Faith - Hebrews 11:22

to your offspring, I'll give this land. And he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

So he built the altar because in his mind, God was in this. It was obviously God appearing to him. He was marking this as a grand occasion, a very sacred occasion. And so this is a great promise he realized that God had given to him. Then in Genesis 13, In verse 12, it says,

Abram settled the land of Canaan.

And then 14,

the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring forever.

Again, Joseph growing up would have been hearing these, knowing these, seeing these kind of things happening. Then you look at Genesis 15, of course, Genesis 15, six, one of the most important verses in the Bible. And then verse seven, it says, he, God said to Abram,

I am the Lord who brought you out from the Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.

And so he's saying, you're going to possess Canaan. And then what's really interesting is that starting in 13, God speaks to Abram, and he says something really interesting. And I'm sure that when Joseph was growing up, he heard this story, read it, whatever it is. I'm sure this really piqued his interest. I'm sure when he was in Egypt, he heard this, remembered this, and yeah, that's what happened. Let's look at these verses in Genesis 15, 13.

The Lord said to Abram, know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in the land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here

Canaan

in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

Can you guess what that is? I keep thinking, you know, here's Joseph remembering this, thinking, hey, I mean, what's happening now? I'm sure he's putting two and two together. And then another amazing thing in Exodus 17,

when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your offspring, I'll give this land,

and he mentions those areas. Can you imagine Joseph sitting around and saying, yeah, great-grandfather, this big fire came and all this stuff, and God promised they'd have this land. So obviously, this is something that would be very much ingrained into his mind. In Genesis 17, Verse one says, the Lord appeared to Abram in 17, seven says,

and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be to God and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I'll be their God.

Then Genesis 23, you have Abraham burying his wife in Canaan. In fact, what you see is all these people are all all these forefathers all buried in Canaan. And that's probably one reason why Joseph said he wanted his bones to go there, because that's where his forefathers were. Genesis 24, when Abraham's sending his servant to get a wife for Isaac, verse seven, 24, seven,

the Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, to your offspring, I will give this land.

Again, over and over you see this theme. In Genesis 26, now we have God speaking to actually Isaac. And verse two says,

the Lord appeared to him and said, do not go down to Egypt, dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring, I will give all these lands. And I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham, your father.

So the same promise is there. He's saying, now as Isaac,

I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands.

So if you're an offspring, like Joseph, he's saying, this land is given to me too. And then Isaac is sending Jacob to get a wife in Genesis 28. And he says on verse 3,

God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham.

And then you have the story of Jacob's ladder. And so God speaks to Jacob here. Now, Jacob, of course, is Joseph's father. So I'm sure that he got firsthand account of this over and over. Verse 13, Genesis 20, 13. And behold, the Lord stood above it, the ladder, and said,

I'm the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land in which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad. to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south and then you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and I'll bring you back to this land.

I promise I'm going to bring you back here even though you're going away. And then Jacob goes away, he gets wives, he gets children. Genesis 31 verse 3, God speaks to Jacob and he says,

the Lord said, Jacob, return to the land of your fathers.

And then Genesis 35, God speaking to Jacob in verse 12. He says,

the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.

Same theme over and over again. In verse 19, Rachel dies, that's Joseph's mother, and she's buried there, of course she's buried in Canaan. And then verse 29.

Isaac breathed his last, and he died.

And of course, where was he buried? He was buried in Canaan. So after that, Joseph is sold to Egypt, and they have a seven-year famine. And so Jacob and his family obviously are concerned, like, do we go down there? There's food down there. Joseph's down there. But same time, we know that this is our promised land. Should I go down or not? And so Genesis 46, 2 says, and God spoke to Israel. or Jacob,

in visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, here I am. Then he said, I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again,

that is to Canaan. So God says, you can go down there, but I'm gonna bring you back to Canaan. And then 17 years later, in Genesis 47, 29, And when the time drew near that Jacob, or Israel,

must die, he called his son, Joseph, and said to him, if now I have found favor in your sight, and put your hand over my thigh, and promise to deal kindly and truly with me, do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers

in Canaan,

carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place. He answered, I will do as you have said. And he said a swear to me, and he swore to him.

Genesis 48 verse 1

after this Joseph was told behold your father's ill

then verse 3

and Jacob said to Joseph God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me and said to me behold I'll make your fruitful multiply you and I'll make you a great company of peoples and we'll give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.

And then verse seven, Rachel dies, where she died. He says, Rachel died in Canaan. She was buried there, reminds Joseph of that. And then 20, 21.

Then Israel said to Joseph, behold, I'm about to die, but God will be with you and bring you again to the land of your fathers.

He's saying, you're going to be coming back to Canaan someday. And Jacob blesses the 12 sons, his last words in Genesis 49, verse 29,

then he commanded them and said to them, I'll be gathered to my people, bear me with my fathers.

In 31,

there they buried Abraham and Sarah's wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife.

This is what he's saying.

And there I buried Leah.

Then 33,

when Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

So last words were, bear me with my people back in Canaan. Genesis 50 verse four. And when the days of weeping for him were passed, the mourning for Jacob,

Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh and said, if now I found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, my father made me swear, saying, I'm about to die in my tomb that I, in my tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, 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. So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of the household, all the elders of the land of Egypt.

In verse 12,

thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them. For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him.

Verse 24, the last verses of Genesis.

Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear saying, God will surely bless you, will surely visit you. You should carry up my bones from here. So Joseph died being 110 years old. Then they bombed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt.

