So you're there in Genesis 46 and the title of the sermon this evening is
Joseph Reunited with Israel. Joseph Reunited with Israel.
And let me make sure this mic's on pastor cops so you can hear me.
First of all, I want to say thank you. Bear with me.
I don't usually give a lot of disclaimers anymore about my preaching. I've learned to preach
through the thing of it, but I think I'm getting sick or I am sick. I don't know,
but I'm definitely not at 100% for this evening. And so I've been praying to the Lord to just see
me through it. We will still get a good lesson out of it. I'm not hopeful. I'm sure of it.
just but I am asking for your patience today so it will probably not be it will
probably not be as the most dynamic of all preaching but you can make it
through you know the Bible says you're here to show up for a God not for you
know Joel's the entire preaching but we're there in Genesis 46 and like I
said the preaching is is or the title is Joseph reunited with Israel and so
Joseph sold at 17 years old
And now he's a little bit over 40 years old for the last 20 plus years
He's been without his dad without his family
Last week we saw that he basically redeemed his family. His brothers had to go through a pretty
Intense ordeal. I mean Joseph did too, but Joseph was coming at it from a better place. He's now second in command
You know, he's basically running the kingdom and he's supplying
The nourishment for the kingdoms around there the other lands that are in the five this seven-year famine
And now we're almost to towards the end of this famine
The events that have taken place with his brothers have taken place
They've all now been revealed. He's seen his brother Benjamin. He's basically wept with them
He wept pretty loudly. It's a it's a pretty intense family reunion
I don't know if you guys have seen but this is a serious thing
you know people on social media love making those videos of like these children or spouses or mothers and fathers
Who their kids go off to the military and then they come back and surprise them and they hug each other's neck and they cry
you know, and if you watch enough of those and you're like, and you've been emotional,
you can get emotional watching that stuff, right? Just before we even got here,
we were watching a commercial, Pastor Cobb, and then watch the, the evening news as we prepared,
they were watching a commercial and it's a little kid trying to help his, his dad who's on crutches,
and they got a little emotional watching it. So we're emotional people by my nature, right? And
This is a pretty intense
Reunion because they've been without
Their dad. I mean Joseph's been without his dad for a long time. And so let's just get there
Let's just start with this whole thing. We probably go through the whole book of I mean the whole chapter in Genesis
But then the rest of them, you know, we're just gonna cover
We are ending our overview of the book of Genesis next week
I wanted to end it today, but I don't think I would have done it justice Genesis. Genesis 49 is pretty intense
It probably requires an entire
section just to itself
But we're there in Genesis 46 and in verse 1 it says in Israel took his journey
With all that he had and came to Bersheba and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father, Isaac
The God spoke unto Israel in the vision of the night and said Jacob Jacob and he said here am I?
And he said, I am God, the God of thy father, fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will
there make thee a great nation.
I will go down with thee in Egypt, and I will also surely bring thee up again, and Joseph
shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
Jacob rose up from Bersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their
little ones and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
And they took their cattle and their goods which they had gotten in the land of Canaan and came into Egypt
Jacob and all his seed with him his sons and his sons sons with him his daughters and his sons daughters and all his seed
brought with him to Egypt and
Then it goes through and it gives us basically the lineage of all the individuals that are going into Egypt
On Wednesday, we were going through the book of Acts and we see that this is a pretty vital part of the story because before
Stephen gets killed, you know what he does? He recounts this story.
This is one of the stories or one of the parts of scripture that makes the Pharisees and the Sadducees wrong, so mad.
You know, the reason is because
the false religion always wants to focus on themselves, but whenever you focus on Christ,
You know, you're going to remove that you're going to sanctify yourself from the rest of the people, right?
And here we see that the Lord's making that distinction 70 souls are going to go into Egypt
You know, and they're going into basically the enemy into enemy territory
They're going to go there for a period of time based on the fact. This is what God had already preordained
And they're doing this so that, what, a couple of two pharaohs later, one pharaoh, technically,
later Moses will be the one leading them out into the promised land.
And but it's never, you know, with the Lord, getting the Lord's rewards is never just,
you know, it's not a hand me down.
It's not a free ride.
With the Lord, we have to earn the things that the Lord's going to bless us with.
The only thing we don't earn in life is salvation.
Salvation was earned by the blood of Jesus Christ.
But I think that, you know, it's interesting. Let me just stop there really quick.
Because you look at Joseph, and you look at his brothers, and Joseph is highly blessed.
You know, the reason I spent so much time on Joseph is because it is a huge dichotomy not only
from Joseph, you know, the like the epitome of a serving Christian to the world,
but even the epitome of a serving Christian to a non-serving Christian. Most of the time when you
go to church, and I'm talking about in general, churches are always
good about making you feel like you're part of the crew.
And so when you go to church,
the reason you go to church is
because you want to feel different
or you're making the attempt to be sanctified.
The word sanctified just means separated
from the rest of the world.
The challenge with the modern church today
is that they are also there to remind you.
I mean, the challenge with the modern church
is they're not doing what the Bible asks,
which is that you also come to church to be reminded
That sanctification is a process, right?
To be sanctified into heaven, that was the work that Jesus did.
But there was work done.
It's just that Jesus did that work.
But in order to be sanctified in the world, it requires the work, right?
I mean, if you notice...
It's almost like we do everything in our power to be even more separate from the rest of Christianity
By not showing up in a t-shirt by not having the purple lights by not having tattoos on my on my forearm
So you can see what a rough life I've lived if you notice. I don't even really tell my salvation story
I don't tell you about how I cleaned up my life of alcohol or my life of partying or my life of sin because
That's not what I'm not trying to that's not what we're here to do
We're here to point everything to Jesus, right in the modern church makes you
Like feel like you're sanctified in the sense of your ship go showing up to church
And you're basically checking off a box when they you should be there to be admonished, right?
