[0:00] Please take your Bibles and open them up this morning to the book of Genesis.! Our passage this morning will take us from Genesis chapter 48 all the way through chapter 50 verse 14.
[0:15] ! I told you that these narratives in the Joseph section of Genesis kind of run a little bit longer and so it's harder for us to break them up into smaller chunks. And normally what we do is have you stand up in honor of the reading of God's Word, but I will be merciful to you in these longer sections and you may remain seated.
[0:34] And I won't read the whole section ahead of the sermon. Instead, as we've done over the past several weeks, I will instead read them in the content of the sermon itself. We've been working our way through Genesis for about a year and a half now.
[0:49] This is sermon number 45, I think, out of 46. Lord willing, we will complete this series next week. And we have seen so much of who God is and His great faithfulness and His sovereignty.
[1:03] All of these things that we've been praying about and singing about this morning, even. A big look at who our God is. So as we prepare to hear from the Word of the Lord this morning, would you bow with me and pray once more?
[1:15] Great is your faithfulness. Oh God, my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee.
[1:29] Father, You are good and You are sovereign. You are faithful to all Your promises. And You have chosen by Your grace to bless us in so many ways in Christ.
[1:40] And so we pray now, Lord, would You open our eyes to see how deeply we are blessed by You. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thomas Chisholm wrote the now famous hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, towards the end of his life, as he looked back and reflected on all the many ways that the Lord had been with him and blessed him.
[2:04] If you know anything about Thomas Chisholm and his life, you would know that his life was not easy. He dealt with constant sickness. He dealt with great loss.
[2:16] He dealt with financial hardship and struggle as a result of his ongoing sickness. It put a great burden on him and his family. His life, like many of ours, was filled with a lot of ups and a lot of downs.
[2:29] His were mostly a lot of downs. But as he looked back and reflected towards the end of his life, he was able to say that in all of it, he was blessed.
[2:40] I love the last verse of the hymn where he lists out several blessings in particular. Knowing his faithful God, he says, Now I wonder, as you look back and reflect on your own life, as you look at your own circumstances even this morning, do you consider yourself to be blessed?
[3:17] This morning, as we look at our passage this morning, we come to the end of Jacob's life. And what we've seen over the past several weeks is that Jacob's life was not easy. Jacob suffered tremendous loss.
[3:30] Jacob has been tested. And yet, through it all, the Lord has been faithful to Jacob. And the Lord has blessed Jacob tremendously. And now we see in his old age, right before he dies, he passes that blessing on to his children.
[3:47] So here's the main idea for us this morning. I hope you've caught it already in the songs that we've sung and the prayers that we've prayed. This is all about the blessing of God. And the main idea for us this morning is that there is incredible blessing for those who are in covenant with our faithful God.
[4:07] There is incredible blessing for those who are in covenant with our faithful God. To say that another way, if you are in Christ, you are blessed.
[4:19] So let's take a look. And this morning, we'll see three ways God blesses his people. This is going to be our outline this morning. I know it's a longer passage. This ought to help you follow along this morning.
[4:30] Three ways that God blesses his people. First, we see that God blesses his people in surprising ways. God blesses his people in surprising ways.
[4:43] Look there to chapter 48. It says, after this, that is sometime after Jacob and his family come into Egypt, now towards the end of his life, after this, Joseph was told, behold, your father is ill.
[4:57] So he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And it was told to Jacob, your son Joseph has come to you. Then Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed.
[5:08] I've heard it said before that last words are meant to be lasting words. You think about what you might want to share with your own family members, your own children, in your final moments.
[5:19] Whatever those last words will be for you, I'm certain that you'll want to think carefully and share what's most important to you, what's most important for them to hear. Well, Jacob, in his last moments, here at the end of his life, he shares about the most significant moment of his life.
[5:36] He shares about how God has met with him and spoken with him. Verse 3, Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me.
[5:48] And he said to me, behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.