So being buried in heavier bones in Canaan was really confirming the promise of God. God had said, this is your land. Doing that was a statement saying, yeah, this is our land. They're putting a stake in that land there. So what kind of faith did Joseph have? You look at Hebrews 11, 22, and it says, by faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones. And over 20 times, you see where God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that the Canaan was their land, over 20 times. And you think, here's Joseph, okay, he's gone through all kinds of stuff in Egypt, okay, but you think, did it take a lot of faith for him to say, yeah, I believe my bones should be taken there? I think probably most of us say, well, that's not that great of faith, okay. I mean, over 20 times, God actually spoke. God actually spoke to his forefathers. Never spoke to Joseph, but his forefathers, for three generations before that, God actually spoke to them and said these things. And I think in a sense, it is pretty simple to say, yeah, God promised this. Wouldn't take a lot of leap of faith for Joseph to say, yeah, I agree. I agree with this. I believe it, and I'm gonna act on it. And I think really an application there is that you look at the Bible. Over and over, Jesus said things like, if you believe in me, you'll be eternal life. I'm the resurrection of life, all those kind of things. You look at the Bible where it talks about Christ died for our sins and things like that. You know, Scripture is full of those kind of things. And I think that probably, you look at the faith that Joseph had, and since this initial faith is not that big of a deal, it seems like, actually for us as believers, there is far more evidence of believing Christ gives eternal life than what you ever find that Joseph had there. Okay. You know, I think that for us as believers, really what we're saying is, Jesus Christ said this. We see this in the epistles. We see it over and over. If you believe in him, he gives you eternal life. And I think a good application of this is just say, okay, God, I really believe you say that. When you say that, I really believe that. And like Joseph, he said, I saw it, I believed it, I act on it. The same way we see what God says, We believe it, we act on it then. That's basically our salvation, is we have the complete trust in him. And that's true all throughout scripture. As we see scripture, we look at it, we say, okay, I really believe this. This is what he says. And I take that for myself. You know, there's no record that God spoke to Joseph, but he still had that faith. And I think that we can have that kind of faith also. And that's the kind of faith we do have. But I think that there's something beyond that. Question, why didn't Joseph request that his bones be taken immediately when he died to Canaan? Why was he going to allow his body be kept in Egypt? I think, I don't know, but maybe the one thing he wanted to do was remind his family, the Israelites, that actually he had a mission there. You know, probably they had his coffin, whatever it was, probably had a tent or something, and he was in it, and people walked by and say, what's that? They'd say, well, that's... What's it doing there? Well, he says we're going to take his body to Canaan. What would that do to the people during that time? I think it would be a matter of, hey, that would stretch their faith and encourage them. You know, Jacob and Joseph could have had as probably could have his body put in a pyramid. But actually he chose this obscure cave in Canaan because in his mind, that's what he's looking for. He was looking to the future there. And I think that's probably more of why we find Joseph here is because in his mind he was saying, all this stuff I don't care for, my hope is in there in the future there. In exodus 13 19 said

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.

This is the exodus

For Joseph had made the sons of Israel soundly swear saying God will surely visit you and you shall carry my bones with you from here

So that means that 40 years in the wilderness My guess you had four guys carrying this wooden whatever my guess and people say what this guy's doing carrying that they say well, I That's the bones of Joseph. Why? Because he's committed saying, we need to go to Canaan. That's where I belong. You know, his 11 brothers, they're probably all buried in Egypt. I think there was a certain sense there of a testimony of the people saying, he really believed this. And there was always that testimony to them saying, yeah, they believed that. Then Joshua 24, 32,

as to the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them in Shechem in a piece of land that Jacob brought.

So he did have his wish. He was buried in Canaan then. So how do you have a Joseph type faith? I think that the main thing about Joseph was that he saw hundreds of years later, he's saying, I'm going, we're going, we're not gonna stay in Egypt, we're going to Canaan. I think for us as Christians, I think that We need to have that long type of faith too. 1 Peter 1.13 says,

set your hope fully on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Put your hope totally on that grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Don't put your faith in your health right now, your salary, your job. your spouse, your children, your parents, success, stable government, financial security, all those things we want to put our faith in. You look at people being persecuted for their faith. What's happening inside of them? They're saying, I see something out there. I see the future. That's what my faith is. And that's the kind of thing I think you see with Joseph. That's why he's in this faith chapter. He's saying, OK, I see right now, but also I see way in the future really what's important. So my encouragement that we have a Joseph-type faith like that, we would see what God promises, we would believe those, and we'd act on those. And I think that it's important that we just not take proof texts. Like, I can do all things. Okay, is that a promise? Okay. My encouragement is you saturate yourself with God's word. You really see what it says. And then you say, this is what God's word is saying. I really see it. I really believe it. I'm gonna act on it. I think a good strategy would maybe the next week or 10 days, read the book of Ephesians every day and strive to understand every word, every phrase, every verse. And then go back to Ephesians chapter one and say, okay, I'm gonna see what it says there about me. I'm gonna see what it says. I'm gonna see if I believe it. I'm gonna go to act upon it. So what kind of faith did Joseph have? He had that kind of faith that says, I see, I believe, and he acted upon it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you very much that you are not a God who is wishy-washy, that goes back on your word. Lord, your word is amazing. All this truth in your word. I pray that each one here would have the grace to be able to see what your word says, to believe it, and then to act on it. I pray you give us that kind of faith that Joseph had. Lord, I think of Joseph going into a slave in Egypt, going into prison, and all those things that could have easily distracted him. Maybe it did for a while. Lord, those things are going to happen to us too. But I pray that our eyes will be upon the time when we see you. May that be our focus. I pray that you give us a singularity of vision towards you, your future, with you. And I pray in Christ's name, amen. And now please stand and we will sing.