And to be reproved and to be rebuked depending on where you are in life
So when you leave you're like all wait, it's not just going to church to sanctifies me
I still got to do the work
I still got to show up.
I still have to prepare for the seven years of famine.
I still have to not only prepare for the seven years, but when the famine is here, I have
to now redistribute this, this, this wealth of knowledge or this, this stuff properly.
You know, the reason that Joseph was so important and he's such a prominent part of the book
of Genesis and the Old Testament is because he has given a major task.
It's not just preparing seven years for the famine during the feast time, but then even
during the famine, he's the one slowly in charge of distributing and making sure that
everybody is fed around them, right?
And I got off on this because we see here that you only have 70 souls, but all of these souls are affected by who?
by Joseph
Right, and remember Joseph is one of the clear pictures of
Jesus in the Old Testament
And it makes sense, right?
Because if Joseph, he did a ton of work,
like you can relate from a carnal point of view,
like he suffered not just,
he didn't just do the work of like counting beans
and distributing and being a good leader
and a good manager and a good business person.
But also, you know what he had to do?
He had to endure the work of being persecuted,
going through trials, going through tribulation.
I mean, it wasn't just enough that he was sold as a slave.
but then he was falsely accused and then he had to, you know, move up the ranks and then he was
forgotten about and he was betrayed. All of this to lead to this point. And now we're here and we
go through this lineage and it tells us that it's about 70 souls. Let's go down to verse 29 of Genesis
46 and it says, and Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel, his father, to Goshen
And he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while and Israel said unto Joseph now
Let me die since I have seen thy face because thou art yet alive
Can you imagine just the the the emotional?
I don't know when fall the emotional just earthquake
I don't even have a voice to describe like,
of not seeing your son for 20,
you think your son's been dead for 20 years.
I mean, it's like looking at a ghost.
And on the other hand, Joseph,
he's thinking at 17 that he's never gonna see his dad again.
And yet the Lord brought it all back full circle.
And this also breaks kind of like a tiny side point.
Turn over to Luke two while I bring that up.
Go to Luke two,
because this is what I was thinking of when I saw this.
I'm telling you, Joseph really kind of pictures
Jesus quite a bit,
Uh, another thing is we have to be careful with our relationships in life, right?
Because the thing is we don't know what life's going to bring, right?
And we don't know who we're going to, there's a reason why the people that we run into in
life are the people we run into in life, right?
Right.
I mean, these are just the things that happen.
This is the way they got, it's never a coincidence that maybe, you know, it's, it happens to
me way more than probably most people.
And the only reason I think it happens to me more than most people is because if you
were to take a look at a picture of me when I was five years old, it looks exactly like
me now, just a little bit older and more great.
I mean, some people, right?
Like you meet them in the street, maybe like I've met, I have friends who I meet in the
You don't look anything like you look like when we were in college or like you're just a totally different person
I don't even know who you are
But I mean it is without a shadow of a doubt. I look
Exactly the same and so what ends up happening is when I go back to visit like my parents and I'm like out in the town
And I'm like at a restaurant or I go to the mall or the store my wife's witness that somebody will come up to me
And don't even remember my name, which is horrible because I don't remember, you know these individuals sometimes
And they'll come up and be like Enrique or Kike or whatever my nickname was and I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's me
Remember, I'm like, I'm sorry. I don't remember. It's like, yeah, we were in third grade together and blah blah blah blee and blah
I'm like, oh, well, I'm sorry, you know, but it's good to see you again
But, you know, probably the reason people are nice is because I've always been more
of a social butterfly than most people.
So, you know, one of the things I always wanted to do was just be more on the friendly side.
So I am overly friendly, friendly to people.
And I always err on the side of like just being over friendly, even if I know people
are going to treat me wrong.
Right?
But.
I didn't learn that from the Bible, I just learned that and I just got lucky, right?
But the Bible does teach us that principle, right?
He that wants friends must show himself friendly.
And the one thing that you see about Joseph is that Joseph has a really meek spirit.
He obviously has some charisma and he has an ability to draw people in because everywhere
he went, people wanted to give him leadership.
They looked to him for leadership.
So I'm not exaggerating this point in the sense that I'm not just trying to fill the time
I'm really thinking thinking this thing through as we wrap it out like what is what are the things that really stand out about Joseph?
Well, what's the other?
Characteristic of Jesus that we see
The Bible says that that he was of no reputation. You know, he wasn't someone that walked in the room and you're like, oh, that's Brad Pitt or
Whatever the soup. I don't know. I'm dating myself now
If you guys know I don't watch Hollywood anymore, but I'm pretty sure there's the Brad Pitt replacement
You know, eventually Brad Pitt's gonna get old and die and somebody else is gonna be the whatever the case
But the one thing is that Jesus people follow Jesus for what?
People follow Jesus for a couple reasons number one. He was loving
He had compassion, the Bible tells us, but also he always told the truth, you know
So your integrity goes a long way in
Who you are, you know
There's one thing that that's known about me in my older circles is whether people like me or not
You know out here through the grapevine through my mom or my brother or my sister
Whoever it is that that knows those people in common and they're like, yeah
We don't like your brother or we don't like your son, but the one thing we know about him is that he stands on
on what he believes on and he and he doesn't waver. Right? Because we believe on truth and it
always makes an impact. So anyways, long story short, we're reuniting here, but I just thought
it'd be interesting to throw all this in because what's the one thing that we see about Israel?
Israel is a person of integrity. Israel has faith.
