I'm not going to ask for God's blessing. I didn't ask Him to bless the ministry of the Word today in an opening prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, we look to you for your blessing upon the ministry of the word as it is read and preached. We need you to help us, Lord. We need you to visit us for that. We need you to visit us when we come to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as well. So we pray, oh Lord, that you would show yourself strong in our behalf and that you would minister to us from your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so we're back to Hebrews again after a couple of weeks away from that. And currently it is chapter 11. And this chapter is full of examples to help us in our faith. Examples of people of faith from the Old Testament. They show what faith is in a certain way, but especially how it works. and what it does. So they're very useful to us, very helpful for us to have that kind of example. They are given to encourage us and to strengthen our faith that when people trust God, then He does all that He's promised to them, to those who trust Him. Today then we come to the last of the patriarchs who were before Moses. that are listed here, and we come to Joseph, and he gives us a remarkable example of steadfast faith, constancy of faith. He is quite different from his father Jacob in this regard. You remember when we studied Jacob, we saw that he had a lot of things that needed to be worked on in his faith. And that God, what we saw there to encourage us is that God refined his faith so that at the end of his life, his faith was very strong and he was resting in the Lord in a remarkable way because God had refined and purified him. And God will do that. for his people. He will work in them that way. It is interesting, though, to observe the difference with Joseph, who trusted God all through his life, from start to finish. There was a steadfastness. So with Jacob, we see refinement of faith. And with Joseph, we see steadfast faith through his life. And you see that as you look at the two of them, how miserable Jacob was. Everything's wrong for me, he said at one point. Everything is against me. Joseph never said anything like that. And Joseph had much worse circumstances, in fact, than Jacob actually had. He had more trials that he could have complained about, but the difference was Joseph went through all of those trials in communion and fellowship with God, trusting in God. Whereas Jacob went through the trial saying, I gotta do something, I gotta figure out how I'm gonna work this out, everything's going wrong, what am I gonna do, it's all messed up. And then God would come through again and again. His faith was refined, God worked in him. We can relate with Jacob a lot of times better than we can with Joseph. But I want us to be able to relate with Joseph, too. I want us to be able to see what Joseph does is what we can do, too. By God's grace, we can also be steadfast in our faith instead of all worked up and going this way and that way all the time. It's not a matter of strength. It's a matter of weakness. I'll get into that later. But both of them were certainly believers. Both of them will go to heaven. Both of them have faith that is set forth as an example for us. And so we want to learn from all of these. We've looked at other ones before them too, at different aspects that were highlighted with them. I'm not going to go into all that. But we want to go through life in fellowship and constant trust with God like Joseph did rather than breaking away from that confidence and wavering this way and that way. So this passage in Hebrews about Joseph is very short and it's really obscure if you don't know the background story. Now, of course, the people that Hebrews is written to, they knew the background. They knew all about Joseph and Jacob and all these men. They were their fathers, and they had learned about them in their youth. Now, we have a mixture of people. Some people know these stories. Some people say, who's Joseph? Jesus' father? Well, that was his name, but this is the Old Testament Joseph we're talking about that was way back, just one of the, one of the sons of Jacob way back in the Old Testament. So I'm going to try to fill in some of those gaps about who he is, kind of in a natural way as we go along that we'll be talking about what Joseph did as we see his faith exhibited in what he did. So you'll get some history of Joseph if you don't know a lot about him. But, you know, all you had to do with the Hebrew people was mention Joseph's name, and immediately they had associations with all the things that Joseph did. They knew all of those stories. And I encourage you to read your Bibles so that you will know those stories, because then you will understand what is given to us even in the New Testament much better if you understand what God has given us in the Old Testament. So our preaching text this morning is only verse 22, but I'm going to read from verse 13 again to give you a bit of context. So Hebrews 11, 13. Here is God's word. May he help us to receive it and to believe it. Hebrews 11, 13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Now, remember the promise that was made to them was a promise of a kingdom that was righteous, and they weren't a big kingdom yet. It hadn't been done, it was far off, it was something in the future. But they trusted God and knew that it would happen and they would be part of that. So verse 14, for those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God. For he has prepared a city for them. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, And Isaac your seed shall be called. Concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. And now the text we're looking at today, verse 22. By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instruction concerning his bones. Now, that's obscure, you see, to someone that doesn't know the background story. But we're going to look at this and see why it is that God would have chosen such a passage to set forth the faith of Joseph with the whole life that he lived. But we're going to look at Joseph's life and starting out here, looking at this, that Joseph, you know, the goal of Hebrews 11 is to strengthen our faith. And so I want to show you what we can learn from Joseph's example that's given to us here. So first of all, Joseph shows us that believers can be steadfast in faith throughout their whole lives. The opening words, by faith, Joseph, when he was dying, show us how he ended. He ended with faith. He ended his life trusting in God. This is very encouraging when we also know how Joseph lived before that. It's a reminder that he lived in faith and that he also died in faith. He died as he had lived. In contrast, it's disturbing to see someone like Judas, Jesus' disciple, who had the appearance of faith, but did not die in faith, did not die trusting in the Lord. And that's something that happens fairly frequently. He did not actually trust in the Lord. He was just playing a game. But those who have true saving faith will always continue to the end because God promises to keep them. But many believers are not so steady as Joseph was along their pilgrimage. It is especially heartening to see those few examples who did have steadfast faith from start to finish. And Joseph is one of those. Paul was like that after his conversion. You don't see Paul wavering around through all the afflictions that he went through. He trusted God. And Timothy, as far as we know, we don't have record of his death in Scripture, but as far as we know, Timothy was from childhood. like Joseph, one who was steadfast in his faith. You don't see him going this way and that way. We might think of Anna and Simeon, who greeted our Lord when He was born and was brought to the temple, and they were there fasting and praying, trusting that He would come, and all their life they had served God. We should not envy these faithful saints. We should not say, oh, I can't relate to someone like that. but we should rather give thanks for them and we should seek to imitate them. We live in a time and culture that is very diseased in this way. that it has become inclined, our culture has been inclined to embrace excuses. It is perfectly acceptable to bring forth excuses of why I could not do what I was supposed to do. I could not do what God had told me to do. Even though the Lord says, there is no temptation that is taking you but such as is common to man, God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. That's what He says. And we say, no, it was too hard. Anybody would have done what I did if they had what I had. That is our culture. That is the way we live today. It is among us an acceptable thing to do. We even boast about our weakness in the wrong way. Not like Paul did. Paul boasted about his weakness a lot, but he boasted about it because he said, I am weak and therefore I trust in God and He's the one that enables me and makes me strong. We boast in weakness to say, I'm weak and so I crash. You see, that's not how we're supposed to confess our weakness. It's understandable. Anybody would have done what I did if they had all the trouble that I had. If they had my situation, nobody knows what my situation is like. We need to recognize that someone who lives constantly in faith, now listen to me carefully, is actually someone who knows their weakness better than someone who doesn't constantly live in faith. Think about that. The one who constantly lives in faith knows their weakness better than the one who talks about their weakness and crashes all the time. The reason for the person of faith's constancy is that they know how weak they are, and therefore, they constantly trust in the Lord. They lean on him because they're weak and they don't stop leaning on him because they know their weakness. Paul said in my weakness, his strength is made perfect. But in our day, we will excuse ourselves from serving God on account of the way that we were treated by others, on account of the hard things that we have had to bear in our lives because we're weary, whatever it might be. I'm tired. And so therefore I was impatient. It's just one excuse after another. But hard things are not an excuse for a lack of faith. They are times when we ought to have trusted in God, but instead relied on ourselves or something else. That's what went wrong. It wasn't that you got more than you can bear. It was that you didn't trust in God. And that's not something that a weak person cannot do. A weak person can trust in God better than a strong person, a person who knows they're weak. In fact, the hard things are actually opportunities for us in our weakness to lean on the Lord. Let me advise you then, instead of making excuses to explain why you failed, repent when you fail for not trusting in God. That's what happened. It wasn't that it was so hard you couldn't do anything else. It was that you didn't trust in God when it was hard. That's why you failed. You fail because you did not trust Him. And don't say that you are too weak to trust in Him. Say that you are too proud to trust in Him. It is pride that keeps you from trusting in Him. Weakness goes and flees to Him. If you knew how weak you are, you would have trusted in Him. Let's look at how Joseph trusted God under every kind of test. Joseph could have had all kinds of excuses for not serving God, for going away from God, for not