Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
So, we're going to take a look at Hebrews again, chapter 11.
And today's message is titled, Being Blessed by Faith.
And, you know, we think of bless, it's kind of one of those words that it's hard to define.
You know, you might come up with, well, it means being happy, it means being fruitful,
it means being Godly, all these things.
But there are different words in Greek for blessed and to bless.
And the one is mekarias, if you could put that first slide up.
And that's where, remember in the Beatitudes when Jesus speaks about how it is to be blessed.
11 times he said, blessed are they.
And mekarias, he said in Matthew 5.
8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Now, this blessed means it's kind of like a feeling and an overall joy, it's a happiness.
And they will find happiness in the midst of this.
But the blessing that we're going to talk about is eulogio.
You know, I always know it when I come in in the morning.
And then the worship just knocks it right out of me.
But eulogio, okay, and we see this in the verse where,
bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.
And it's more an active thing, eulogio.
And the next slide, we see it's where we get the word actually eulogy, okay.
And it's broken into two words, you, which is to be well off,
and lago, which is speech, a word uttered by a living voice.
So in other words, now we're talking about speaking good or God's goodness onto something.
And so eulogio means to praise, celebrate with praises, to cause, to prosper,
to make happy, to consecrate a thing with solemn prayers.
So this kind of blessing is what we do before we pray before a meal, okay.
We pray that the Lord would use the food to empower us to do his will.
So it's really like conveying or proclaiming God's goodness
upon a person, place, or thing.
That's the kind of blessing we're talking about today, okay.
And there's a difference and you'll see.
And today we're gonna look at five different people in the Bible
who were blessed in this way and why it matters to us.
Last week, didn't my son-in-law Tevin do a great job?
Yeah, I just love that great man of a guy.
He spoke and taught about Abraham offering up Isaac
and he compared it really to the fact that Abraham didn't make Isaac an idol,
though it would have been easy to do, wouldn't it have been?
It's his only son of promise, okay.
And by then Ishmael was already, you know, led away.
And so he had one son and now this one son he's offering up
would be easy to make Isaac an idol, but he didn't.
He offered Isaac up to the Lord at an age that Isaac would know full well
what's going on, right.
I won't get into his age because it's a big range
and different theologians have different ideas about that.
But he definitely would remember God was offering me up to the Lord.
But you see, the fact that Abraham offered up Isaac to the Lord
showed Isaac that God is more significant than even Isaac
and he's more significant than Abraham.
In fact, God is number one, right.
And so he was actually blessing Isaac by demonstrating this.
And I know that's a hard thing to get our head around, you know,
but really when we put a person, a place or a thing,
but a person in this case above God, okay.
What it does, it doesn't benefit that person.
In fact, it really curses them in a sense
because what they don't realize is how significant God is.
And you know, I've seen it many times while I was a youth pastor
of how parents would put their kids over God.
Oh, we're too busy with the kids sports, we can't go to church, okay.
Oh, they're too, they're studying too much.
They can't go to youth group, okay.
They don't feel comfortable with other Christian kids.
You know, you name the excuses, okay.
And they just, and so they would put the concerns
or comfort of their children over God's purpose
for their children's lives, right.
And they think they're doing their children a favor.
It never works out well.
Let me tell you something, never.
I've never seen that work out
because what happens is the whole family starts drifting
away from God.
So you see, when we actually show our loved ones
that God is more important than even them,
we're actually blessing them because now they can say,
well, this God, all purpose comes from God.
So now they get captivated by this God who is so great.
And so Isaac was being blessed by Abraham
because he saw how important God's will is.
And then of course he saw God's deliverance.
And then he realized, you know what, if I follow God
it's always gonna work out well for me, okay.
And so this is the idea.
So we're gonna look at five different people
who were blessed.
And I'll just give you one quick example in the Bible
now that we're at it regarding relationships.
Remember the priest Eli, okay.
He had two sons, Hophany and Phineas.
And they were in the tabernacle doing all kinds
of bad things in front of God, okay.
They're molesting women.
They're stealing the sacrifice from innocent Israelites
that were coming in with the best they can afford
to offer up to God.
And Hophany and Phineas would just come by
and stab the fork in it and pull it right out of the pot.
Thank you very much.
You know, let me know when you have another one.
You know, like just stealing from God, you know.
