In Genesis 48, we saw in the
early verses of chapter 48 how Jacob refers to God as he's speaking
to his son Joseph. Jacob remembered not only that
God had come where he was and revealed himself to him, Jacob
remembered in what character God had revealed himself to him. In Genesis chapter 35, he appeared
to him at a time when Jacob needed a word from God. And he said,
I'm God Almighty. And we looked into that and saw
how the Lord has revealed himself to us in that same character.
Do you know him? Do you know the God who does
as he pleases in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of this earth? The God that Job knew when he
said, I know you can do everything and that nobody can stop you.
No thought of thine can be hindered. And Jacob says to Joseph here
in verse 3 of chapter 48, God Almighty appeared unto me and
blessed me. God Almighty can bless you. The God of this religious world
might try to bless you. He can't do it. God Almighty, if He wants to
bless you, you fix to be blessed. And Jacob said, He appeared to
me and blessed me. He revealed to me who He was
and blessed me. He didn't bless me if, He just
flat blessed me. Unconditional grace. Almighty
grace. Those two things together That's a God you can worship
right there. If he's almighty and gracious, we're going to have to bow, aren't
we? And we're going to like it. God almighty appeared to me and
blessed me. This explains a lot, doesn't
it? That explains a lot about Jacob's life. You see the things
that he went through and how that in spite of the The terrible
circumstances at times he found himself in, but the Lord kept
picking him up and he kept prospering and he kept, everything just
kept turning up roses for Jacob. Wonder why? Well, he's lucky
or he just living right now. He blessed to the Lord. He's
blessed of God. Why are you where you are right
now? And why are things now the way
that they are with you? God Almighty appeared to me and
blessed me. That's my testimony too. And that's the testimony of all
of his sheep. In the rest of this chapter here, we're going
to see how that God's blessing, Jacob said he blessed me. We're
going to see a little bit about God's blessing. in the next verses
here. God's blessing is unexpected.
It's unexpected. Look at verse 8. And Israel beheld Joseph's sons
and said, Who are these? And Joseph said unto his father,
They are my sons whom God hath given me in this place. And he
said, bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them.
Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not
see. And he brought them near unto
him, and he kissed them and embraced them. And Israel said unto Joseph,
I had not thought to see thy face. And, lo, God hath showed
me also thy seed. This is unexpected blessing in
one sense. God's blessing exceeded what
Jacob had thought possible. Jacob was convinced that his
son Joseph was dead. And so if somebody would have
said, you're going to see Joseph again, he would have said, that's
impossible. That's impossible. Not only did God do that for
him, not only did he see his son again that he thought he
had lost, but he saw his grandchildren too. This is very beautiful to me.
I may be just old enough to maybe appreciate this a little bit
more than I would have maybe 10 years ago. My children are
grown up now. I can't imagine losing one of
them as Jacob believed that he had lost Joseph. Well, it just, it broke his heart. I don't know that my heart has
ever been broken like that. I've seen, I've seen it. I've seen someone's heart break
so that they were never the same again. When Joseph's brothers came home
with that coat of many colors that Jacob had made for him,
and it had some blood on it, Jacob thought it was going to
kill him. Let me read you some of that
that we looked at here a while back. Genesis 37, 31, they took
Joseph's coat and killed a kid of the goats and dipped the coat
in the blood. And they sent the coat of many
colors, and they brought it to their father and said, this have
we found. Know now whether it be thy son's
coat or no. And he knew it. He made it for
him. And he said, it is my son's coat.
An evil beast hath devoured him. Joseph is without doubt rent
in pieces. And Jacob rent his clothes and
put sackcloth upon his loins and mourned for his son many
days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort
him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, for I will go down
into the grave unto my son mourning. It's going to kill me. Thus his father wept for him. And so Jacob said what he did in our
text. I never thought I'd see your face again and now here
we are. Here we are. And I'm looking
into the faces of your sons, my grandchildren, how God Almighty
exceeds what we could ever expect. Blesses us beyond our comprehension. This is the same God that Paul
praised in Ephesians 3 20. He said now unto him that is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh
in us. We most of the time don't have
any idea who this is that we worship and know and in whose
hand we are and who works in us," Paul said. He's able. And then he said, unto him be
glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world
without end. Amen. Unto him that is able to
do exceeding abundantly above. Unto him who brings us to his
feet, asking, begging for but a crumb, but bestows much more
than a crumb. All spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. unto him who brings us to our
senses, as he did the prodigal, and causes us to run home with
this desire. This is what the prodigal said
in his heart. He said, I'll be one of his hired servants and
I'll have it so much better. I'll be such, so well taken care
of. I'll be one of his hired servants.