saying, oh, it's too difficult. Look at what happened to me. But when he was tested, he trusted the Savior. He walked through it trusting in the Lord by his strength. He was made strong in the Lord's strength. Let's start out with him as a child. He had the trial of being persecuted as a prophet. Joseph had prophetic dreams, and they were dreams where his brothers and even his parents were bowing down to him. which came from God. They were prophecies. That was exactly what happened. They would not like to hear his dreams and their interpretation, which he also got from God. The temptation for him would be to keep these dreams to himself. But he faithfully proclaimed them to his brothers, which brought glory to God when they were later fulfilled. But his brothers hated him on account of it. Which of the prophets were not hated by their own brothers? The Lord Jesus was hated by his own brothers. His father, Joseph's father, showed extreme favoritism to him as well, partly because he was trustworthy and his brothers were not, but largely because Jacob had married four wives and he was the firstborn of his favorite wife. And therefore, it was wrong for him to show this kind of favoritism or to be in a situation where there was occasion for that kind of favoritism. Many adults make the excuse that they are the way they are because their siblings were shown favoritism. But you know who actually often comes out the worst when there is a child that is shown favoritism? The child that was shown favoritism. They're the ones that are basket case. It's the ones that were sometimes more marginalized that come out better and stronger in the end. But whatever the case with that, showing favoritism to a child in a large family like that puts that child in a place of great temptation. Because it did cause his brothers, wrongly of course, but they became hostile toward him on account of that. So Joseph had to bear these difficulties, but he did so, trusting in the Lord consistently so. When Joseph became a young man, he then suffered abuse from the hands of his jealous brothers. So he had that temptation being a prophet as a child, and then he had, when he became a young man, he suffered abuse from his brothers. Talk about somebody being abused, I mean, this is just the kind of abuse that someone would say, oh, look at what was done for me. I'm a basket case. I'm bitter because of the way I was treated when I was a child by my own brothers. Look at what they did to me. Instead of turning to the Lord in faith as our gracious Savior. What did his brothers do to him? He was coming to bring a message to them and to bring some things to them from his father, as a messenger from his father. And they seized him when they saw him coming because of their envy of him. And they were planning to kill him. He knew that. They were casting him into a pit to just be there until he died. And then they saw a caravan of traders, merchants that were coming through, going to Egypt. And so they sold him as a slave that could be taken to Egypt. His own brothers did this. Joseph was only 17 at the time. You can imagine, maybe you can't imagine, the kind of abuse that he would have had even with these slave traders, as they put him in chains, we're told that in Psalms, and they dragged him along to go and sell him in Egypt, abusing him in all kinds of ways. Likely then being sent first to hard labor as a young man, labor to the point of exhaustion under the hot Egyptian sun. And remember, Joseph was coming from a comfortable place. He was coming from a wealthy family where he was indeed, he had been indeed treated with great favoritism. Here he was, away from his father, away from the people that feared God, away from family worship and the sacrifices at the altar and stuff, without any accountability or any encouragement to walk in the fear of God, to be faithful to God. What 17-year-old would not rebel under such conditions? What 17-year-old would not lose heart and cease to serve God? The 17-year-old that will not do that would be the 17-year-old that trusts in God. No one else would be able to do that but the one that trusts in God. Joseph, instead of turning sullen and rebellious, turned to the Lord and sought by His grace to be the most godly servant that he could possibly be in that situation. He sought to bless his master. He thought to be faithful and trustworthy in all that he did. And when his master, a wealthy, high-ranking Egyptian, saw how loyal Joseph was, he elevated him and elevated him and elevated him until he was in charge of all the household, all the servants. He was in charge of the financial books. He was in charge of everything. Because Potiphar knew that he could trust this young man. Because this young man was a godly young man. Being abused is no excuse for bitterness and sullenness and all the rest. Joseph continued to live for God. Soon another trial came. Since Joseph was often in the house about his master's business, it was not long until this other temptation came. The scripture says in Genesis 39, 7, and it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph and she said, lie with me. Now, since his master Potiphar was a high-ranking Egyptian official, then it's most likely that he had a very lovely and fashionable wife. Joseph was likely in his 20s at this time, maybe even a little younger than that, and he would have been subject to youthful lusts as a young man. Likely he noticed her beauty and likely she had paraded it in modestly before him around the house as she was looking at him and giving eyes to him and so on. Now Joseph was far from his people. How was he going to find a wife there? He didn't have any prospects. He didn't have any future with that. What