We know this because Hebrews 11 which I'll probably touch on next week gives us the list of faithful and they're all in there
Abraham Isaac
Jacob Joseph
Moses we the all these patriarchs are in Hebrews 11 and then the Bibles and then towards the end of Hebrews 11 says time
Will not permit to go through the rest of these guys, but these guys are fairly important
But go there Luke 2 and then verse 25
When I see here that he says in verse 30, he says in Israel sent him to Joseph, now let me die.
You know, I guess Israel is just kind of like at the end of his life.
He's just really just happy to see his son.
He's willing to just, this was the epitome of his later life.
And in Luke 2 25 we see a similar story right it says and behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and
The same man was just and devout waiting for the constellation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was upon him
And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death
Before he had seen the Lord's Christ and he came by the Spirit into the temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do him
To do for him after the custom of the law then took he
him up in his arms and blessed God and said Lord now let us thou thy servant depart in peace
according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou has prepared before the
face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.
Now obviously Joseph isn't Israel but Israel
I mean obviously Joseph isn't Jesus, but Joseph no like Israel or in this case
I'm gonna use the word Jacob just because when I you hear the word Israel even though I'm talking about a person
We use the word Israel so much most people probably think I'm talking about the region. I'm not I'm talking about the actual person
Israel is Jacob, but we see that
Jacob's fulfilled, right?
Why? Because he knows that the promise that God gave him is true.
Not only is he happy to see the son that he lost,
he's reunited. I mean, it was his favorite son.
But remember, on the way there, God spoke to him and said,
hey, with the place where you're going,
this is where my promise is going to be fulfilled.
So he's seen, basically, it's a very similar thing where he's seen this redemption.
Like I said, it's not perfect, but it is very similar and we can make parallel
Arguments for this right now. Let's keep going there and go back to Genesis 46
It says there in 31 says in Joseph said unto his brethren in verse 31 and unto his father's house
I will go up and show Pharaoh and say it's in my brother my father's house
Which were the line of Canaan are now come unto me
And the manned, our shepherds, for their trade had been to feed cattle and they brought their flocks and their herds and all they have.
And it shall come to pass when Pharaoh shall call you and shall say what is your occupation.
And you shall say the servants trade both have been about cattle from our youth even till now, both we and also our fathers,
that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.
And I just think it's interesting. Isn't that...
Isn't that the reality of our world today?
The world represents Egypt today,
because that's really the closest thing
we can come up with, right?
And what is an abomination to the world?
Real preachers.
Whether you're preaching hard or not,
as long as you're preaching the truth,
you're gonna be abominable to the world, right?
What I said today about JD Vance,
if it got back to him, he would find me abominable.
I don't have to be, I don't even have to say anything crude about the guy.
Anytime that you get someone who's supporting the Catholic Pope and, you know, satanic agendas
and you just say, I don't even have to scream about it.
I don't even have the energy to do it.
But just that statement alone is abominable to the world.
But you know what's abominable to God?
To reject Jesus Christ, to lie about the Word of God, to change the Word of God, to change
His ways.
But go over to chapter 47, so we see this reunion.
It's complete.
He saw His brothers, He put them through the test, then He saw His baby brother, He called
But here's where things go wrong and there's two ways. I guess you could look at what we're we're coming here in Genesis 47
We are gonna touch on a couple other things that said that happened
But the main thing that's happening in Genesis 47 is that the people are
Running out of money. There's a there's a depression not a recession in the economy
And they're now they're selling their cattle and they're selling their land and they're even selling themselves basically to the government
Now, there's two ways of looking at this.
I'm going to err on the side that I don't think Joseph knew the ramifications of it
all.
And the reason I say this is because I don't even think Joseph knew that he was going to
be the second to come out when he went into slavery.
He's just a new guy was going to fulfill his promise, but Joseph does something that's
really interesting here.
That ends up turning the good thing that he does
But he does it so good that ends up giving too much power to a worldly government
Then it ends up being the government that oppresses the people, right?
It was easy to enslave the people after the nice Pharaoh died
Because of the way that Joseph set up this government
I mean, there's other factors, but this is a major one, right?
So, but before we get there, let's go there in Genesis 47 and verse one, it says, then
Joseph came and told Pharaoh, it said, my father, my brother 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, and Pharaoh
said unto his brethren, What is your occupation?
And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers.
They said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to so join in the land are we come, for thy servants
have no pasture in their flocks, for the famine is soaring in the land of Canaan.
Now therefore we pray, Let thee thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen.
And Pharaoh spake up unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee.
The land of Egypt is before thee in the best of the land make thy father and brother and the dwell in the land of Goshen
let them dwell and
If thou knowest any men of activity among them then make them rulers over my cattle
I love that statement. It's one of my favorite statements because it's like if you know anybody who's like I
Who gets stuff done
Hey, I want them to take
To be the ones leading the chart here. Why does Pharaoh like that?
And we're gonna spend just a little bit of time here Pharaoh likes that because he knows Joseph
Right, basically his brothers are getting a little bit of a bump up
Because his brother because of his brother's reputation
You know why we need to be good serving Christians, even if the rest of Christendom isn't
Because, at some point, maybe we're the ones to get those higher duty jobs, whatever that
is from the Lord, and those people that follow us, they're going to get a better reputation
because of the things that we do, right?
It's borrowed authority, borrowed integrity, borrowed honesty, these are things.
And that's posturing.
That's happened throughout all of history, right?
I'm looking for a house and you're like, oh, I know a good real estate agent, you know,
use this person and people will use them even though they've not known him.
Why?
Because of the person's reputation that's referring to him, right?
Oh, well, if you're referring to them, they must be good because I trust you, you're a
good person.
You'd never steer me the wrong way.
Now that doesn't always work.