And Eli did nothing about it.
And God warned him.
And it didn't turn out well for Hophany, Phineas,
or for Eli, right.
And that's what happens when we put our relationships
as more important, significant than our relationship
with God, it's a curse to everyone.
So we need, this is a blessing is to demonstrate
how significant God is.
And that's why as a youth pastor, I usually used to say,
you know what, make your kids go.
Don't give them a choice.
And I know some of you are like, I can't do that.
Well, you can when they're five, six, seven,
eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.
Once they get to 18, go where?
Yeah, right, you know, because by then it's too late, right?
So we need to maintain that discipline in our children.
So anyway, without further ado,
we're gonna look at these three verses,
but we have a lot of scripture we're looking at,
of course, cross-referencing.
And today there's a lot of narrative.
You know, I don't know about you,
but I love the Old Testament stories, don't you?
I was talking to Jerry Dover yesterday.
I was talking about how important it is
to know the stories of the Bible.
Because if you don't know the stories of the Bible,
you don't really grasp the mind and heart of God.
Because to me, everything I think of,
I see something happen,
it reminds me of something in the Bible.
And I can relate it with something.
It's an algorithm, if you will.
It's an algorithm of biblical truth
that when I see something happen,
oh, I get it, that looks like this, that looks like that.
It's like I see everything through a biblical prism.
And really, that's why it's so important
to know the stories of the Bible.
But anyway, so let's look at Hebrews 11, verse 20.
By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau
concerning things to come.
So many years after he was offered up as an offering,
Abraham sent away for, before he died, he sent away.
Go get a wife for my son Isaac out in Mesopotamia,
where I came from,
because he shouldn't marry anyone in this land of Canaan,
because this land is cursed.
That's why we're here to bless,
to overturn this land with the blessing of God.
So the man went, brought back Rebecca,
Isaac and Rebecca get married, okay,
when he was 40 years old.
Years go by and Rebecca is barren.
So 20 years into their marriage almost,
Isaac finally just prays out to God.
I don't know why he waited so long,
but he prayed, Lord, please open her womb.
And she got pregnant, right?
And so now she's pregnant, not with one,
but two twins, Jacob and Esau.
And as she's there, her stomach is going,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
you know, like there's a rumble in her tummy, okay?
And she's like, what is going on here?
Some of you pregnant women, okay?
Let's see a show of hands of all the women
who have been pregnant in the last five years.
I know you're all like, well, there's a lot of you,
but have you ever felt the baby kick?
Of course you have, or a punch or something, okay?
And jump around, some of your kids that you know
are musical before they even come out,
you know, there's a bass playing,
I, Vernon's up there going, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
all of a sudden your kids are, boom, boom,
and they're dancing, they're breakdancing in your womb,
and you don't even realize it,
they're doing head spins, no, I'm kidding.
But you know, they're already musical, you know?
I remember, you know, I used to sing to Jake,
you know, in the womb, I would sing against Jill's belly,
and you could just, you know, feel him moving around,
and you know, and he's musical, you know?
But whatever it is, you know,
it's so important to realize
that there are little humans growing up in that womb, right?
And so, there's a rumbling going on,
and so finally Rebecca says, if I am well,
let's put this first verse up there,
cross-referencing, Genesis 25, 22 to 23,
but the children struggled together within her,
they're already rumbling, and she said,
if all is well, why am I like this?
So she went to inquire the Lord,
two nations are in your womb,
two peoples shall be separated from your body,
one people shall be stronger than the other,
and the older shall serve the younger, okay?
So, Rebecca is already being told by God
that the second one that comes out of that womb
is actually going to be greater than the first, okay?
And so, they're both born, and you know the story
how Jacob is holding on to the heel of Esau
as he's being pulled out,
that's why he was called the supplanter,
or heel grabber, okay?
And he's grabbing on, holding on, you know,
hey, I'm supposed to be first, whatever the story is,
but so he's heel grabbing,
and thus his name is Jacob, the supplanter, right?
And so, they start growing up,
and as they grow up, we read in Genesis 25, 27 to 28,
so the boys grew it, Esau was a skillful hunter,
a man of the field, but Jacob was a child, a mild,
and the word mild does not mean wimpy.