[6:00] He says, God appeared to me. I need to share this with you, Joseph. God appeared to me, and God spoke with me, and God blessed me, and God made promises to me just like he did with my father Isaac and with his father Abraham.
[6:16] But now I need you to understand I'm coming to the end of my life. And now, son, it's time for me to pass that blessing on to the next generation. Now, all of this, up to this point, all of this makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
[6:30] But then he does something surprising. Look there to verse 5. He says, And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine.
[6:45] Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers and their inheritance.
[6:56] As for me, when I came from Paddan to my sorrow, Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way. And when there was still some distance to go to Ephraim. And I buried her there on the way to Ephraim. That is in Bethlehem.
[7:08] Did you catch what just happened? Jacob formally adopts Ephraim and Manasseh as his own children. And he gives them the status of his two oldest sons, Reuben and Simeon.
[7:24] Jacob claims them as his own. And so now these two children of Joseph, who were born to an Egyptian mother, born in Egypt, they're now being formally brought in to the blessings of the covenant that God made with Jacob.
[7:39] And we see it play out here in verse 8. When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, Who are these? Joseph said to his father, They are my sons whom God has given me here in Egypt.
[7:50] And he said, Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age so that he could not see. So Joseph brought them near to him and he kissed them and embraced them.
[8:03] And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face. And behold, God has let me see your offspring also. And then Joseph removed them from his knees and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.
[8:15] See, Joseph realizes the magnitude of this moment. Putting these two children on the knees of Israel is a sort of formal adoption ritual. And he knows that the blessing is coming.
[8:29] He knows that this moment of imparting the blessing is near. And so what does Joseph do? He sets them up in the way that makes the most sense to him. He puts the oldest towards Jacob's right hand and the youngest towards his left hand.
[8:43] Because the right hand would ordinarily go with the older as the sign of the greater blessing. But look what happens. Verse 14. Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger.
[8:59] And he takes his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands. For Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph.
[9:09] He really is blessing him through this blessing of his two children. And he said, Ephraim and Manasseh said, This is an incredible grace.
[9:46] But Joseph is confused by all of this. Verse 17 says, When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him.
[9:57] And he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head over to Manasseh's head. He thinks that this is all a big mistake. I mean, maybe it's because his father is going blind.
[10:07] And maybe it's just because it's a slip up of old age. So Joseph said to his father, It's not this way, father. This one's the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.
[10:19] But his father refused and said, I know, my son. I know. This is no accident. Accident. This is entirely intentional. He says, He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great.
[10:34] Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations. So he blessed them that day, saying, By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.
[10:51] Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh. And then Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I am about to die. But God will be with you, and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.
[11:03] Moreover, I have given to you, rather than to your brothers, one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow. He's still not done playing favorites, is he? Do you see how God blesses in surprising ways?
[11:20] Did you notice the surprising ways in which God blesses here? I see three here that I want to draw your attention to here before we move on to the next point. Three surprising ways that I see God blessing here.
[11:33] And I want you to see these, because you should know God still blesses in these three ways. In fact, if you are in Christ, then he has blessed you in these three ways.
[11:45] For one, we see God blesses through adoption. Ephraim and Manasseh were not Jacob's kids, but now they are. Why?
[11:55] He has adopted them as his own. They once had no claim to the blessing, but now they have full claim to the blessing. They once had no share in the inheritance, but now they have a full share in the inheritance.
[12:10] Do you realize, Christian, the same has happened with you in Christ. You were strangers, and you were aliens. You had no claim to the blessings of God, but God by his grace.
[12:26] What he's done for you in Christ is he has taken you from being an outsider, and he has adopted you into his own family as sons and daughters of the living God. That's what it means to be a Christian.
[12:39] The Apostle John says, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. Are you surprised by this?
[12:49] Another surprising way we see God blessing here, we see that God blesses through election. God blesses through election. We keep seeing this over and over and over again in Genesis, don't we?
[13:03] God chose before they were even born to put Jacob before Esau. God chose to make promises to Abraham, this pagan man out of all the men of the earth.