But in this case, Pharaoh, I mean, Pharaoh seen the work that Joseph's done.
And so basically, if we liken it to this, look, we want to be able to follow good people
in the Lord that are doing great things for the Lord.
We want to befriend good churches in the Lord, but we want to, uh, we want to get those churches
that are, that have good reputation with who, with God, not with man, right?
But if we go there and some you know, actually don't go there go to Matthew 5
But in Psalm 31 verse 21 the Bible says bless be the Lord for he has showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city
I mean this this fits exactly what we're dealing with right for I said in my haste
I am cut off from before that I am cut off from before nine eyes
Nevertheless that hurt us the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee
Oh, love the Lord all ye saints, for the Lord preserveeth the faithful, and plentifully rewarded
the proud doer.
Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord."
Now, pride is a bad thing, but here, you know, you got to look at definitions, they all have
definitions.
I think, you know, the way it's doing it here is proud doers is someone who's diligent in
what they're doing.
The Lord love it's someone who who takes
Who takes enjoyment and delight in doing a good job?
Right you could have two people doing the same job and someone just do it look more lovingly and it makes a huge difference
You know it could be the difference between like a great artist and a bad artist or you know
You can get two guys as a matter of fact the person who just cut our grass recently
Did an amazing job. You could tell that he takes pride in what he does
We don't even have that nice of a lot and I could tell we've had like three or four people come through and cut our grass
Other than ourselves and this guy came through and he did such a good job
People were able to tell the difference right away. You know because what he's a proud doer. He takes
He takes enjoyment of the things that he does
Right? And that's what the Lord, that's what Pharaoh's leading to, that he says,
and if thou knowest any men of activity, any doers among them, then make them rules over my cattle.
But God requires us with that to be of good courage and he'll strengthen our heart.
He will preserve the faithful as long as we hope in the Lord.
All right, so you're there in Matthew 5. Turn to Matthew 5. Let's just look at the blessings, right?
So if we were to go back to chapter 47 of Genesis, you don't have to go there. I can read them to for you
It's just very simple
It says in Joseph brought in Jacob his father and sent him before Pharaoh and Jacob blessed Pharaoh and
Then Pharaoh and him have a conversation and then at the end of the conversation when we go to verse 10
It says, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh and we're not from before Pharaoh.
So it tells us twice that he blessed Pharaoh just to make sure that we knew that Jacob
is blessing Pharaoh.
And of course Jacob would bless Pharaoh.
I mean, not only has he put his son in second command, but he's taken care of his son when
he thought his son was dead.
But there is something to be said about not only being blessed by God, but for us to be
a blessing on people.
Right. We do have the ability to bless others, right?
We do have the ability to pray that God would look over people and that they would be successful based on our prayers
God will do that. He will execute that. That is not an unbiblical principle. Just like the Lord gives us
Liberty and authority to pray like an imprecatory prayer. He also gives us liberty authority to pray a blessing a prayer of blessing
Right when I pray for our church, I don't you know, obviously, we don't have any enemies, right?
If I do I don't know, but I just pray that you guys are successful that the Lord watch over you that you're able to
Do the things that are important, but really that you would just be able to serve the Lord more dutifully every time, right?
We're good
Excuse me guys
Mary Sarah, can you have Enrique just get me one of those little laws and just the ones that we have in the office?
Okay, thank you, or you just get it for me
We're there Matthew 5 and in verse 12 it says rejoice
In Matthew 5 and verse 12 it says rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven
For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you
Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost to savor, wherewith shall it be
salted?
It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trotted under foot
of men."
Ye, that means all of us in here, are the light of the world, a city that is set on
a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and they give
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven
There's a difference between drawing attention like being a narcissist and
Drawing attention because of the Lord. Thank you
Right and sorry guys, I hate preaching with Los Angeles, it's not my favorite thing to do but this will get me through today and
By the way pray that we would get more labor is not only in soul winning
But also I would get men that they could replace or at least preach whenever we're feeling down because it would have actually probably been
The better thing, but I told my wife I said I don't care as long as I'm not dying
And the Lord gives me strength. I'm going to be up here preaching the word of God because also there is no
Retirement in the Bible. That's a side note had nothing to do with the sermon, but you might as well
It you know until the Lord tells me to go home. My goal is to just preach to the day that I die. So
But when you're talking about blessings, look, how do you hire you a blessing to the world when you let your life shine?
Right, you don't have to be the leader. You don't have to be the pastor or the deacon or you know
One of the main leaders in the church you can just let your light shine and it's gonna be a blessing to other people
You think the Lord is not blessing the place where you work
Look, you need to show up and do the best work possible
You need to be a proud doer of the work that you're doing because you're doing it for the Lord and the Lord will not only bless you
But he'll bless your employer
You know
Makes me think of Laban
Laban didn't want his son-in-law to leave him because why?
He's like, I've learned that you're a blessing in my life because you do such a good job.
Pharaoh knew that he was being blessed because of Joseph and so he blessed the family and
then he got a blessing back.
Egypt was in a better place because even the world can be in a better place because of
us.
You know, there is a judgment on the United States of America right now.
I think the judgment is not executed as harshly because there's still a remnant in the United
States of America.
You want to save that off for the next generation.
You want to hold that off so that your children will be able to grow up as freely or as dutifully
or be able to spread the word just like we have.
We need to continue preaching hard.
about how it's Scotland, you know, they don't let you pray
in front of abortion clinics. It's against the law
because it's offensive to those people. I mean
I don't agree with some of the groups that go protest in front of abortion
clinics just because they're false religious.
But we could go, we could have a ministry.
As a matter of fact, when I first got saved and I moved to LaVon Drive, I went and protest.