I know I hear a lot of times in messages
that, oh, Jacob was a fairy,
he's hanging out with his mom in the tents,
and you know, maybe they don't go that far,
but it's this picture of this wimpy guy, you know?
Jacob was not wimpy, he was just more reserved,
more, I guess, calculated with his words,
and his actions, and more discerning, perhaps,
you know, he was just more subdued,
and this word time actually means plain,
complete, morally innocent, having integrity,
perfect, quiet, ethical, wholesome, you get the idea.
So, it wasn't wimpy, okay?
So, Jacob hung out with his mom, okay?
And he was a mild man, dwelling in tents,
Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game,
but Rebecca loved Jacob.
Now, preferential treatment of your children
is really a kiss of death, isn't it?
I mean, it's like, it's a recipe for disaster in your home,
okay, but we see in this biblical family
that's kind of what was happening, right?
Because Esau was out there with his bow,
and he was like, killing animals,
and he'd bring me, oh, dad, look what I got this time.
It reminds me of Jake, actually my son,
Jake always texts me of his turkeys,
his deer, his this, and that, and the other thing.
But if you know Jake, he's actually a lot like Jacob,
his name's Jake, right?
He actually is a mild guy, but you know,
like, you see that Esau's bringing home these beasts
in the field, and you can just tell Esau,
that's my son, look what he got.
Esau was a rough and tumbly kind of guy.
He was a man's man, you know what I mean?
He probably didn't think too much,
just did what he did, okay, out of instinct, okay?
But Jacob was discerning, and Rebecca knew
he's actually greater than Esau.
But Isaac didn't realize that yet, right?
And he preferred Esau.
And so, as time went on,
I wanna make sure time went on,
Esau was getting older,
and you would think that he appreciated
the fact he was first born, but he didn't even care about it.
And you know the story, one day that Esau came in
from a hunt, he was hungry, he was starving, right?
And Jacob was there, and he said,
give me some of that lentil stew.
Well, I'll give it to you if you give me your birthright.
Oh, what do I care about my birthright?
I'm starving, just give it to me, right?
And we see this in Genesis 25, 33 to 34.
Swear to me as of this day, so he swore to him
and sold his birthright to Jacob.
And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils,
and then he ate and drank, arose and went his way.
Thus, Esau despised his birthright.
Like he could care less about his birthright.
Now, I've met kids that really have a disdain
for their parents, how that developed
and what happened there, I can't answer,
but when you have this kind of rebellious child
who really dislikes their parents, you get the sense
that this is exactly what was going on.
Esau was hated by God in a sense,
and Jacob was loved by God, it reads in the New Testament,
for a reason, because God foreknew them, okay?
So Esau was not only rough and tumbly,
but he really didn't care a whole lot
about his parents' opinions,
because he knew that they were not supposed
to marry anyone in the land of Canaan.
But guess what, that's exactly what he did.
We read that in Genesis 25, 34 and 35.
When he was 40 years old, he took as wives Judith,
the daughter of Barry, the Hittite,
and base math, the daughter of Elon, the Hittite,
and they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca.
So, you know, Rebecca, Isaac is saying,
what did he do?
Why would he marry these people?
Like, you know, like these are not of our people,
and they have foreign Gods, foreign culture,
foreign, you know, and they're paganistic, right?
They don't follow Yahweh, and so they were really burdened.
But you know, Esau still, I mean,
Isaac still preferred Esau, because he loved the hunt.
He loved the bravado of Esau, okay?
And so as time went on, and we don't have the verse here,
but Isaac was very old, couldn't see,
and he said to Esau, all right, go out,
hunt me something good, come back,
and I'm gonna give you your first birthright blessing,
so that, you know, when I seal you with this blessing,
God is gonna honor it and just bless you, okay?
I'm gonna eulogia all over you here,
and you're gonna just be filled
with God's, you know, goodness, right?
And so he leaves, and as he's hunting,
Rebecca heard that, and she's like, wait a minute,
my husband's a dunce, okay?
She didn't say that in the Bible,
but she's thinking, what is he doing?
I told him that actually Jacob is the better of the two.
Why is he choosing the one who has already displayed
that he's marrying these other women,
he disdains his birthright, he could care less.
Why is he still gonna bless him in this special way?
And so as Esau's away hunting,
Rebecca comes up with this funny idea,
put these skins on, I'm gonna make some food
as if you just went out as Esau and killed it,
and you're gonna bring it to Isaac,
and he's gonna bless you as if you were Esau.