[13:16] God elected Abraham. He chose to make promises to Abraham. And so now, yet again, God chooses Ephraim to receive the place of preeminence over Manasseh.
[13:28] This is election. God chooses. And Christian, if you are in Christ, it is because God chose to bless you in him from before the foundations of the world.
[13:41] This is election. Ephesians 1 tells us, In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purposes of his will.
[13:55] Christian, are you surprised that God has chosen you? You should be. We're not the obvious choice. But that's because one final way, one final and third surprising way that God blesses here, God blesses according to his wisdom.
[14:15] According to his wisdom, which is almost always contrary to the wisdom of this world. And we should really stop expecting God to work according to our ways, shouldn't we?
[14:28] He loves to run contrary to our expectations. Why? Because in so doing, he magnifies his power, his glory, his wisdom, his knowledge.
[14:43] Where do we see this most clearly? Beyond the cross of Christ. Who would expect that the greatest blessing to the world would come through the death of the Son of God?
[14:56] Who would expect that in this moment of apparent victory for sin and victory for the grave and victory for the devil himself, that that exact moment would be the moment of their undoing?
[15:10] Who would ever expect that he would become sin for us so that in him we would become the righteousness of God? This is not man's wisdom. The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
[15:28] And so we see, first, God blesses in surprising ways. Not only this, second, second, we see God blesses in sovereign ways. God blesses in sovereign ways.
[15:41] Look there to chapter 49. Now, chapter 49 is incredible. And it shows us all of these blessings that Jacob gives to his children.
[15:51] And in each one, in each one of these, these blessings are prophetic. And they speak of future blessings that will come on these children that we can look back in history and see that these have all come true in time.
[16:07] And just like with all the other biblical prophecies, skeptics of the Bible will look at this and say, this is all too realistic sounding, right? This describes things a little bit too well, and so therefore, it must have been some later addition, right?
[16:24] Somebody years later must have just come back in and seen how all these tribes developed, and then they went back and they added in this little bit to explain the history of these tribes.
[16:34] That's the only explanation, right? That's one possibility, I guess, outside of there being no evidence whatsoever of that sort of thing happening here. May I present another possibility, one that we've seen all throughout the book of Genesis, is where the book of Genesis begins, and it's the fact that our God is totally and completely sovereign over all things.
[17:01] And therefore, He is able to speak blessing well in advance of it ever coming true in time. Because our God is the sovereign author of human history, He is able to reveal the future.
[17:19] That's what's happening here through these promises, these blessings that Israel gives over His children. I want to just look at each one here briefly, and you'll notice they're not in order of birth order, they're actually arranged here by birth mom, and the first six are Leah's kids.
[17:35] So let's take a look here. Chapter 49. Then Jacob called his sons and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the days to come.
[17:46] I mean, wouldn't you like for somebody to do that for you? Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob. Listen to Israel, your father. First up is Reuben. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity, and preeminent in power, unstable as water.
[18:05] You shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed, and then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. You notice there is no blessing here for Reuben.
[18:17] And the reason why is because apparently Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, slept with his concubine, Bilhah. And so this becomes his legacy, and that phrase actually, the first fruits of my strength.
[18:29] Do you see that there? Reuben is the first fruits of my strength. That can also mean the first of my pain. He's the first of my suffering. Reuben was a source of great pain for Jacob.
[18:43] And so as a result, he is not blessed. He's essentially left out of the blessing. And eventually, we can look ahead and see, eventually, Reuben's tribe would settle east of the Dead Sea.
[18:55] And they're basically, they just kind of fade out of history. They're really not a part of Israel's story. You all maybe have that one family member in your own family, right?
[19:06] Maybe more than one. Maybe you are that one. Something went down, and they're just never heard from again. They disappear, right? That's Reuben. Next up is Simeon and Levi.
[19:18] They're grouped together here. Verse 5. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Weapons of violence are their swords. Let my soul come not into their counsel. No, my glory be not joined to their company.