But instead, he saw us coming far off and
ran out to meet us. The prodigal didn't expect that. Put the best robe on us and killed
the fatted calf and said, my son, not a hired servant, my
son was dead and is alive again.
He was lost and is found and they began to be married. He
wasn't expecting that. The son who stayed home was right.
He was wrong in his attitude, he was wrong in spirit, but he
was right in what he said. He said this, as soon as this
thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots,
thou hast killed for him a fatted cat. Clearly implying he doesn't deserve
any attention from you. He took what you earned with
your hands and spent it on harlots. And now you're celebrating his
return. That's exactly what happened. And what that son didn't understand
is the love of the father for his son. And what Jacob didn't realize,
because in all of the difficulties and the trials and the griefs
of life, we all tend to miss something. And Jacob had. He didn't expect this because
we're all that way. Before Jacob was ever born, God
said to his mama, I love Jacob. You reckon Rebecca ever told
Jacob that? God told me before you were ever
born that he loved you. I guarantee you she did. It wasn't
a secret. It wasn't. You know she did. And by grace, through faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ, we know. But here's the thing, we don't
have any idea how much he loves us. No idea. No idea. We're not playing the game like
we know the outcome, are we? But we do. Why aren't we playing
that way? You know what I mean. It's not
a game, but I'm illustrating it. You know what I'm saying.
If I knew, it'd make it fun. It'd make it joyful. We do know. We know the outcome. We experience the storm in life,
and the Lord Jesus Christ became a man, was born of a woman, was
made under the law, that he might redeem us who are under the law.
And so there he is on the ship with us. God in human flesh on
the ship with us. But because the storm is so violent,
we have the unmitigated gall to ask him, don't you care that
we perish? What do you think he's doing
there? Why in the world do you think he became a man and got
on the boat with you. And my prayer to God and one of the
lessons I hope I learn from this text tonight is this, don't let's
ever doubt his love and faithfulness again. And whether we ever see our grandchildren
like Jacob did here or not, his love is never in question.
Never. But he does give us many tokens
of his love throughout our lives like he did Jacob here. And he does so often by just
overwhelming us with his blessings. God's blessing also is often
unexpected in another way. That's one sense in which it's
unexpected, in that He blesses us beyond what we could ever
imagine. But also, His blessing is unexpected
not just in the degree of it, but in the kind
of blessing that He gives. And we see that in the text,
too. Look at verse 12. verse 12 and Joseph brought them
out from between his knees and he bowed himself with his face
to the earth and Joseph took them both Ephraim in his right
hand toward Israel's left hand picture this now and brought
them near and Manasseh in his left hand toward Jacob's right
hand and brought them near unto him and Israel or Jacob stretched
out his right hand and laid it upon Ephraim's head. He had to
reach across to do that. Who was the younger and his left
hand upon Manasseh's head guiding his hands wittingly. He knew
what he was doing. It wasn't an accident. For Manasseh
was the firstborn. But he didn't put his right hand
on Manasseh's head. He put it on Ephraim's head.
The firstborn was expected to get the blessing, but he didn't.
And he blessed Joseph, Jacob did, and said, God, before whom
my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. Look how he describes
God here. God, before whom my fathers walked,
and the God which fed me all my life long unto this day. The
angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads. Now that's not a created angel.
Created angels can't bless anybody. Blessing and cursing belongs
to the Lord only. That's not a created angel, that's
the angel of the covenant. That's who that is, that's God's
messenger, his son, Jesus Christ. The angel which redeemed me from
all evil, bless the lads. and let my name be named on them,
and the name of my father is Abraham and Isaac, and let them
grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. And when
Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head
of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he held up his father's hand
to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. And Joseph
said unto his father, Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn,
put thy right hand upon his head. And his father refused and said,
I know it, my son, I know it. Joseph maybe thought that, you
know, he's about half blind. It said that in the text. He
probably thought that was Manasseh over there and that was Ephraim. No, he said, I know it, my son,
I know it. He also shall become a people,
and he also shall be great. But truly his younger brother
shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude
of nations. And he blessed them that day,
saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God, make thee
as Ephraim and Manasseh. And he said, Ephraim, before. Manasseh. Now, again, we've seen
how God's blessing exceeds our expectations, but also is contrary at times to our expectations. It's unexpected in a different
way. Let me ask you a question to
consider in your heart tonight. Has the blessing of God the blessing
of God ever displeased you? How honest are you before God?
