the comfort that gives, the rest of that gives, as opposed to when your belly is empty and you have nothing, and how hard that is, and how difficult that is, and how painful that is. And so this world is spoken of as being famished. It's ruined in sin. It's ruined by this flesh. It brings forth no good, no eternal good, nothing that can gain us an entrance with the Lord, nothing that is good for us and lasting. And so what we see here, now Joseph will be very kind to them. He'll provide for them. But what we see here is it's only to serve the purposes of Pharaoh. It's Pharaoh's people. And so he provides for them, but it costs them everything. It doesn't come freely. It costs them everything. And so it begins here in verse 14. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the corn which they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house." And it pictures there that all the wealth, all the riches that we acquire here in this life, what happens to it? Where does it all go in the end? It all just gets transferred to Pharaoh's house, pictured here. In other words, you can't take these riches with you. These things are not lasting. What you're working for and laboring for and sacrificing for and striving in this world, it comes to an end. And it'll be someone else's when you die. Then whose riches are those that you worked and labored for? It becomes someone else's. It doesn't transfer. And eventually, once their monetary wealth was all used up, they're still hungry. They're still hungry. They're not satisfied. And so beginning now in verse 16 and 17, they came to Joseph, said, we're still hungry. And Joseph said, give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses. And he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. And these are beasts of burden. These are beasts by which men serve and labor for here. And all that men are serving, all that men are sacrificing for, and trying to gain by these things, they're all given over to Pharaoh to suit his pleasure, provided for him that they might just live a life here in this world with nothing eternal, nothing else given to them. And eventually, all this runs out. All this goes away. And they came to Joseph, saying in verse 19 and 20, Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land, by us and our land for bread? And we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, that the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them. So the land became Pharaoh's." And again, their inheritance, their land, which is a picture of the inheritance, is lost. It's lost. It's traded out just to survive, just to get through this world. And in the end, it's nothing eternal, nothing lasting, nothing eternal at all, just so they could live out their days. And again, it's a picture of those who would serve this flesh and labor in this world for the world. Yeah, you might get through this world and live 80 years, but in the end, what do you have? You have nothing. Nothing that will gain you an entrance and eternal inheritance with the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what can we give? What can we give in exchange for our souls? What can man give to gain eternal life for his soul when all that we have is used on our needs here in this life? Nothing. There's nothing that we have that can give us life. And that's what we see here. There's nothing that can give us life. We need a savior. We need the Lord. If he doesn't save us, if he's not gracious to us, if he doesn't freely provide for us, we lose everything. Everything without him. Again, what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his soul? Don't set your heart on fame. Don't set your heart on power, on influence, on the riches of this world. It's all passing away and it'll be someone else's. Set your heart on the Lord Jesus Christ because his family is freely provided for, all that we need is given by Him. And there's good news, you that are sinners, you that have nothing, you that have spent and wasted your whole lives, there is good news. And I'm gonna read from Isaiah 55, turn there, Isaiah 55, you that have spent all you have on this life, hear the word of the Lord, In Isaiah 55, the prophet says in verse 1, ho, everyone that thirsteth. You that are suffering under the famine of your souls, suffering under the famine that is in this world. Ho, everyone that thirsteth. Come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money. No money. Come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. It's paid for. The debt's settled by the Lord Jesus Christ who accomplished, past tense, accomplished the redemption of his people without your works, without your cooperation, without you giving anything to him, he paid it in full. He paid the price by the sacrifice of himself unto the Father, bearing the sins of his people, to put them away. Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken, or listen diligently, carefully, unto me. Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and this is speaking spiritually. Give your ear. Beg the Lord for an ear of faith to hear these words, and come unto me. Here in your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Sinner, you and I need the grace of God continually. He is the provision that the Father has given for the life and salvation of His family, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. It is free to all who come to the Father through Jesus Christ, the Son, trusting His righteousness. We don't necessarily understand how it is, but the Lord has done everything necessary for His people. Look to Him, trust Him, believe Him, and He'll teach you. And He'll reveal His grace and mercy to you because He does it according to His own good pleasure. It pleases Him to exalt the Son. It pleases Him to reveal the Son to His people. So this is the difference that grace makes. The world was sustained, but it was for the pleasure of Pharaoh. It's for the pleasure of the Father, as He pleases, as He will. But all that are in the family of Christ have every need provided for, every need. Trust Him. Believe Him. Amen.