Now, I don't know, it worked, but it's still,
I still can't put my brain around that one.
So he did all those things,
and, you know, Isaac was a little suspect.
You never know, I'll bet you there's commentaries
that questioned whether he did actually know who he was,
but I'm not going there.
So he comes, so as Esau's gone,
Jacob comes back with the skins of the animals,
feeling like Esau's hairy arms,
and he's like, here it is, you know,
how did you get back so fast?
You just left, okay?
Oh, God was good, he set me up with an easy kill.
Okay, so he gives him the blessing,
I'm not gonna get all that.
And then as he's leaving, Esau finally comes in,
I got it, pops, here's the killing.
He's like, wait a minute, what just happened?
Like, who was that just?
Your brother came, and he pretended to be you.
And so Esau was like flipping out, like,
that's why his name is heel grabber,
and he's so deceiving, you know,
don't you have something for me, God?
You know, it's always funny how you can't just muster up
another blessing, right?
But he's like, don't you have something,
and he's weeping, and so Isaac blesses him,
but probably not the best way you would wanna be blessed.
And we read this blessing in Genesis 27, 39, 40.
Nicole, you're doing a great job,
I know there's a million slides up there.
But then Isaac his father answered and said to him,
behold, this is his blessing to Esau.
Behold, your dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth,
that sounds pretty good, okay, he loves hunting anyway.
And the dew of heaven from above,
your sword, by your sword you shall live.
That sounds tough.
And you shall serve your brother, that's even worse, okay?
And it shall come to pass when you become restless
that you shall break his yoke from your neck.
So he's saying Jacob's going to be better,
and you're gonna have to fight and struggle
for everything you get, okay?
And is that because, why is that?
Is that because Isaac didn't like Esau?
He loved them.
But he was finally realizing, oh, this is of God,
because the Lord knows these two better than I do, obviously.
And he has these blessings set up for a reason
because he knows them.
And so as time goes on, Esau is already planning
to kill his brother, look, my dad's old,
he's about to die, as soon as he's done,
Jacob, shh, he's done, right?
So Rebecca catches wind of this.
She says to Jacob, look, you gotta get out of here,
go to my homeland and marry women from women.
A woman, it becomes women.
You know the story, unfortunately.
But marry away from my homeland, not of the Canaanites,
which your brother Esau did, okay?
And so we read this, we might have this one up there.
Isaac then intentionally blesses his son Jacob.
This proves that finally Isaac came to his senses.
Are you tracking me?
I know I'm going through a lot of stuff here.
But Isaac finally realizes, oh no,
Jacob is the favorite one, okay?
And he says, then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him
and charged him and said to him,
you shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful
and multiply you that you may be an assembly of peoples
and give you the blessing of Abraham
to you and your descendants with you
that you may inherit the land in which you are a stranger
which God gave to Abraham.
So he sends him off as a blessing.
And do you know what happens?
Esau, we're not gonna put that slide out
because we're gonna run out of time,
but Esau hears, oh, my parents blessed Jacob
and sent him away and said,
don't marry a woman from this land.
And I already married two.
You know what, I'm gonna find another one.
And not just any other one.
I'm going to go to the house of Ishmael.
Now imagine being Isaac.
Who's your arch enemy?
Ishmael, okay?
And your son goes to Ishmael
and marries his daughter.
Wow, that's spiteful, isn't it?
Oh, my parents don't like this?
Excellent, that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
Have you ever met kids that do that?
I have.
Adults that are still doing it.
They think they're still doing it to their parents.
They're doing it to themselves.
That's what they're doing.
They're wrecking their own life.
They think they're wrecking their parents' lives.
They're wrecking their lives.
So he goes and marries another woman, okay?
Who's an Ishmaelite.
So again, so it demonstrates the heart of Esau.
So let's move on to the next verse.
The other two are gonna go a bit faster.
So verse 21, by faith, Jacob, when he was dying,
blessed each of the sons of Joseph
and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.
Okay, so as time went on, you know the story
that Jacob comes back from Mesopotamia
with 11 and 12 sons and a daughter.
And when he comes back, okay,
he starts living in different parts of the Promised Land.
And then his sons hate Joseph because he's favored.