Obviously, I didn't know any better, but I went and I sat in front of an abortion clinic.
We protested people going in to kill their babies without fear of any repercussions.
Nobody was taking us to jail or anything.
I mean, people just didn't like it, but nobody was going to do that.
We have a free country to preach the word of God and we need to take advantage of that
We need to be that light that shines in the world
We need to be the people that say no, we are not gonna hide it under a bushel. No, we are not gonna run away
No, we are not gonna back down. We are not gonna acquiesce. We're not gonna just turn over
The other way we're gonna we're gonna keep fighting
right
We're gonna keep doing the thing that the Lord asked us to go over to 2nd Corinthians go over 2nd Corinthians 9
Well, we're in second Corinthians nine on this on this topic of blessings
And it says there in verse eight it says and God is able
In second Corinthians nine verse eight it says and God is able to make all grace abound toward you
The ye always having all sufficiency and all things may abound to every good work
What's going on with the 12 or the 11 children of Israel and Israel himself or Jacob, right?
They're in a land of famine and they're just brought up to where they basically have been given direct access to what to all the riches of the land
Listen when you get saved and then if you're back to them you get right with God
What are you immediately given access to all the riches of the land if you go to Luke 16? I think it's Luke 16 or Luke. Yeah, Luke 16
The the parable of the the prodigal son is either 15 or 60
I know 16 also deals with with the rich man, but either 15 or 16 the prodigal son as soon as he repents and
He comes back home
What is he given access to all the riches all the comforts all the ability all access to everything?
He's immediately blessed
God is able, verse 8, to make all grace abound toward you, that you always have all sufficiency
and all things that may abound to every good work.
As it is written, he hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, his righteousness
remaineth forever.
Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food, and multiply
your seed's own, and increase the fruits of your righteousness.
Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness which causes through us. Thanksgiving to God
in other words
You want to know how you're being blessed when you're great for the Lord
That's how you know sometimes also these mega churches are not
Blessed, but basically they're just having the riches of the world. Have you ever met some of these people?
They're some of the most ungrateful people in the world. I
Know because we go knock on their doors
And there are a bunch of jerks, but that's not here nor there.
Go to verse 11 says, being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causes through
us thanksgiving to God for the administration.
What is it done for?
The blessing is for the administration of the service not only supplies the one of the
saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God.
Wow, by the experiment of this administration, they glorify God for your professed objection
unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, unto all men, and
by their prayer for you, which long after you, for the exceeding grace of God in you.
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.
It says, hey, this experiment.
Is their glory the the minister of this ministration they glorify God for your professive
Subjection meaning people are gonna follow and people are gonna get saved and people are gonna do the things of the Lord
Untill the gospel of Jesus Christ, but why is it is it because you you just get freely knowing you're gonna get freely
You're not a spiritual hoarder
Right
What's spiritual what's spiritual hoarding when you show up to church and I'm going to talk about tithing
Which you should tithe, but I'm just talking about your time and your energy and your faithfulness
And all these things you have the ability
To go soul-winning you have the ability to spend time in prayer
You have the ability to show up to church three times a week and I'm talking about just here in the US
You have the ability to serve at any capacity in the church
When you don't do it, you're spiritually hoarding, right? You're like I have it, but I don't want to waste it
And what ends up happening is to him, the spareth lightly, well, he get lightly, you
know, if you spare, but if you, but if you spread it abundantly, you're going to get
abundantly.
And here we see Joseph, he's in charge of not only feeding Egypt, but all the lands
around and you never see Joseph just holding back.
I mean, of course he negotiates with the people, but he makes sure that everybody has plenty
and then his people, he takes care of even more.
So let's go back to Joseph. I mean, I'm sorry to Genesis 47. Is it where we're 47? Yeah
Let's go down to verse 10
As I said in Jacob blessed Pharaoh went out from before Pharaoh and Joseph played his father and his brother in and gave them a
Possession in the land of Egypt in the best land in the land of Ramses as Pharaoh had commanded and Joseph nourished
His father his brethren all his father's household with bread according to his family
What does the Bible say mention not live by bread alone, but by every word the precedence out of the mouth of God, right?
look
We are going to be nourished
And we're going to be able to nourish our families
With bread according to our families, but the bread that we're talking about is the spiritual bread in Jesus Christ
the Word of God. This is what this picture is, right? Because obviously, that was just
a period of time. That period is done. Those things happen to them, but the spiritual application
is that
The New Testament represents what? The fact that all of this was showing us that it was a picture of what was to come
And in the New Testament church, we're obviously not slaves to Pharaoh
It's not like those things are even where we have an advanced technology. We have been given
All the riches as a matter of fact, I have here Philippians 419 says but my gosh, you'll supply all your need
According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus
We worry so much and I don't know this has become a theme in the last maybe a couple of months
Where I keep telling my wife I was like look every time I get stressed
I just got to remember my spiritual might actually my currency no longer is the US dollar
My currency is no longer a job. My currency is no longer if I own a great business
My currency I wanted to start transitioning and transition fully to a spiritual currency
The only currency that matters is the spiritual one lay not up for yourself treasures on earth
Right don't hoard those things but do the things that the Lord's asked you to do and he'll give you liberally
The problem with the way that the Lord gives it's it's it never looks the way you think it's ought to look
You think Joseph thought oh, I'm going to become basically the second in command in today's world
It'd be the vice president
Maybe even the president right because we know that there's other people that are more powerful than even the president in the United States
but
You think that Joseph thought all that the the path to an executive position
In the highest position of the land
Is that I would be a slave and then imprisoned and falsely accused and all these things
We think because you know with all social being everything and all the self-help
We think that we need to do what the world does, but don't worry about what the world does
You just do what God's asked you to do and he'll bless you in the way he needs to bless you
I'm not gonna look like the world wants you to look at it. It's not gonna feel like it
It's not gonna smell like it. It's not gonna taste like it and it shouldn't
We don't look like the world. We don't act like the world. We don't speak like the world
So why would we get blessed like the world? It wouldn't even make any sense
And as a matter of fact Jacob and his 11 sons are blessed by Joseph in a most
unorthodox manner
Right. I mean there was no way on God's green earth that
Jacob could have envisioned that his son who's dead in his mind is the one who's gonna get them out of this famine
Right. I mean of all the things that Jacob thought would Lord, please help us feed our people
We're running out of food Lord. Please take care of Ruben and Simeon and Levi and Ephraim and all my other children
Take care of all my grandchildren and my wife and my concubines. Take care of all these people
I guarantee you in none of his prayers were like, please, make sure that Joseph takes
care of us.