Joseph expected things to be a certain way. And maybe Ephraim
was, or Manasseh was his favorite, you know, because he was the
firstborn and he really wanted that. He had been looking forward
to that I was excited, but it didn't turn out the way he thought
it was going to. And he tried to manipulate the outcome. He
deliberately put Manasseh in front of Jacob's right hand and
Ephraim in front of his left hand. It says he put him toward Jacob's
left hand. And Joseph put his left hand
on Manasseh's head so that Manasseh would be toward Jacob's right
hand, but it didn't turn out the way he expected. Have you
ever done that? Have you ever tried to manipulate the outcome
of things a little bit? And I know that there's things
that we do. We do what we know to do, but
we say this. We say God is sovereign. We say,
thy will be done. But then we hedge our bets anyway,
don't we, sometimes? We try to guide the outcome the
way we want it to be, instead of just waiting, doing what we
know to do, and just waiting on God. The flesh gets involved. And when things don't happen
the way that I thought they should, I'm displeased. How about you?
We need to understand a couple of things. Number one, God's
sovereign. Oh, I know that, really. Yeah,
me too. Right now I do. I know it up
here. God will bless whom he wants
to bless, when he wants to bless them, the way he wants to bless
them. And we, or to bow to him, he'll withhold his blessing altogether
if that's what he's pleased to do. We bow. He does everything
right. Number two, God will use anything
and everything at his disposal to bless his people if he's pleased
to do so. And by the way, everything is
at his disposal. Everything and everybody is at
his disposal. God used Satan to bless Job Didn't
he? Number three. We talked about
this already, and I pray that as our Lord said to his disciples
in our text this morning, that this would sink down into our
ears and into our hearts. God loves his sheep. How can we ever question anything
that he does for us? If you're His, He loves you more
than you can possibly comprehend, and will never do anything that's
not for your eternal good. The Son of God said, if you know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father give good things
to you when you ask Him? How much more? We know, Paul said, don't we?
We know. We know. We know what? That all
things work together for good to them that love God, to those
who are the called according to his purpose. We say we know
that. And number four, he's omniscient.
We don't know a blessing from a curse. Well, that's harsh. That's just
the truth. Don't know a blessing from a curse. Do you understand
that about you? Do I understand that about me?
I may think a certain job or a promotion or a relationship
or something else would be such a great blessing. It might be
the most horrible curse that ever happened to me in my life.
God knows whether it is or not. I don't. Paul said in Romans
8, we don't know what we should pray for as we ought. But he said it's alright because
the Holy Spirit knows what we need before we ever ask. Isn't that beautiful? We're to
pray. We're to pray without ceasing. We're to make our request known
with supplication. Make your request known to God.
He's not unapproachable. Oh no. But when it's all said and done,
we have to admit we don't know what to ask for and what not to. But the Holy
Spirit of our Lord Jesus makes intercession for us with groanings
that cannot be uttered. I'm so, so thankful for that.
And then number five, He doeth all things well. He never made
a mistake yet. He's always faithful to His promise.
He's gracious and kind to sinners. In other words, He's everything
I'm not. Everything I'm not. What could possibly be displeasing
about Him doing what He wants to do? If God doing what He pleases
displeases me, I'm in a bad place. I wonder if you and I could honestly
say with Eli in 1 Samuel 3, God revealed to his prophet Samuel
that he was going to kill Eli's sons. And Samuel was afraid to
tell Eli about it. He didn't want to tell him. I
wouldn't have either. Would you? Would you want to go to the man
and say, God revealed to me he's going to kill your boys. And
Samuel was afraid to say something, but Eli could tell. that there
was something Samuel needed to say. And he said, has the Lord
given you a word for me? You tell me what it is. And Samuel said, he's going to
kill your wicked sons. And Eli said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. If anybody else would have tried
to kill those boys, I imagine they'd have had to go through
Eli to do it. You reckon? But he said, it is the Lord. It is the Lord. If it seems good
to him, it's because it is good. So the Lord withheld the blessing
from the one that expected it, the one that Joseph expected
to receive it, and gave it to the one that he didn't. In Acts chapter 13, we have the
story of the gospel being preached there, and two different reactions
to it. I was going to turn there, but
I want to be brief tonight. I feel like I wore you out this
morning, so I want to be brief tonight. But the gospel was preached,
and the Jews, which you might expect would receive
the gospel gladly. They were displeased. They disputed. They argued, and they contradicted,
and they opposed themselves to the gospel. But it says the Gentiles,
who you'd think would hear that and go off and worship their
false gods or not give it a second thought, it says they received
the word gladly. the blessing was bestowed upon the ones who
you would never expect would receive it. That's the way God
works. And you know, the scripture reveals
that there's a reason he does that. He's glorified in the way
that he does things. He deliberately hath chosen the
weak, the foolish, the despised, the things that are not, to bring
to naught the things that are. Why? That no flesh should glory
in his presence first corinthians 129 Him that glorieth is going
to glory in the lord Or he's going to suffer for it forever And what does the very next verse
say it says he chose them the foolish and weak and despised
and base so that no flesh should glory in his presence. And then
in 1 Corinthians 1.30, the very next verse, it says, but of him
are you in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. You may be weak, foolish, base
and despised and a wretch in every way, but Paul said, God
chose you in Christ. And he's all we need. I'm foolish,
I don't have any wisdom, but he's made Christ unto me wisdom.