His father's showing him preferential treatment.
And so they end up selling him into slavery.
Joseph goes from slavery to prison
to the second in command of Egypt.
Second, pardon me, to Pharaoh, okay?
And so now he's in control of all the land of Egypt.
So he's really blessed.
And then he's given a wife, okay, from Pharaoh to marry.
And he has two sons.
One, his name was Ephraim.
The first one was Manasseh, and the other was Ephraim.
And I think we have that verse up there,
if you can show it, Genesis 28.
No, no, I'm sorry, Genesis 41, 50 to 52.
And he says, and to Joseph were born two sons
before the years of famine came,
from Asenaph, the daughter of Potipharic,
priest of on, brought to him, to Joseph,
called the name of the first born Manasseh,
for God has caused me to forget
all of the toil of my father's house.
And the name of the second, he called Ephraim,
for God has caused me to be fruitful
in the land of my affliction.
So here he names two.
Now, there is a significance of these names.
Manasseh means to forget, okay.
He's like, you know, I'm actually,
I'm thriving in this new land.
I don't wanna remember anything of my past.
I don't wanna remember the pain
of my own brothers wanting to kill me.
If it wasn't for my one brother rescuing me,
I wouldn't even be here anymore.
And then I got sold as a slave by my own family.
And then I got accused of trying to rape Potiphar's wife,
wrongly, I get thrown in prison,
and then I'm in there far longer than I should have been.
I wanna forget all that stuff.
And as his son comes out, he says,
Manasseh, I wanna forget.
That's what his name means, forgetful, to forget.
And then the second one was better.
It means a double blessing, doubly fruitful, okay.
Because finally he realized,
you know what, this land is pretty good.
Like if all that hadn't happened,
I wouldn't be here right now.
He finally realized this was by God I'm in this place.
Okay, he told his brothers later,
you designed all this for evil,
but God caused it for good.
He always intended me to be here in Egypt,
living at large, saving lives
and being blessed all over the place.
If you hadn't sold me into slavery, I never would be here.
Isn't it amazing how God uses really bad things
in our lives to do really great things, isn't it?
God causes all things to work for the good
of those who love him
and who are called according to his purpose.
He uses bad stuff to do great things.
Why try to forget it?
He names the first one Manasseh
because he said, I wanna forget all that stuff.
But then when he has Ephraim, he says,
actually, I wanna remember all this stuff
because without all that, I would not be here.
I don't know about you,
but I remember a lot of bad things that happened in my life.
And now I'm connecting the dots.
And I'm saying, because that happened, this happened,
then this happened, then that happened.
And here I am right now.
Amen.
What else is gonna happen next?
If something bad happens,
I'm just gonna follow the next dot, right?
Because it's gonna go somewhere good, right?
No matter what happens on this side of heaven,
it's all for his glory.
If we're seeing it that way, if we're living it that way,
it's all for his glory, amen?
And so he names his two sons, okay?
And then finally, his father Jacob arrives into the land.
He's getting old.
He can't see either.
There's a pattern in the Bible, right?
And so he goes up and he goes, come here, Joseph,
I wanna bless your two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
And as he brings them up, he goes, bring them here.
And so Joseph's lining up Manasseh to his right hand
because it's usually seen as the right hand
is really the greatest of blessing.
And usually from the man's mindset,
the firstborn should get the greatest blessing, okay?
It never seems to work out that way in the Bible, okay?
Because God calls his,
he decides who's really the firstborn, okay?
Man doesn't, right?
So he lines up Manasseh to have the right hand
of blessing by his father, Joseph,
and he lines up Ephraim to his left hand
of Jacob for that blessing, okay?
And so all's good.
He's all lined up.
All right, dad, come on and do it.
Dad can't see nothing.
He goes like this.
And he puts his right hand on Ephraim's head
and his left hand on Manasseh's head.
And he starts blessing them, okay?
And he's like, and you imagine Joseph, he's already,
we already know he's like a really OCD
administrative kind of guy.
I mean, he notices everything.
That's what kind of guy he is, right?
He's like, when do I interrupt him
and tell him he's blind, right?
I gotta stop this debauchery, right?
And so as he's blessing him, you don't know,
five, five, five, five, dad, no offense,
but your arms are crossed, right?
You're blessing the wrong people.