They were just faithful.
Let's keep going.
I'm not going to read all of this for the sake of time, but basically, they're running
out of bread, right, and the people are coming to them, and bread always represents white
in the Bible.
Meat.
Because obviously they're not speaking just of bread. I mean people are eating all kinds of food
Bread isn't you know, if you just eat bread alone, you're not going to get all the nutrients and proteins and all that stuff
You need but bread it bread is a consistent staple food in most cultures
I would say in all cultures right there's a the there's a concept of breaking bread where people break bread
It's a sign of fellowship bread bread represents like the the ability to have food and be ill and all that stuff
but
The people are coming and they're like, Hey, verse 13, and there was no brand on the land of the famine was very sore
So the land of Egypt and all of the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine
Look when we look to the world, we're gonna get faint
If I think about all my worldly problems, believe me, I'll just start to faint right now
You know, do I have enough money to pay the bills and do I have enough money to feed my growing children? And you know
At the price of eggs has gone up
We went to Costco yesterday to get eggs and literally they have them in a corner
And they have a limit of three because people are freaking out because eggs are so expensive that everybody's buying all the Costco eggs
And people are literally fighting over eggs. There's videos
Where people are fighting over Costco eggs because they don't want to go to the regular grocery store and pay for eggs like people are freaking out
Remember during COVID, when everybody bought a lifetime
worth of toilet paper, because everybody freaked out.
What happens every time that there's gonna be
a major storm in Houston?
Have you ever tried to go to H-E-B in my water
whenever there's a major storm in Houston?
Good luck.
There's a couple of staples I keep.
I don't even know if I should be telling you this stuff,
but maybe you don't know where I live,
but there's a couple of staples I tell my wife
to always keep.
I like always keep some form of canned food.
and always keep jugs of water because when storms come you know where the last
place I want to be at the grocery store because it's just a mess but the
biggest thing is we need to keep our eye on the Lord the Lord will always
provide right so anyways I don't want to faint so I don't want to think about the
things of the world the people here focused on the world they're fainting
And then it says,
and Joseph gathered up all the money that was found
in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan
and the corn that they bought.
And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house.
And when the money failed in the land of Egypt
and the land of Canaan, the Egyptians came onto Joseph
and said, give us bread for why should we die
in thy presence for the money felleth?
And Joseph said, and then what happened was
that they started bartering.
So then what do they do?
I'm not going to read through all of this.
They give them cattle.
And then when they ran out of cattle,
they're like, hey,
We'll give you the land
And then when they ran out of land, they're like, hey, we'll serve you X number years
And then when they did all of that, what did Joseph do? Joseph got smart and he's like, hey, now I'm gonna give you seed
So so as we come out of this famine, but you're gonna give me a fifth of all that is reaped
Now Joseph probably gets this concept because he's a Christian and
The concept of tithing has been around since Abraham.
The problem is, Joseph takes it a little bit too far.
Like I said, I'm not picking on Joseph.
I don't know that Joseph did this.
Remember, Joseph also is highly influenced
by the fact that he's running in Egypt.
He knows the laws of the land.
He knows how Egypt has done things.
He's probably studied out Egypt.
What does he do?
He says, hey, we're gonna take a fifth of your harvest.
Well, what's the fifth of a harvest?
20%.
God only asked for 10% see any time that we do things opposite to what God asked it's gonna create problems
Now I didn't create problems during Joseph's time
but I really think this is one thing that leads them to be oppressed because
Basically what ended up happening here is that we get a big government
What's the biggest challenge we have in the US today?
What do people love paying and I'm being really sarcastic of decisions
They hate it, right? Who likes paying taxes here? Raise your hand. What was the last time you got up?
Close to April 15th, and you're like, I'm so excited. I'm gonna pay my taxes
Does anybody is there even a pay my taxes song like zippity-doo-da zippity-day
April 15th is coming today. You know, nobody's doing that, right?
Everybody hates paying taxes
And what did Joseph do here he created a big government
And a big government always does what, oppresses the people.
Why are people so excited about Donald Trump right now with Elon Musk?
Because supposedly, I haven't seen it, but supposedly they're cleaning up the government,
and people hate big government.
I mean, I don't know anybody who would disagree with that for the most part, unless you're
part of big government, then you would disagree with that, right?
Go to Exodus three. Just go to Exodus. We're going to be in the book of Exodus. Just a couple of pages there is
That
Obviously, what's the book of Exodus? What's the one Genesis? Exodus the one that comes next and what's happening in Exodus?
Literally Moses has to help them exit the land of Egypt because the next Pharaoh that's coming up is gonna
sorely oppress the people and I think one of the advantages that this pharaoh that's coming up had was
By the time he comes in
The people are basically living under a communist regime of some sort. I don't Joseph didn't set it up that way
But that's what it became because once you remove the hand of God the next people that come in command
They're not gonna be as you know, they're not Christian. So what are they? They're greedy
That's the problem with with a big government, right that everybody just wants to continue getting paid off the backs of the hard-working people
I mean, what are taxes in essence other than the tax that was set up by our government?