That's what Paul's saying here. I'm base, I'm wicked and vile
and base, but he's made Christ unto me righteousness. My sanctification is the Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm nothing, I'm a thing that
is not. Yet He redeemed me with His precious
blood. I was precious to Him. Nothing
to this world. And nothing, period. Just flat nothing. Oh, but I
was precious to Him. He redeemed me. He's made Christ
redemption unto me. He shed His precious, priceless
blood for me. I'm blessed by God Almighty. The God who, as Jacob said in
verse 15 of our text, he said, the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac did walk. In other words, the covenant
God, the God who swear unto Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God
who calls himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob, the God of his people. He is my God, my covenant grace. And Jacob
also said there in verse 15, he's the God that has fed me
all my life long until this day. And I've been worrying about
it all the time, but he's fed me every day. I still worry about
it. What a fool I am. What a fool
I am. He's fed me for 48 years, and
I'm worried in the 49th year he's gonna leave me hungry. What
an idiot I am. What a blithering idiot. Jacob probably didn't have a
whole lot to eat during the famine before they came to Egypt, you
reckon? Probably a dried up potato or some beans, you know? Of some kind. He wasn't eating then like he
was eating now, I know that. Now that he lived in Egypt in
the best of the land. Had all those cattle. He's probably
eating a big ol' ribeye that night. You reckon? That's what
I'd have been doing if I had all them cattle. I've had a few ribeyes in my
life. Had some beans and cornbread,
too. But thank God I love beans and
cornbread. Aren't they good? Man, they're
so good. Thank God. feeding us. And this, of course, is not just
food for the body. God's people, by grace, have
meat indeed and drink indeed. We have meat to eat that this
world knows not of. Christ is our bread and our wine.
He said, my body is meat indeed. You know what that is? My body.
The incarnate God. God in flesh. My body. Oh, I
can feast on that. That God became what I am. That
I might be with Him and be who He is. The very Son of God. The very righteousness of God.
That's meat indeed. And He said my blood is drink
indeed. He redeemed me with that precious blood. He bought me
with it. And boy, I thank God for the
hunger and the thirst that we have for that meat and drink. We're lying in green pastures. May we be thankful the Lord's
our shepherd and we'll never want, we'll never lack. He prepares a table before us
right in the very presence of our enemies. And we sit down
and feast. And in verse 16, Jacob described
the Lord this way, the angel which redeemed me from all evil. Our Lord Jesus Christ is described
in Malachi 3.1 as the messenger, and that word is angel, same
word as in our text. The angel of the covenant. the covenant, that covenant that
David talked about when he said, the Lord has made with me an
everlasting covenant and it's all my salvation and all I want.
And as for his redemption of me, David said in Psalm 130 and
verse seven, let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord
there is mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption. The
angel of the covenant has redeemed me from all evil, my sin, and
all my enemies, Paul said, were justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God's angel,
the angel of his covenant of grace, hath redeemed me from
all evil. He gave his blessing to the one
who nobody thought should have it, the least likely candidate. He's blessed me beyond what I
can ever express to the praise of the glory of
His grace. Let's bow together in prayer. Gracious Father, thank you for
your tender mercies upon us. Lord, we see this this word of
Jacob's and we find ourselves bowing this very night before
the same God that Jacob did, the one who loved us and revealed
yourself to us as the almighty, omnipotent God and promised to
bless us. Sent your angel to see to it
that we be blessed. You fed us all of our lives,
Lord, in every way, in every sense of the word, and blessed
us at every step. Your goodness and your mercy
have pursued us all the days of our lives, and I pray you'd
give us grace to not be so foolish as to think that you'd let us
go now, not be ungrateful and to doubt your faithfulness. Bless this church, Lord, in spite
of us. We're unworthy of the least of
Thy mercies. We're unworthy even of that crime,
and yet, You've made us rich. Thank You, Lord, and make us
grateful. Cause us to praise You and adore
You as You're worthy. Lord, if You're pleased, I pray
that you'd work in our midst and cause your gospel to go forth
with power in those who know you not. I pray that you'd open
blind eyes, Lord. There are those that we love
very dearly who know thee not. We commend them to thee knowing
that we're commending them to the one who delights to show
mercy. and in whom is plenteous redemption. We confidently and gladly commend
them to you and pray for your grace. Bless us, Lord. Teach us, guide
us, use us. And may your name be glorified.
In the name of our Savior we pray, amen.