He goes, I know, I know what I'm doing.
Actually, Ephraim is gonna be greater than Manasseh.
Here we go again.
It's not the first born, it's Ephraim.
And so he goes on to bless him even further.
We're not gonna show the blessing,
but he goes on and blesses them,
but he puts Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.
So, you know, there's theologians and commentaries
that can go all kinds of places with why did he do that?
How did he know, okay?
Well, we see the lineage of these two
when they became tribes and that played out, okay?
Because actually when they were going in
to the Promised Land, and I have a picture of that map,
okay, and if you see here, they came around here,
and as they approached the Promised Land,
two and a half tribes stayed behind.
We like it over here.
We don't wanna live in the Promised Land.
Now Manasseh was a big, big tribe,
but half of them stayed over here.
And most theologians agree
that was a reflection of them as a tribe.
We don't wanna go all in for whatever reason.
We're comfortable here.
They said to Joshua, no, we're good here.
This land's good too.
I mentioned a couple weeks ago, why be half settled?
Why not go all in?
If God is calling you all into his goodness,
why would you stay half in and half out?
In fact, James talks about living a double-minded life,
right, and meaning like, I'm in, but I'm not in.
I'm out, where am I?
And not going all in to the Promised Land.
And we see this, that this was Manasseh.
He did not go all in to the Promised Land.
And this could be a reflection,
but also we see that Ephraim, even though it's little,
it became the leading tribe of the Northern Kingdom.
In fact, the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel
was Jeroboam, who was an Ephraimite.
So we see this playing out.
So all right, one last one, you're with me.
I know it's a lot of stuff,
but it's good to know these things.
All right, so verse 22.
And by faith, Joseph, when he was dying,
made mention of the departure of the children of Israel
and gave instructions concerning his bones.
Now that's just a weird verse, isn't it?
But it's because Jacob said to him
when he was blessing Manasseh and Ephraim.
And by the way, you're not gonna stay here in Egypt.
Your bones are gonna be carried back to the Promised Land.
Now, if you're like me, when you die,
do you care where your bones are?
Like, it doesn't matter.
That's not where your body is.
But first of all, in that culture,
the burial site meant a lot, okay?
And in a sense, well, we won't go there,
but it meant a lot, okay, where the cemetery was.
In fact, it was special graves that were purchased
where all the loved ones were buried and still are today.
But it meant something because it meant that Israel,
it will someday leave Egypt and return to the Promised Land.
I'll bet you Joseph never had any idea
while he was about to die.
He was probably saying, oh yeah, yeah.
And daddy told me, bring my bones back home.
He's probably thinking, like 10 years from now
or five years after we get tired of this land,
don't forget my bones.
400 plus years later, they remembered his bones.
They stayed too long and became slaves,
if you know this story.
And so, looking at all these blessings, okay,
you're saying, so what does all this mean?
Because I'm trying to, as I'm going through this,
I am gonna confuse them with too many stories.
So let's summarize it, shall we?
We got a few minutes to summarize these three blessings.
So first of all, let's put these up.
First of all, how can we be blessed by faith?
Well, what did we learn from the first blessing?
It's about the birthright.
Esau could care less about his birthright.
Esau did not care to honor his parents
as being the first in line of his family
and married whoever he want, did whatever he want.
He could care less.
But Jacob cared and he carried with him that blessing.
So the first thing we can remember
is cherish our birthright.
You know, we are, of course, adopted into a family
and the firstborn is Jesus Christ, okay, of the new creation.
And we are with him in his first birthright.
So we have the birthright of Jesus Christ.
It's so important for us to remember we are blessed
because we have the birthright of Jesus Christ.
And I think it's important because as we live this life,
it's important to remember it matters the things we do
because we're a reflection of Abba Father in heaven, right?
It matters, it matters.
I am a reflection of my father.
I'm an apple, whatever the word is,
apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I'm the apple of his eye, okay?
I'm one of his children.
I belong to the first birthright of Jesus Christ, okay?
That's remembering that, that's a picture of Esau and Jacob.
Jacob knew it, Esau never knew it.
And we don't have time to get into his lineage
of Edom and so forth.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is the blessing of Manasseh and Ephraim
or vice versa, because Ephraim got the first blessing.
What does that teach us?
Well, one thing is fruitfulness is greater
than forgetfulness.