[19:31] For in their anger, they killed men. And in their willfulness, they hamstrung oxen. Cursed be their anger for it is fierce, and their wrath for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.
[19:45] Simeon and Levi, they're the only ones that are grouped together. And why is that? It's because of their actions of vengeance in that whole horrible episode with their sister Dinah.
[19:58] Do you remember that? Dinah, their sister, was defiled, and so how did they respond? They responded by tricking those who sinned against her, having them circumcised, so that when they were sore, they went in and they destroyed them all.
[20:13] Do you remember that? And do you remember what we asked at the end of that? We asked, was that the right response? Jacob seems to answer that question pretty strongly here, doesn't he?
[20:26] He says he doesn't want anything to do with these two sons. He says, let my soul not come into their counsel. I don't want my glory with their company. He curses their anger. That's the same curse language that God uses against the serpent in Genesis 3.
[20:40] Jacob speaks some heavy words here against Simeon and Levi. And as a result, he says, you are going to be scattered and divided. And again, as you look ahead in history, their descendants, they basically just filter into the other tribes.
[20:58] Simeon is essentially absorbed into the tribe of Judah. Levi, on the other hand, you probably know, Levi, they don't get an inheritance of land, but the Lord does seem to restore them.
[21:10] He makes them the priests of the people of Israel. The Levitical priesthood will come from the people of Levi. Judah, Judah's the first one to actually get some real blessing here.
[21:24] Look there to verse 8. He says, Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down before you.
[21:35] Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down. He crouched as a lion and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him.
[21:54] And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
[22:06] His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth are whiter than milk. Now this is a beautiful promise of blessing for Judah. The promise of praise. It's a play on words with the name Judah, which means praise.
[22:20] He says his brothers will praise him. He'll dominate his enemies. He'll be like a lion. Kingship will come from Judah. The peoples will obey him. He's so prosperous and successful that he's washing his clothes with wine.
[22:34] It's an incredible prophecy of blessing for the tribe of Judah. Zebulun, verse 13, they're the low country people. They dwell at the shore of the sea, shall become a haven for ships.
[22:48] His border shall be at Sidon. Issachar is a strong donkey crouching between the sheepfolds. He saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant at forced labor.
[23:03] Issachar is incredibly strong. He's a strong donkey, but he's lazy. Y'all have friends like that? I've had friends like that. They had all the natural gifting in the world to just be some awesome athlete, but they wouldn't pick up a weight or run a mile if you paid them.
[23:22] Issachar is a strong donkey that lays down with the sheep. And as a result, he winds up in lower Galilee, where it's nice and cozy and fertile and green and peaceful until, just like is prophesied here, until they wind up enslaved to the Canaanites and just as Jacob says, they become servants at forced labor.
[23:45] Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. It's a fitting job for someone whose name means judge, Dan. And Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path that bites the horse's heel so that his rider falls backward.
[24:01] He'll be like a serpent in battle. But Jacob reminds him, Dan, that your salvation ultimately comes from the Lord. Verse 18, I will wait for your salvation, O Lord.
[24:12] For Gad, he says, raiders are going to raid him, but he's going to raid back at their heels. Gad's name means good fortune, but it's not all good. He's got raids going back and forth constantly.
[24:23] Asher, which means happy, he says, Asher's food shall be rich and he shall yield royal delicacies. Asher's tribe will settle in the hill country over to the west and Galilee, again, where it's very fertile.
[24:37] And so he's able to provide royal delicacies, that good food and rich drink that makes him happy and it makes others happy as well. Naphtali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful fawns, verse 21 says.
[24:52] I got no clue what that means. Outside of probably he's just going to have some beautiful kids, I think. But then we come to Joseph, verse 22. And y'all know, Jacob has some more to say about his favorite son, Joseph.
[25:08] He says, Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring. His branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, yet his bow remained unmoved.
[25:24] His arms were made agile by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel. By the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breast and of the womb.
