If you're going to stay in with us, let me invite you to open your Bible to Genesis 48, the very first book of the Bible, Genesis 48. And if you don't have a Bible, there's some provided on the sides here, and you'll find Genesis 48 on page 39 of those Bibles. And you'll be helped just to have a copy of it as we go through it together. We're going to look at the whole chapter together this morning, Lord willing. Before we open God's Word, let's ask for His help and blessing. Let's pray. Lord, I do pray now for surrendered hearts under your Word, and especially for my own heart, Lord, that I would be surrendered to you and that we would, as a congregation, as a body, Lord, joyfully acknowledge your goodness and sovereignty over our lives. Lord, thank you for the time that we've had in Genesis together and for all that's here. We pray that you would continue to teach us even now, Lord, about who you are and about your grace to us. And we pray that we would be honest with you this morning about any disappointment, displeasure that we have with you because of the way that our life is or the way that it's been or the way that we see it going. And we pray that we would be grateful for your hand of blessing on us, especially the blessing of Christ in the gospel. And Lord, the way that you guide us and shepherd us all of our days, teach us, Lord, to have eyes to see your hand at work. Teach us to see not as the world sees, but as you see, not as man sees. So we need your help, Lord, and we ask that you would be near us now. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see, we ask in Christ's name, amen. Alicia and I were married in our hometown, which is north of Houston, and on our honeymoon, some of you know this story, we began to head to San Antonio, which was, we were going to have some time in between semesters at school. and go for the honeymoon. And after the reception, we're driving for a while, and Alicia falls asleep, which is kind of common for when we travel. And I'm driving along, and she wakes up later and sees a sign that says, Austin 10 miles. And we're headed to San Antonio. Okay, so you have to have that map in your head. And she just looks over at her new husband, smiling, listening to music, just driving along. This is before GPS, so you have to keep that in mind. But if you think about the map, I was going the absolute wrong direction. So, you know, I was heading north when I should have been heading southwest. And it's not like one of those things that you can just say, well, we'll just turn left now and make up the problem. We had to turn around, go south for about an hour, and get back on the track that would have taken us the rest of the way. Maybe that was a parable, a prophetic sign of things to come in our marriage. We did come back. We did make it there to our honeymoon. And by God's grace, we're still married. And I think the point there is something that we see in our passage that sometimes the route that we go on isn't what we expected. Often because of the wrong terms we make, like I do in that little story. But often, thinking back, we want to look at it and see it's God's sovereign providence that takes us to our destination by His route, His means. And His means are always the best means. Some of us have given a lot of thought about the direction that we think that our lives will go. Some of us, even from a young age, have had a clear idea about how things are going to turn out. Maybe you think of your career that way and you kind of see a path before you or your family, your financial plans, the way that things are going to go, your children, the way that they're going to grow and develop and turn out, or your grandchildren. We see a particular way that things could go and we might go so far as to say should go. And so often we ask God to bless those ways, bless those expectations. And sometimes, and perhaps often, he does something different. We never thought that we would, when we set out on this journey of marriage, or a church merger, or starting a business, or retiring, or having a child, or moving to this city, attending this university, that I would be where I am now, going through what I'm going through now, that I would be thinking the way that I'm thinking and dealing with what I'm dealing with. God did something different. He's doing something different. That's one of the lessons the Bible teaches us, is that God sees things better but differently than we do. Isaiah 55 verse eight, for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, it's pretty high, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So I think the patriarch Jacob is learning and has learned this lesson to some extent, even if it's here at the end of his life. We've seen his character develop Before our eyes, from this young, ambitious opportunist, now to this old man on his deathbed, eager to pass along the blessings that he got through deception, through cunning. But he probably didn't didn't map out his life to turn out like it did, but here it is. And here he is on his deathbed, full of faith, longing for God in his last moments. I think we could say the same thing about Joseph. Joseph surely wouldn't have planned his brother's deception and betrayal and being enslaved and imprisoned and then exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh, but here he is. And his education in God's surprising grace is going to continue here in our passage this morning. And my guess, that's true for each of us. that our education continues in God's surprising grace. We can never domesticate or predict God's grace. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps, Proverbs 16, 9. And so in Genesis 48, we see really the beginning of the end for Jacob. He's about to die, and before he dies, he gathers his sons around him to bless them. And so in chapter 48, he begins with Joseph and his two sons, And then in chapter 49, he's going to bless the rest of his sons, and then he's going to die. And so we're going to look at chapter 48 today, just together as a whole, as one scene that kind of sets off the blessing of the other sons that we'll cover next time, Lord willing. And we're going to see this blessing from Jacob is full of surprises. It's a surprising grace that he gives. So just as a quick reminder of where we are in the story, Jacob has brought his entire family from Canaan to Egypt to escape this famine. And they've settled in the land of Goshen near Joseph. And that's where Jacob spends the last 17 years of his life, his long life. And last week we saw just how severe the famine had become in Egypt. If you remember, all the money that the Egyptians had to pay for grain was gone. And so they had to sell their land, their livestock, and eventually themselves in order to survive. They ended up getting to the point where they had to sell their bodies to work for food, and through that arrangement, ultimately they are saved. They cry out in 4725, you have saved us, to Joseph. And so the time now is drawing near for Jacob to die, and so he makes Joseph promise to bury him in Canaan, not in Egypt, which is this looking ahead of faith, what God would do, keeping his promises, and Joseph agrees. That brings us to our chapter here in chapter 48, where he is going to bless, particularly Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph's sons. And if you look there at the beginning of the chapter, that phrase, after this or after these things, that's a typical phrase in Genesis that marks out a section. It's gonna mark out the concluding section, our last section of Genesis. And it's gonna be dominated by this theme of blessing and death. Okay, so let's look at it together. Verse one, chapter 48. After this, Joseph was told, behold, your father is ill. So he took with him his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. And it was told to Jacob, your son Joseph has come to you. Then Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed. So this is the picture. Joseph is told his father is ill. Incidentally, this is the first time illness is mentioned in the Bible. And so he comes to him and he brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. These were born to Joseph, if you remember, while he was in Egypt, before the famine came and before the reunion happened between him and his brothers. And we were told that Manasseh means something like to forget, that God was making Joseph forget about all the pain that happened in his life and his family. And then Ephraim means something like fruitful. And so God would make them fruitful in this land of affliction. We saw that in chapter 41. So Israel is sick and he hears that Joseph is coming in. He summons all of his strength to sit up in bed. And I don't know if Joseph is expecting this formal blessing to happen at this time. He could just be coming to visit and to check on him. But for Jacob, he understands this is the time. He is about to die. This is the time for this blessing. And as we saw with Abraham and with Isaac, when these patriarchs come to die, they call in all their nearest male relatives and bless them. And this is not just a prayer for them. This is like a prophetic pronouncement of their future. It is God's blessing. It is a revelatory thing that God is revealing to the patriarch. Patriarch is then pronouncing it over the sons. And so it's a binding thing. It's not something that can be changed. Paul uses the word irrevocable when he talks about the promises of God in Romans. And so that's what's happening here. And so Jacob is going to begin by recounting his relationship with God. And I think what he's doing there is he's saying, this is what kind of gives me the authority to bless you in this way, because he's walked with God in these spectacular ways and he knows him in these ways. So look at verse three. 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 will make you fruitful and multiply you and I will make you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession. And so Jacob is reminding Joseph here that God Almighty, El Shaddai, has appeared to him personally at Luz, and that's just the old name for Bethel before it was named Bethel. And this was, if you remember, that was when Jacob had been gone for 20 years serving Laban for his wives. You could say it was like a time of exile and he'd come back home. We saw that in chapter 35. And he just outlines God's promises. And we've seen this from the moment we looked at the promises given to Abraham of land, seed, and blessing that he has promised. And we've seen that over and over again. Some of the wording that Jacob uses here comes out of the interaction between Abraham and God and Isaac and God. And he kind of groups that in with his own conversations with God, which tells us that he knows these stories. And he's putting some continuity together with God's working through his father and grandfather and him working through him. That he's going to continue to work that way in the future. The seed, the promised seed of the woman to come and crush the head of the seed of the serpent is going to continue by faith. And so we read, and I think somewhat surprisingly here in verse five, And now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine. Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you have fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. Jacob is adopting Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons. And he says, just like Reuben and Simeon are my sons. But really what's happening is that Joseph, and he's represented by his two sons here, is now being blessed as the firstborn. That was Reuben. And now he's being blessed. It's like they're replacing. Ephraim and Manasseh are replacing Reuben and Simeon in kind of the line of the tribes and their blessings. And we see that in 1 Chronicles 5, and you might just jot that down, you don't have to turn there. 1 Chronicles 5, 1 and 2, we read, as we're going through the genealogies there, we get to the sons of Reuben. And there's this little parentheses, the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, for he was the firstborn. But because he defiled his father's couch, and we remember that story, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the sons of Israel, so that he could not be enrolled as the oldest son. Though Judah became strong among his brothers and a chief came from him, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph. And so that is what's happening here in Genesis 48. Jacob announces these two boys, and I think these are, that's a word for like lad. It's probably, these are like men of mariable age, young men. They're now on par with his other sons. They're gonna receive the same blessing that the seed of promise would go through them. They were born in Egypt to an Egyptian mother, but now they're a part of God's covenant people through adoption. So the nations are being blessed. and incorporated into the people of God, Jacob is now their father. And so Christians, as we come to passages like this, we ought to, we should stop and just ponder scenes like this because they illustrate for us a picture of our own adoption through Christ into the family of God. Paul says things like Romans 8, 15, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Later in that chapter, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son in order that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brothers. And he goes on to say, and those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. So the language of adoption there is beautiful and wonderful that Paul is affirming, but also did you notice there's a security that comes with this picture of adoption for the children of God that are adopted into his family. All those verbs that I just read, predestined, called, justified, glorified, are in the past tense. From God's perspective, they are already done. You are already with Him. You are already His. The promises of God are irrevocable, cannot be broken. We are secure as His children, no matter what circumstance, no matter what affliction comes to us. And beloved, we ought to worship because of that. We ought to praise God because of that as we gather and reflect on this truth, that we are God's children. And that doesn't mean that things are gonna be easy for us. When he separates us from the world and makes us his own, we're going from one camp to another camp, one family to another family. That often puts us at odds with the world. We don't really read anything about Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, being promoted to high positions in Egypt anymore like Joseph was during the Exodus or any time after that. Why? Well, now they are associated with this lonely shepherding clan. And we already learned that to the Egyptians, shepherds are an abomination, an abomination. Christians, that's us. We have the same choice to make when we trust Christ. When we come for baptism, it's an instant demotion in the eyes of the world. You're throwing off the world's standards and saying, I have a new king. We need to be reminded that God sees differently than man sees. And Jacob says, these boys are now mine. And if you're a Christian, friend, that's what God says about you. You're now mine. No one can snatch you out of his hand. Jacob continues there. Look at verse seven. As for me, when I came from Padan to my sorrow, Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way. When there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. It's as if Jacob is looking at Joseph, and he sees the resemblance of Rachel. This is Rachel's son. We know both Rachel and Joseph are handsome, beautiful, and he reflects on this pain. He says, to my sorrow. It's still there. Rachel died on the way. And it's as if he sees Ephraim and Manasseh maybe as kind of a replacement for the children that Rachel would have borne him, that God is graciously still providing. But we know from Jacob's life, it was not all sunshine and roses. Few and evil were my days, he says to Pharaoh. And yet God has been faithful to carry him through to the very end. And believer, we should look at that and be encouraged that he will do the same for us. Trust him. Now, I think what's happening in these verses, verses 8 to 12, is kind of a formal adoption ceremony. And then what you're