was a young man in that situation going to do when this wealthy woman comes up to him, this beautiful woman, to seduce him? We're told Joseph responded in faith. Joseph didn't respond in the flesh. Look at what he did. Genesis 39, 8. But he refused and said to his master's wife, Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house. This is Genesis 39, 8. In the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept anything back from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So it was as she spoke to Joseph day by day that he did not heed her to lie with her or to be with her. Being tempted is no excuse for sin. Joseph relied on the Lord in faith. But what reward did Joseph get for his faithfulness? Prison. That's the reward he got for his faithfulness. Potiphar's wife accused him of trying to rape her when she seized his garment one day, and he pulled out of it to get away from her. He had an undergarment on, but it's an outer garment, and she's there holding the garment, and then she starts screaming that he had tried to rape her. Potiphar likely did not believe her because he knew Joseph. He knew Joseph. He also knew his wife, and he probably thought, Yeah, right. I don't think so. But he had to do something. So he put Joseph in prison. He would have probably killed him if he thought he had actually done it. So now Joseph might say, I tried to do the right thing and what do I get? You know, I'm faithful as a slave and then I come along and I'm faithful to my master. And now here I am in prison when I resisted temptation. Soon he was put in charge of the prison. Because what did Joseph do in prison? He went there with God. He said, well, okay, I'm in prison now. What am I going to do in prison? Well, I'll serve God here. What else is there to do but serve God? I'll lean on God. I'll rely on Him. Now that I'm in prison, just like I relied on Him when I was a slave, just like I relied on Him when Potiphar's wife was tempting me, And that's what he did. And so he became a prisoner that was put in charge of all the other prisoners because of his faithfulness and reliability. And he served people and he cared for people. And so, again, he was he was elevated because his faithfulness was recognized. But soon another trial came. A trial this time of disappointment for Joseph. Some people say, you know, oh, I could do all those things, but I can't handle disappointment. Don't say you can't handle if you lean on God. Of course you can't handle it. But if you lean on God, look what Joseph does. Some of Pharaoh's chief servants are put in prison, the chief butler and the chief baker. And we see, we got a picture in the account of how Joseph treats them. You know, here he is in charge of the prisoners. And you know how most, a lot of guys are in charge of prison, like, well, get over there. What are you doing? You know, that kind of, but he's there. He says, hey, what's wrong? You guys look, you guys look troubled today. And they say, oh, we both had dreams, and we don't know what they mean. It seems to be a prophetic kind of dream, and we don't know how to interpret it. We don't know what it means. And they tell him the dreams, and Joseph interprets the dreams for them. And the first one that he tells is for the butler, and he tells him, hey, you're gonna be restored again. Pharaoh's gonna lift you up, and he's gonna restore you. But it's not so with the baker. He says, you know, you're going to be executed. That's what your dream shows. And exactly what he said is what happens. But Joseph asked the butler, he says, listen. You know, when you go out, say a word for me. Like, I got, I'm in this land. I didn't do anything wrong to get put in this land. And I didn't do anything wrong to get put in prison. So he said, just say a word to Pharaoh for me. Like, you're his right hand man. You know, he's his butler right there with him all the time. And Butler says, yeah, yeah, I'll put a word in for you. I'm going to get out of prison. What happened? You know the story? Two years. And the butler forgot. He never said anything. I don't think he probably really forgot. He just was kind of like, it's kind of awkward. Whatever. And he didn't do anything. Joseph is left in prison for two more years. Here's a temptation of having his hopes disappointed sorely. But he continued to live in faith for the glory of God. He said, I will trust in God. Soon, a very different kind of test comes to Joseph. A temptation to boast. Pharaoh has a dream, and he's disturbed by the dream, and he's angry with his wise men because no one can interpret the dream. And the chief butler says, oh, I know a guy that can do this. And so he tells Pharaoh, hey, there's a guy that when I was in prison, he told what was going to happen to me, he told what was going to happen to the baker. So Pharaoh says, bring him, bring him on. So they clean Joseph up and he comes out. Now, what would be easy? What's the temptation for Joseph now? He's come before Pharaoh. Am I going to talk about God? Or I really want to get out of prison. He's looking to me to bring him out, you know, to tell his dream and everything. I can say, man, yeah, I'm really good at this, you know. I'm really good at interpreting dreams. You need me. But what does he do? Well, let's look at what happens. Joseph is brought before him. Genesis 41, 15. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have had a dream and there is no one who can interpret it, but I have heard it said that you can understand a dream to interpret it. So Joseph answered Pharaoh saying, it is not in me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. So right then, just like he did with Potiphar's wife, he immediately establishes that he is for God, that he is connected with God, that he does what he does by faith in God. He makes it plain right from the start. Joseph does not give in to the temptation to hide his fellowship with God, to be embarrassed about it coming before perhaps the most powerful man of the day in the world. Then another temptation comes. Out of that one, the temptation of prosperity. Joseph faithfully interprets Pharaoh's dream, declaring that God has shown Pharaoh that there will be seven years of plenty in Egypt, followed by seven years of famine that will overwhelm all the prosperity that they'd had. Pharaoh immediately elevates Joseph to the highest rank in Egypt next to himself to carry out a plan of action to save Egypt from the effects of the famine. Joseph is in charge of all this wealth that's coming through and all sorts of things, a very high position. This is perhaps the greatest temptation that Joseph had yet faced. Many who are able to endure suffering and affliction are unable to endure prosperity and success. It is a very difficult temptation before the Lord. But by faith, Joseph takes up this new task. For the glory of God. It's not really that prosperity itself destroys us. But it is pride. Because what happens when everything works out and we're prospering? We say, hey, everything's great. I don't need God's help. Everything worked out, I'm good. It's beautiful. Wow, this is wonderful. I'm free. I don't need to trust God now. And then you fall. Do we not see that with societies that become Christian? At first they're persecuted and they're struggling and then they grow up and they become prosperous and they flourish and people are godly and they have godly laws and everything is changing and it's going so well. And then they say, hey, we're doing good. Look at us. And what happens? Look at us. That's what happened to us. That's exactly what happened to us. Prosperity destroys people more than affliction and persecution. Joseph had this temptation in a stronger way than most people ever had it. He was second in command in Egypt, which was the most prosperous nation. And he had a plan where Egypt was going to become way more prosperous because they were going to know how to deal with the famine when nobody else did. And he was carrying out that plan that was going to bring that forth. Nobody knew in the other nations that that was going to happen, but Joseph knew. So we have, again, a powerful temptation and Joseph continues to trust in God. But there is yet another temptation that follows this one. Joseph's brothers come to Egypt looking for food in the famine. The temptation to take vengeance is now in Joseph's hands. He has the authority. If he wants to, he can do whatever he wants with them because of the authority that he has in Egypt. He could make all of them slaves because they made him a slave. Say, oh, yeah, there you are. You bow down to me. You're going to be my slaves now. I'm going to put you out in the fields and chains and make you work like I had to do. Does Joseph do that? He doesn't. He shows mercy to them. In fact, he even devises. Joseph is so wise and clever because he's been working with God all this time, and he trusts in God now. So he comes up with a way to help his brothers and to bring them out of what they had done so that they come to repentance. It's a very clever plan that, through God's agency, I don't know if he even knew how it would all work, but Joseph was trusting in God. And he was relying on God. And so he he carries out this plan and his brothers, they repent and Joseph receives them. He doesn't make himself known at first. And then he does. He relied on God for that, too. Those who have faith are merciful and forgiving to those who have wronged them. Because he's been relying on God and he knows if they rely on God, it will go well for them, too. So he tries to lead them to rely on God. So you see what I meant when I said that Joseph was a man who shows that a believer can be steadfast in his faith from the cradle to the grave. Who has had greater temptations than these that I have just outlaid? Despite abuse and hardship of every sort, there is no place for excuses when you have a savior to trust in and to rely upon. When you see people overwhelmed with life in the world, and we're seeing more and more of that now, We need to point them to the Savior. Not that He's going to take away all of this, but you can walk through these things in faith and fellowship with Him and do it for His glory. People say, well, I don't want to do that. I just want to get out of it. Well, then I've got nothing for you. I've got nothing to give you. Okay, let's look at the second thing that we learn from Joseph's faith as it is described in Hebrews 11. Don't worry, these last two points won't be as long. Joseph's faith on his deathbed shows us that a steadfast believer's great interest is in God's promises. What do we see in the verse that we read, verse 22 in Hebrews 11? What was on Joseph's mind when he was on his deathbed at the end of his life? Did he boast about all of his achievements in Egypt? He had spent more than half his life as a high ruler in Egypt with great authority and importance. And he had managed himself with great wisdom the whole time. He could have boasted about all of his achievements. Sons, I want you to come and look at some of the things that your father did over his lifetime. Look at all the things that we have established and built and accomplished. He had no doubt acquired a great estate. and a great inheritance in Egypt. He was able to give houses and lands to his children and to his brothers. And he might have spoken about that, but what did he make mention of? What's on his mind? His eye was on the promise