And what do I mean by that?
So Manasseh's name was to forget.
I wanna forget everything about my past life in Canaan.
All the things my brothers did to me.
And even the way my father showed too much affection
towards me and not the other ones and they were jealous.
I mean, whose fault's that?
It's not Joseph's, right?
It's not his fault, he's got the multicolored tunic
and his brothers didn't, you know?
I mean, what is all that about, you know?
Here, you're so favored to me, I'm gonna dress you
in something that nobody else has.
That's an easy way to get your siblings to beat you up.
Okay, you know, right?
So are you ever gonna forget your past?
Let's be honest.
No, you don't forget it.
You can't forget pain, but you can use pain.
Because when Joseph finally realized, wait a minute,
if that hadn't happened, this wouldn't have happened.
Ephraim, my son, I am doubly blessed.
Yo, being fruitful in the midst of your pain.
You know, why be ensnared by the past pain?
We can be propelled by it, right?
I'd rather be propelled by pain than paralyzed by it, right?
And we really can, we can use pain to drive us forward.
Can't we?
Can you relate to that?
Fruitfulness is greater than forgetfulness.
And one other thing is we gotta go all in.
Because Manasseh stayed back, you know?
He was double-minded, he stayed on one side,
but he also went in.
You know, if we're gonna be fully blessed by faith,
we need to go all in, whatever that looks like for you.
You know, whatever God's calling you into, go all in.
Don't hold back and waste your time.
Think about how much time we waste
watching Netflix series and YouTube shorts.
And I do it sometimes, so I'm confessing.
Don't tell anyone, but I'm confessing
for a great cloud of witnesses right now, right?
But I realize no more.
I see them pop up, oh God, now you're not getting me
this time, not this time.
I have important things to do, right?
But really, why not just go all in
to what God's calling us into
and not waste our time with nonsense?
And then finally, Joseph realized, you know,
as great as I am in Egypt here, this isn't my homeland.
My country is in Canaan.
We all need to realize whether you're on a high in life
and you're like, oh God, you know, this is awesome.
I want Jesus to come back, but not quite yet
because I gotta finish this good time I'm having.
You know, have we all fought that once in a while?
Anyone, can I get any witnesses?
No, all right, I'm the only one.
But sometimes I'm thinking, you know, hey,
well, the Lord's coming back,
but I wanna see where this particular situation ends, okay?
I'm excited about, you know, you know,
and I have more work to do.
Lord, don't come back yet.
I mean, I don't really say this, you know,
because I know anything we, is revealed to us
when he comes back will blow away anything
that we think we're holding on to down here.
I realize that.
But at the same time,
Joseph had a plush, luxurious life in Egypt,
but he was like, you know what?
But I know, I don't belong here.
This is not my home.
The word says that all of them knew
that there was gonna be a heavenly country someday.
And it wasn't about Canaan either,
but it was about a future.
So we have to remember that it's not about here.
Lord, we wanna be fruitful
because of the pain that we've endured.
We're not gonna forget it.
We can't forget it.
But we can use it as fuel for our future.
And Lord, we don't wanna be like Manasseh,
living a double-minded life,
staying half in and half out.
Lord God, we wanna go all in.
We wanna step into the promised life,
not leaving anything back on the other side,
that the enemy could come and snatch away.
And Lord, we wanna go all in
where we are fully protected.
Lord, we wanna go all in.
And finally, Lord, just as Joseph was told by his father,
your bones aren't staying here
because this isn't your home.
Lord God, we thank you that we can thrive in this world.
We can, but it's all for the kingdom of God.
It's not about here.
We can't take anything of this world with us,
but we can sure store treasures in heaven.
Lord God, it's not about here,
but it's about heaven, Lord God.
So we wanna remember not to make this our home down here
and forget what our purpose is.
And so Lord, we wanna, we thank you for your blessing.
And Lord, we wanna be blessed by you.
You speak good things over us all the time.
You sing over us.
Zephaniah 3 17 says, you sing, you cherish us
and you sing over us.
We are your prized possession made in your image.
Abba, Father, we love you so much.
And Lord, as we sing this last song,
which was God orchestrated, not even arranged,
God arranged it.
Lord, we sing this song to receive your blessing.
And we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Let's worship the Lord.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His word.
Don't forget to join us for worship live Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day.