Once we go above and beyond that, you know what it is?
It's legalized robbery to tell me that I have to pay you for all the hard work that I think
about this because I know I see you guys back there and I know that you guys tie faithfully
But how frustrating is it, and I know you guys have W2 jobs, and I'm teaching you a
lesson because you guys are a little bit younger than me, but it's so frustrating because that's,
you know, those are the things that I had to figure out right away when I was a young
man, right?
When you get that paycheck, don't you hate that?
You see Social Security and FICA and your, you know, your tax base and what up.
Before you even get a dollar, everybody that didn't do any of the work that you did is
already asking for their handout, right?
Hey, thanks for doing those 40 hours a week
But I'm gonna take mine
Here's my taxes for this and here's my taxes for the roads
Here's the one tax because you you know, you might get sick
Here's the tax for for sneezing. Here's the tax for polluting the government. Here's the tax for using our roads
Here's the tax for so I think that's what happened, right? Joseph obviously is not gonna do that
But the next person that comes in command, he's just going to be more oppressive and more oppressive.
You go to Exodus 3, you go to verse 7, it says,
And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt,
And have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
Now they're taking them to the tasks and it says, and I am coming down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians
And to bring them up out of the land of the good land and the large and until land flowing with milk and honey
Until the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Parasites
And the Hivites and the Jebusites now therefore behold the cry of the children of Israel has come unto me
And I have also seen the oppression
Wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them
Hey, big government is no good. It's actually a biblical thing because big government will always oppress the people
They and you know the government the United States governments probably the smartest they learn from all the other communist regimes
They've learned from the Bible. They're like, hey, let's not oppress them directly. Let's do it indirectly
So how do we get oppressed today?
well
Less than four years ago, the price of eggs was X dollars and now it's like four or five times
So how's that you say how is that oppressive?
Well for the same amount of work you were doing four years ago
You're buying three or four times less than you were now
And it feels oppressive because you're like if I want to live the same lifestyle
I live ten years ago. I have to work not two times as hard, but maybe three four or five times as hard
Basically, you're being oppressed, you're being forced into this, like, basically like,
subtle slavery.
You don't have to go there, but next is 2221, the Bible says,
Thou shalt neither vex the stranger nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of
Egypt.
You know, by the time we get to the end of Exodus, God's reminded them, hey, when you
get to that land full of milk and honey, which by the way, I'm going to have time to go into
it, but in Deuteronomy, God tells them, hey, you're going to get this land.
And let me tell you why you're getting this land.
You're getting this land because I just wanted you to get the land, not because of anything
you did.
Not because of your great works or because you were a great people
You know why you're going to heaven because you believe the Lord Jesus Christ not because of you know
The great soul winning that you did or because you showed up to church faithfully on a Sunday evening
Or because you tie faithfully. No, you're going to heaven because you believe the Lord Jesus Christ
Go to chapter 48. I'll start to close this out. Like I said, I just want to do a brief overview
But in Proverbs 22 22 the Bible says rob not the poor because he is poor neither oppress the afflicted in the gate
For the Lord will plead their cause and spoil the soul of those that spoil them
Make no friendship with an angry man and with a fierce man that shall not go. Let's now learn his ways and get a snare to thy soul
Why I read all those verses instead of just the one about oppression because they go together
Because the government, you know, the IRS gets mad if you don't want to pay them their taxes
This big bloated entity. I mean, they'll throw you in jail. I don't know if you know this
It's not this sermon and I'm just gonna I'll get off that rabbit hole, but the IRS literally has their own
Judicial system their own court system their own judges that have nothing to do with the US Constitution
Like, you know, if you get like picked up by the IRS police, you're you're in a whole other
Legal system that has nothing to do with the legal system of the US all because you didn't pay the taxes
It's not biblical
But that being said we obey the laws of the land unless they're telling us not to not to follow Christ
So just pay your taxes
You know God got you know his taxes out of a fish
That would be really cool if we could go down to Galveston Island and just go fishing for like a week
And then pull all our taxes out of there
Right?
So basically, chapter 47 ends with the fact that God gave Jacob 17 more years.
He lived in the land of Egypt for 17 years.
Now it's time for him to die.
He tells his son, hey son, I'm going to die.
Don't bury me here with all these heathens, basically.
Bury me in the land of my fathers, bury me with my wife.
Take me back to the place.
And Joseph says, don't worry about it, I'm going to get it done.
And in chapter 48, just to close out so we could stay on track is basically
Jacob
Blesses Joseph's children. Now the only thing that really stands out and this is what I say other than Daniel
You don't see very there's very few characters in the Bible where you don't see their flaws
And I don't even think this is a flaw. I just think Joseph just gets a little irritated rightfully so because he's following
the hierarchy
But Jacob knows better, but basically when Joseph, and let me see if I can find that place because that's really where I want to close out
Well, all right go to verse 13 so
Joseph is talking to his son he's talking about all the things and he's gonna bless them right and
He says I want to bless your children
And in verse 11, actually, let's go to verse 11 in Israel sent unto Joseph. I had not thought to see thy face and a little guy show
Me
Also, I see he's like hey, not only did I get to see you
But I also got to see like your seed your children my grandchildren
And Joseph brought them out from between his knees
So there's obviously small children about himself with his face to the earth and Joseph took them both F for him in his right hand
and
Ephraim and he laid it
Well towards Israel's left hand and Manasseh and his left hand towards Israel right hand
So basically he's facing his father now his right hand
He he puts one child on the left hand and one child on the right hand because Manasseh is the older and Ephraim is the younger
The right hand always represents the most power right?