of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. That after a period of suffering in Egypt, the Lord would bring his family, the sons of Abraham, to the land that God had promised to Abraham to live there as his people under God's government. His faith was not just something he decided to believe into existence. You know, some people say, I just I want this to happen. I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe. No, no, no, no. That's not the right. That's not faith. Faith is when you believe what God has promised, not when you make up something that you want God to do. It's when you believe what God has promised. So what did God promise again? Genesis 15. We looked at it before. Verse 13. Then God said to Abram, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them and they will afflict them 400 years. And also the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. Joseph was certain that God would deliver Israel from Egypt because God had promised that he would deliver Israel from Egypt. Why was Joseph so interested in this promise when he had such great possessions in Egypt? and wouldn't even be alive when the promise was fulfilled? Why did he care about that future promise of them coming out of Egypt? Why would he even want to go out of Egypt? I mean, why would he, an Egyptian prince, with his family there and all the wealth and estate that they had there, why would he want to go to Canaan with his ragtag family? Like, what would be the point of that? His family had so mistreated him, too. Did he think that he would find even greater houses and lands and riches and wealth there than he had in Egypt? That his descendants would? No. Joseph recognized that Canaan was a place where God would be with His people, revealing Himself to them, working in their lives, chastening them, discipling them, giving His prophets and His promises to them. That's why Joseph wanted his descendants to go to Canaan out of Egypt. They would be the people who were God's kingdom, who would have Him as their God and who would live before Him as His people of faith. and who would inherit eternal life in God's eternal house. It did not matter so much what they looked like now, or how they were esteemed in the world, even when they were in Canaan. His treasure was not in the world, but in the city whose builder and maker is God, eternal in the heavens. Joseph had faith in God's eternal blessing. Egypt could not tempt him, Potiphar's wife could not tempt him, nor could he himself give himself up to bitterness or resentment because of past abuses and disappointments, because his eye was on God's promises. Joseph lived for God because he believed that an inheritance with God was far better than any other inheritance. It was the only one that really mattered. He'd rather be with the church in Canaan as one who is destined to inherit glory than to be in Egypt with all of its power and wealth. And we're going to see more about that with Moses when we get to him later. But what about you? Where is your treasure? Jesus said, where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also. What is of great importance to you? What do you make mention of? What do you talk about? What people do you most identify with or want to identify with? Is it God's people or is it others? Would you rather be with God's people though they're, we're told they're not many noble, they're not many wise, They're not many mighty among God's people. That's not who they are. Would you rather be with them or would you rather be with a high and mighty in the world CEO in a big company, some big position somewhere? Where would you rather be? You can you could be a high government official or a CEO in a company or anything like that and be one of God's people. But then who would you identify with? Who's more important in your eyes than the people of God or the ones that are shining in the world so much? The Lord has given us a twofold promise now, as he did then. There was or is the promise of the visible church and there is the promise of eternal glory. So we need to see there's these two promises. And you see the visible church is his people gathered to him in the world, in this present world, preserved by him, but not necessarily flourishing or prospering a whole lot in the world, but discipled by him, tested by him, brought messages from God by him. For them, it was Canaan. OK, for the people in Joseph's time. So he's looking to that. There's a promise that you're going to be gathered over there in Canaan. This is what God's going to do next on his agenda. And you want to be there because this is where God's going to be in communion with his people. That's where you want to be. Now it is the church gathered under the gospel where people profess the gospel all through the world in this place, in that hamlet, in that city, all over, in that corner of town, in that, you know, all over the place. We identify with a persecuted, sometimes despised lowly people that God preserves as his own. The glory of the church on earth is not in her present condition, but in the one that she is associated with. Joseph had glory in God, whether he was a slave or whether he was on the throne in Egypt. If you do not glory in God's salvation and his promises in the gospel, then you will not delight to be with God's people. If you do glory in that, then you have interest in the church like Joseph did. So I said there's a twofold promise God has given us. First, that he will preserve his church here in the world. There's promise to the church. I will build my church. Gates of Hades will not prevail against it. The church will keep going forward and doing its work. The second side of the promise is the promise of an eternal