[25:43] The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents up to the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.
[25:57] And Joseph faced great obstacles, didn't he? Like a wall. And yet his branches ran over the wall. Joseph faced great enemies like archers bitterly attacking him and shooting at him.
[26:14] Enemies like his own brothers, his bitter brothers. Enemies like the temptations of Potiphar's wife. And yet he remained steadfast. How? How did Joseph remain steadfast?
[26:27] In the hands of the mighty one of Jacob, the shepherd, the stone of Israel, sustained him. Lastly, we come to Benjamin.
[26:40] Verse 27 says, Benjamin is a ravenous wolf in the morning devouring the prey at the evening, dividing the spoil. Historically, we can look and see Benjamin would settle between Ephraim and Judah and his area was basically always a war zone.
[26:58] They were always in conflict. But as a result, Benjamin, he becomes skillful in war and that little boy becomes a ravenous wolf. Verse 28 says, All these are the twelve tribes of Israel.
[27:12] And this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. Then he commanded them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people.
[27:23] Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place.
[27:39] There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, and there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah. The field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites. When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
[27:58] Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him, and Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel.
[28:09] Forty days were required for it, for that's how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days. And when the days of weeping for him were passed, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father made me swear, saying, I am about to die in my tomb that I have hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan.
[28:33] There shall you bury me. Now therefore let me please go up and bury my father, then I will return. And Pharaoh answered, Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.
[28:44] So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's household.
[28:58] Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company. When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and grievous lamentation.
[29:16] And he made a mourning for his father seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, the land of the Canaanites, saw the mourning of the threshing floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.
[29:28] Therefore, the place was named Abel Mizraim. It is beyond the Jordan. Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them. For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place.
[29:48] After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. You ever wonder why we need to know all this? Why do we care about these kids and what their grandpa has to say about them?
[30:06] It's because in all this, God's sovereignty is on display. It is stunning, really, when you stop and think about it, isn't it?
[30:21] The future is written in advance. Jacob says, Come here, let me tell you what's going to happen to you. How are you going to, how can you, how can you speak with such certainty about blessing that will happen in the future?
[30:37] He says, here's how you're going to be blessed, future. Here's what God will do in your life. That's only possible if God is truly sovereign. And we see here, God is sovereign over every single individual.
[30:52] He is sovereign over their families. He is sovereign over their tribes. He is sovereign over their countries. He is sovereign over all the world. And in his sovereignty, he guided Jacob and his family here into Egypt.
[31:07] And just as he promised, his son Joseph closes his eyes. This is God's sovereignty on display. Do you realize that the great faithfulness of God depends on his great sovereignty?
[31:21] If God is not sovereign over every detail, everywhere in his creation, every contingency, every second of every day, past, present, future, something somewhere might swerve him off of his plan.
[31:37] Praise God. We see here, our God is absolutely sovereign. And because he is sovereign, our God is able to distribute blessings as he sees fit.
[31:50] How amazing is it that he's created each and every one of us distinctly with unique giftings and different abilities and what a comfort it is to know that he's already planned out all of our days.
[32:06] If you have any blessings in your life whatsoever, you have a sovereign God to thank. And you need not worry about what the future holds. We have a sovereign God who holds the future.
[32:19] We have strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with 10,000 beside. Jacob blesses his children and then his story here comes to a close.
[32:33] And you know, when you read this, I wonder if you wished, man, I just wish I could receive blessings like this. I wish that someone could just tell me for certain the ways in which I am blessed and the ways in which I will be blessed.
[32:51] I mean, what a privilege it must be to be one of God's covenant people. Do you ever feel like that? What a privilege it would be to have access to this sort of incredible blessing. I remember a sweet old lady that I got to pastor and we were talking about the Old Testament.
[33:10] I can't remember what I was teaching on that day but we were talking about Israel and all these promises made to Israel and she said, you know, sometimes I just get a little jealous of Israel and I get a little sad and I wish that I could be blessed like that.