God is Jesus seated where at the right hand of God. That's just the way it is
But when Israel stretched out his hand and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger and his left hand upon Manasseh's head
Guiding his hand willingly or on purpose for Manasseh was the first war. So basically what is what is a?
Jake Jacob do he crosses his hands?
So he knows enough to know it across his hands and he's blessing the children like this
And this is the only part where it says and when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand in verse 17
Upon the head of Ephraim it displeased him and he held up his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head onto Manasseh
But notice even then you can't really get mad at Joseph. I don't really know that this is a flaw
Because Jacob corrects him and that ends the dispute
It's not like he got in a fight with his dad. He just was like, hey, you got it wrong and the dad's like, no
I didn't this is the way it's supposed to be blessed. The younger's gonna bless the older
I mean be greater than the older and
Joseph just leaves it alone
But that's literally the only time that's why I touch this is that's literally the only time that you could say
maybe Joe you see a flaw in Joseph, but
Literally you have Joseph and Daniel in the Old Testament where you don't really see a lot of flaws
Or any at all
And so in conclusion
As we run this thing out these are the major events because right we're doing an overview of the Bible
That's the whole goal of the evening. So you guys know this stuff and by the way, I hope you're paying attention because apparently
people don't know this like we need to teach people this stuff and
I wasn't too sure some, you know, sometimes you start on a thing and when I started down
this path, I wasn't too sure if this was the right thing.
But I was convinced that, you know, as long as I'm preaching the word of God, I'm okay.
But then this last week, I really got convinced because when Stephen gets killed, you know
why he gets killed?
He gets killed literally for preaching the history of Genesis, like he gets through like
almost the book of Genesis and then, and then they stoned him to death.
And it's such a good sermon that Jesus stands up at the right hand of God to deliver.
So to be honest with you, it's probably more important that I preach this at any other
sermons because if I were to die, I mean, God would be like, you were retelling my story
and I don't know that he would stand up to receive me, but he's definitely going to receive
me.
I don't want to put myself in Stephen's shoes.
I mean, he preached hard, which is that's a whole other thing.
Chapter 46, Joseph is reunited.
This is a big deal.
He thought he was never going to see his son.
I mean, this is like a miracle, basically.
It's like looking at a ghost, but it's not a ghost, right?
It reminds us of the parallel in Simeon.
Then chapter 47, what do we see?
The growth of the big government.
Joseph has a lot of power.
And honestly, it's not even to his fault.
I mean, if you're just growing a bigger company,
just getting bigger and bigger,
it almost takes a life of its own.
This is not the same thing,
but this is just to give you an example
of how hard it is to control something
that takes a life of its own.
When Mexico,
This is a Catholic priest that helped with the revolution or the independence of Mexico
Benito Juarez, but I could get their name wrong or maybe do that ago
I said, I haven't studied this in a while
But anyways one of the main proponents of the revolution as he started gathering steam
To go to Mexico City to fight like some of the major battles in Mexico City for this independence
He started getting people in like the smaller towns and the ranches and you know, basically he's out in the in the sticks
And he had such a big horde of people that what they were doing as they were getting
to the next city, instead of just chanting this revolutionary cry, they started pillaging
the cities and raping and murdering and stealing.
And this guy who was leading the charge was so overwhelmed by the masses that he just
let it happen.
His leadership lack because it was just such a big thing is what I'm saying is sometimes
We have to be careful the way we grow because if things take a life of their own without the proper direction
This is what happens, right? And and Joseph obviously isn't doing this. Joseph's doing this, right? If you read the chapter
He takes the money of the storehouse. He's divvying up things correctly. He's being righteous. He has integrity
But you know who comes next?
Other people that are Egyptians in that and those Egyptians they don't love the Lord
They're corrupt and that's what ends up happening. They're going to press people. So a growing government is never a good thing
But in the meantime, if it's led by men of God, it is a blessing to those people
So I wouldn't say that we should run for president so we could bless this nation because our country's so corrupt that I
Feel like I'm doing a Trump here. I don't mean to do that
But our country's so corrupt that I don't know that that would be beneficial, but in your day to day
in your jobs, in your families and everything,
just do a good job and you will be blessed by the Lord
and you will be a blessing to those.
And then just the final thing is that at the end,
we just see the blessings of Jacob.
Next week, we're gonna close out in the book of Genesis.
And the only reason I didn't do it today
is because Genesis 49 is a special chapter.
We're gonna touch on 50 just to close it out,
but Genesis 49 is really gonna be the theme.
Joseph I mean Jacob or Israel blesses all his children and we're gonna see some interesting ways that he blesses them
And then he makes an interesting a statement at the end
Which pastor Cobb taught me many years ago, which I think is really cool
Because we see a really clear picture of Jesus there
So I'm kind of setting up the commercial so that you'll be here next week, but it's saying that I really appreciate you guys
Bearing with me today's been a rough day
Don't know. I don't know what's going on. I don't feel that sick, but I feel sick. It's just weird
So just pray for my health that we can get through this
I'll be better next week and we can get back to the things that we can do
But let's go ahead and close in order prayer. Heavenly Father Lord. Thank you so much for today Lord. Thank you for your blessings
Lord just be with us
As we go about this week help me to just recover for whenever I got going on but anybody else. I know that
Liberty and her kids are back from
Costa Rica, and I think that as soon as they got here,
they're all ill, so just be with them as well.
Be with all those that drove here,
keep them safe on their way back,
and keep everybody healthy,
and safe, and help us to just continue to do the work
that we need to do,
and then we would continue to break records this year,
and soul winning, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.