city that he will bring us to glory in heaven. that He'll bring us into His presence. Jesus, who came to redeem us, calls us to come to Him for salvation and eternal life. He promises to us resurrection and eternal life in His house as His bride and before His Father. So do you see how the two aspects of the promise go together? When God is taking someone to be one of His disciples, He brings them in this world into Canaan, into the visible church, to be with God's people, to disciple them, to keep them, to preserve them. And then he brings the church eventually to glory. That's how he works. You can't skip over the one to get to the other. We come by faith to the place where he gathers his people, where he professed Jesus as Lord and Savior, and he keeps us and preserves us and uses us to spread his gospel, to be a blessing in the world until he brings us to glory when Jesus returns. Now we come to something else that Joseph's faith shows us. So this is the second thing here. The next thing, Joseph shows us that those who believe, I guess it's really the third thing, that those who believe seek the good of others. They seek to point others to God and to his promises. Look at how earnest Joseph is to make sure that his kindred embrace God's promise. First, that Joseph makes mention of this promise to them. Keeping his faith to himself was not an option for Joseph. He wants them to embrace the promise, too. He wants to keep the promise alive in his people. People of faith are like that. Sometimes they're accused of being pushy. You're always trying to drive it down my throat. But how can we help it when we have such a treasure to inherit that others might inherit with us? You can have this inheritance, too, if we realize the value of it. We're compelled to tell people the love of Christ constrains us. And not only that, but we enjoy speaking to each other about our future inheritance. Oh, you're always talking about that. That's how it should be. Genesis 50, 24 shows what Joseph was thinking. It says, and Joseph said to his brothers, this is Genesis 50, 24. Joseph said to his brothers, I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. He said that thinking of his brothers, didn't he? He said, God will visit you. I'm gonna be gone. but God's going to visit you. And of course, it wasn't even the one that were alive then, but it was going to be their descendants. But with what certainty he speaks. Even though I, your protector and provider here in Egypt, am going away, God will visit you at the appointed time and bring you to the land that he has promised. He so speaks that they might believe. He speaks so that they will be assured of God's promise through the hard times that are going to come upon them. He knows hard times are coming because God says so. They're going to be in bondage in Egypt. They're going to be afflicted in Egypt. And yet he says, God will visit you in that affliction and bring you to the land. That's what believers do. They encourage other people to go on trusting in the Lord because they're trusting in the Lord. That's where they go. OK, so Joseph does something else as well. Joseph comes up with a clever way to keep God's promise before his family until it is fulfilled. He makes them swear that when God brings them out, his father had done this too, not when he brings them out, but he'd be buried there. He makes them swear that when God brings them out, they will take his bones and bury them in Canaan with his father Jacob and his other ancestors there. Or his other fathers there. So Genesis 50, 23. So throughout all those years, there was Joseph's coffin. And what was associated with that? Why is Joseph's coffin here, the little kid says? So, oh, we're supposed to he made a swear that when we're delivered from this land that we're brought into our own land in Canaan, that we're going to take his bones out and bury him there. The promise. It was a way to set the promise before them because he wanted them to hold on to that promise through all the hard times that were going to come. You wonder if sometimes they might have said, well, what's that? Some of the people, let's get rid of that coffin. There's nothing happening. No, no, we swore. We've got to keep it. And then, you know, they're going back and forth. You can imagine just the kind of stuff that might have gone on. But it was a reminder, it was a memorial to them, a testimony that the Lord would surely visit them according to his promise. There would be times when they would be tempted to not believe that promise. There were times when they were tempted. If you have true saving faith, then you will seek to lead others to trust in God, too. You will tell them of your hope and the promises of God. You will tell them what He has done. You will tell everyone. You will tell unbelievers that God will visit them if they will turn to Him and save them from their sins, that He will then deliver them and bring them to salvation. Jesus shed His blood. If they will put their trust in Him, then they can be forgiven through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. You will tell your children of His promises and encourage them also to rest in the Lord and that God will visit them if they will seek Him. Do you need God's help? Do you need His strength? When you're tempted, you'll say to your child, did you fail? Then you weren't trusting in God. Come back and lean on Him. Trust in the Lord and He will take you through. You can do this. You can trust in God. You can't do it yourself, but you can trust in God. You can do all things through Christ. You will tell those in the church that God will surely visit us. We should do that with each other. He promises to visit us when we gather