[33:25] I just wish that some of these promises would come to me and I got to say, oh, would you please sit down for a minute? Do you have a couple years to go through Genesis with me? All of the blessings, all of the promises, all of the benefits of being in covenant with the Lord are all ours by faith in Jesus Christ.
[33:50] Christ. This is our third and final point this morning, third. We see God blesses His people in His Son, Jesus Christ.
[34:03] The great question that we've asked over and over and over again as we've walked through Genesis ever since the Garden of Eden, the question has been, how can sinful man receive blessing in place of cursing?
[34:17] how can we be blessed when we deserve judgment? And the glorious answer that we're given is that it's in Christ that we're blessed. It is in Christ that we're blessed.
[34:31] You are blessed in Christ. This is the eternal plan of God from before the ages began. He planned to bless you in Christ. Ephesians 1 again tells us blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
[34:53] Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will and to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us.
[35:14] in the beloved. Christian this was God's plan from the very beginning. Haven't we seen God has been unveiling and revealing steadily this plan to bless His people in Christ.
[35:32] When God promised a snake crusher all the way back in Genesis 3 who will come and destroy the powers of sin and darkness He promised His Son Jesus who has conquered all the powers of sin and death who has destroyed the powers of the devil at the cross and at the empty tomb when He makes promises to Abraham you will be a blessing and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.
[35:59] He is promising His Son Jesus Christ who is the blessing to the world. And when Israel here when God through Israel gives this prophetic blessing to Judah He is promising Jesus Christ.
[36:16] Would you look there again with me? Did you notice all the ways this prophecy promises Christ? Points us to Him. Chapter 49 verse 8 when He says Judah your brothers shall praise you ultimately we are looking ahead to Jesus from the tribe of Judah the one who is deserving of all praise.
[36:39] When He says your hand will be on the neck of your enemies your father's sons will bow down before you we are looking to Jesus who will crush the head of the serpent.
[36:51] When He says Judah is a lion's cub from the prey my son you've gone up we are looking to Jesus the lion from the tribe of Judah. When He says the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to Him and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
[37:12] We are looking ahead to King Jesus the King of kings and the Lord of lords to whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
[37:28] When He says Judah is binding his foal to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine he's washed his garments in wine and his vesture is the blood of grapes his eyes are darker than wine his teeth are whiter than milk we are looking to Jesus who's the rightful heir of every treasure of heaven and who by His grace shares that inheritance with sinners like us.
[37:54] Do you see Jesus is the blessing God has sent to the world? Any who come to Him in faith any who come to Him in faith will be blessed now and into eternity beyond their wildest dreams.
[38:14] Your sins will be forgiven. You will be adopted as sons and daughters of the living God. You will be given an eternal hope ahead of you that's guaranteed by the great faithfulness of our sovereign God.
[38:29] God as we read earlier this morning Peter tells us according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you.
[38:52] Friend do you realize how blessed you are in Christ? Do you know the blessing of knowing God? Have you come to Him in faith?
[39:08] Have you been adopted as a son or a daughter of the living God? Have you received blessings upon blessings upon blessings in Christ Jesus?
[39:20] If not then friend what would keep you from coming to Him in faith this morning? And if so in church would you rejoice in the blessings that God's given you in Christ?
[39:34] Would you rejoice in the great faithfulness of our God? You have been brought into covenant with Him at the price of His own blood. Matthew Henry says as long as we have an interest in God's covenant a place grace and a name among His people and good hopes of a share in the heavenly Canaan we must account ourselves blessed.
[40:02] Father we are blessed and it's only in Christ that we are blessed and it's only by your sovereign grace that we are in Christ.
[40:14] So we pray now Father if there are any here who are not in Christ would you give them the gift of faith this very moment. Would they call out to you and ask God please bless a sinner like me.
[40:27] And Father for this church we ask that we would rejoice in the blessings that you've given us undeserved, unmerited by us but freely given by the sacrifice of your Son.
[40:39] We praise you for this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.