for worship. We encourage each other. Let's look to God. Let's ask Him to meet with us when we gather this Sunday. Let's pray for church this week. He promises to visit us in our time of need when we're faced with trouble. You see someone with a trouble. Trust in God, brother or sister. Trust in God. Rely on Him. He promises to visit the church sometimes after years or even decades of trouble. We see the church faltering and failing in our society. What do we do? Lord, you promised to visit us. Visit us again. We may have to wait for two centuries, but we look to him and we trust in him and we encourage each other. The Lord will surely visit you. The Lord will surely visit you because he promised that he will do so. He promises that he will visit us at the end of the world. And so we encourage each other in that way, too. Our hope is not in this world. Dear brother or sister, you're struggling, but God will visit you and he's going to raise up your body. He's going to visit all of us and he's going to deliver us. Like Joseph, you will also find ways to help others to remember his promises. You will encourage them to go to church and to partake of the Lord's Supper where His promises are set forth to us. You will encourage people to do that. And with that in view, you will seek to establish churches. That's the way that God preserves a memorial of the gospel and what Jesus has done by establishing churches all over the world that preach that gospel and saints that gather together and hear that gospel and build one another and encourage one another. You'll be eager for missions. You'll be eager to support local churches and to see the gospel go forward. You'll pray for churches. And then you'll give people books and Bibles so that they can read and say, Oh yes, this is what God said. Oh yes, I remember what God said. And you'll encourage them to read. And they'll say, I don't like to read. You'll give them an audio book. You'll do whatever you can to establish these things. And you'll help to, you'll maintain family worship in your home. along with catechizing, so that they can know the doctrines of our faith and they can carry those into the world. You'll ground them in the Word of God. You'll do all that you can to make sure, like Joseph did, here are my bones to remind you that we have a God in heaven who has promised to be our God and to bless us as His people. You'll do whatever you can to see that the promises of God stay with His people. So let us learn from Joseph's example. Three things here. Let us recognize that it is possible to be steadfast in our faith from the cradle to the grave, or from this day forward, in our case. We can be steadfast in our faith. Oh, I'm not strong enough. That's exactly the point. You lean on the Lord. That's how you can be steadfast in your faith. Let us secondly keep God's promises as our greatest treasure. What are you focused on? Riches of this world, honors in this world, pleasures of this world. Oh, I just want to feel good. I just want to be happy here. I want I just want to be healthy, whatever it is. No, no. The thing that we all need is to rely on the Lord's what he's promised to us. We're looking for his kingdom. We seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And then secondly, let us encourage one another. To look to the God who visits us. build one another up in your faith. Please stand. O Lord, our God, we come before you, Lord, somewhat chagrined, perhaps, as we think about Joseph and we think about how he was so steadfast in his faith. And we have no reason not to be steadfast in our faith. It's only our pride. And we keep on relying on ourselves. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us, and that we would learn to walk with you with trust and confidence, and that we would be able to bear whatever temptations come. Paul said that he learned how to be in want, and he also learned how to prosper. And the second one is sometimes harder than the first. How quickly your people have forgotten you over the centuries when they prosper, when you bless them in this world. You pray, O Lord, that you would help us to be ready for both kinds of temptation and that we would not be afraid of either kind in a wrong way. We would be afraid of it as far as our own ability is concerned. But we would not be afraid of it as far as your enablement to your enabling of us. Father, we pray that we would build one another up in our faith, that we would encourage one another to trust in the Lord at all times, to lean not on our own understanding. Oh Lord, we need your help, we need your grace. We pray that we would realize that your promises are good, and that if we trust in you, we will not be ashamed. Father, we thank you, though, that where we can confess to you that we have sinned and we have failed, we know that Joseph would have had many sins that he would have had to confess as well. But Father, where we have our sins that we must confess, We thank You that there is provision for us through our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is Him that we trust in. We thank You that He has shed His blood to take away our sins, and we pray that we would make that message known to the nations. Father, thank You for the hope that we have, for the encouragement that we get from Your Word. Bless us now, Lord, and help us as we come to the table, because we can't do that. We can't do that without Your help. We need You for every single thing that we do. We're looking to you, Lord, to visit us at the communion table. Please do so, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen. He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, visit us. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.