going to see this formal blessing happening in verses 13 to 20. So adoption, blessing, pick it up there in verse 8. When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said, who are these? Joseph said to his father, they are my sons, whom God has given me here. And he said, bring them to me, please, that I may bless them. I think Jacob knows who these sons are. He knows their names already. I think this is like a formal a formality in this adoption process. It's very similar to the question, who gives this woman to be united in holy matrimony at a wedding? We know who it is. He's standing right there, but it's something that's part of the ceremony. And so Jacob, he calls for them. He says, who are these? And he formally announces who they are. And he says, bring them close to me that I may bless them. So verse 10, now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so he could not see. So Joseph brought them near him and he kissed them and embraced them. And Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face. And behold, God has let me see your offspring also. Then Joseph removed them from his knees and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. There's a connection here, isn't there, between this blessing scene of Israel blessing his sons and the way that Jacob himself was blessed by his father, Isaac, on his deathbed. You remember there Isaac called Jacob near to him. He thought he was Esau. He called him near to him and he embraced him and he kissed him. And then he wasn't really able to see well. He couldn't see what was going on. And Jacob deceived him with Esau's clothes. You remember that story? Well, here Jacob is almost blind and he can't see. And so Joseph brings the sons near to him and he puts them at Jacob's knees, which again, I think is part of this adoption ceremony. He doesn't necessarily put them on his knees, but almost in between his knees is like the sign of now he is, it's almost like this picture of I've birthed you, I'm adopting you. I think that's what's going on here. Another common practice in this adoption ceremony. And so Jacob is he's not only reflecting here on the sorrow of his life. He remembers Rachel's death, but also on God's goodness there in verse 11. I never expected to see your face, let alone your offspring. God has done more than Jacob could have asked or imagined. And he's praising the Lord for it. Joseph bows down low and he's preparing now for the blessing. So that's the kind of the adoption. And then we get to the blessing there in verse 13. And Joseph took them both Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel's left hand and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel's right hand and brought them near him. In scripture, we know that the right hand is the hand of strength, honor, power, glory. And so Joseph is positioning Manasseh to receive the right hand of blessing from Jacob. Manasseh is the firstborn, the oldest. And Ephraim is positioned to receive the left hand of blessing. Still good, but not the right hand. It was the firstborn that received the greater portion of the inheritance, the greater blessing. But friends, sometimes God surprises us. Verse 14. And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the hand of Manasseh, crossing his hands, for Manasseh was the firstborn. So Israel purposely crosses his hands, places his right hand of blessing on the younger son, and his left hand on the older. So let's look and think about that first, and then we'll look more at the actual blessing itself, okay? So notice first the order that the sons appear in this passage. So if you go back and just glance at verse one, you'll notice that it's Manasseh and then Ephraim. When Joseph brings them to see Jacob, the order is sort of established there, but Jacob refers to them as Ephraim and then Manasseh in verse five. when he speaks about adopting them. I think that's a little bit of a hint Moses is giving us. Then in verse 13, of course, Jacob, Joseph intentionally places the older son on Jacob's right hand and the younger on his left. But Jacob reverses the order in verse 14 by crossing his hands. The author of Hebrews identifies this moment, of all the moments in Jacob's life, as the one to highlight of his outstanding faith. In that Hall of Fame, Hall of Faith passage, in Hebrews 11, 21, it's this moment. By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. Of all the things in Jacob's life, perhaps it would have been maybe something cool about him wrestling with God, or I don't know, but it's this moment. And I think it's because, on one hand, Jacob is trusting God's promise to carry along the seed of the woman. But also because he's trusting in the way that God's going to carry out his promise. The manner that God is going to go about keeping his promises. Because God is revealing this to Jacob. Just like God reveals prophetic truths to the prophets in the Old Testament. And Jacob is trusting God's plan for his sons and his grandsons. over what tradition and even human expectation says is the right thing to do. Jacob's been kicking against that since he was in the womb, right? That's just kind of his natural bent. So here, by faith, he is blessing them God's way. In fact, I think that's what we often struggle with. Not so much the blessing, but the way, the means. And Joseph is no different. We've seen a lot of positive things about Joseph. But here, look how he responds in verse 17. And Joseph said to his father, Not this way, my father, since this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. That word displeased means something like it was evil in his eyes. And I mean, and after all, he can't see that well. So perhaps it's just a mistake. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's old, can't see that well. Joseph knows how this is supposed to go. He knows what's supposed to happen in this ceremony. He's likely been preparing Manasseh for this moment, preparing him to be blessed as the firstborn son. And now he is disappointed and displeased with what happens. It's not because it's a bad choice. It's not because it's a bad thing, because we know that, because it's God's choice. It's just different than what Joseph had put forward to God, literally, what he expected to happen. I wonder if you've ever said to God, no, Father, not this way. No, not this way. This is not the way it's supposed to go. but Jacob knows exactly what he is doing. He may be blind, but he knows what he's doing. And if an unintentional blessing, back when Isaac blessed Jacob instead of Esau, if that was binding, how much more an intentional blessing, when he knows what he's doing, is gonna carry through. So pick it up in verse 19. But his father refused and said, I know my son, I know. He also shall become a people, speaking of Manasseh, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations. God's ways are not our ways. I think Jacob would have noticed, realized the pattern. that we've seen in Scripture so far, in Genesis so far, where the promised seed is passed through Abel, not the older brother Cain, through Isaac, not the older Ishmael, even though Abraham protested, if you remember. Oh, that Ishmael might live before you, Genesis 17. But it would be Isaac who was the son of promise. And who but Jacob himself would have heard the promise, the older Esau shall serve the younger Jacob. It would be Perez, not Zerah, and now Joseph, and not Reuben or Simeon, and Ephraim over Manasseh. Even through all that Joseph had been through, even though all he'd seen God do, he still is seeing as the world sees in a sense here. Years later, in that town where Rebecca was buried, in Bethlehem, the prophet Samuel would go there searching for God's anointed king, and he would call for Jesse to come and parade all of his sons, you remember, one by one, and Samuel looked on Eliab, the oldest, this tall, handsome, muscular, strong one, and said, surely this must be God's anointed. But the Lord said to Samuel, 1 Samuel 16, 7, It would be that young shepherd boy, who they didn't even bother to call into this meeting, that would be the anointed king. The Lord would choose him as king. And then, of course, years later, his greater son, born in weakness in Bethlehem, would be God's means to save the world. Not as a military conqueror, but through dying, through defeat. Friends, this is God's way. He means to get glory through weakness. He means to shine through imperfect jars of clay. He means for the first to be the last and the last to be first. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So friend, I wonder if you were honest, if you relate to Joseph's disappointment here. If I were honest, I would tell you that I do. I think we all have certain expectations, certain plans and hopes and dreams. And sometimes God goes a different way. He blesses a different way. But notice what Paul says about the goal of that blessing was that he would be seen, God would be seen as the giver. that he would be seen as the one that we would boast in, not in ourselves. That's why he goes after the weakness, the left hand of things, is that he would be shown as powerful. So for me this week, it's been an opportunity to repent and think about my own plans and timelines and how I think things should go or thought things should go and put my face on the floor and trust in the goodness of God. To know that he knows better than I do. He loves us more than we can even imagine. And sometimes he crosses his hands to bless us, to show us that, that we might remember that. Remember those words of Jacob to Joseph, I know, I know, my son. I'm not that blind. This is not an accident. Trust me. That's a good word for us. Let's look now at the blessing itself that Jacob gives to Ephraim and Manasseh, and we'll pick that up back in verse 15. And he blessed Joseph and said, the God before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked, the God whom has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys. And in them, let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac. And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. It's a beautiful, kind of a three-fold description of God. The God who walked with Abraham and Isaac, kind of gives us pictures of the Garden of Eden. Him walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. The God who shepherded Jacob all of his life. And the angel that has redeemed him from all evil. I think it's always impactful when men in the Bible who are shepherds describe God's care for them as shepherds. Psalm 23 comes to mind, and of course that's Jacob's livelihood, and he's able to see God in those terms as a shepherd who's guiding him all of his days. And then he refers to God as an angel. And we've seen that before as how that can be a kind of a synonym, like a representation of God or even God himself as he's wrestling with Jacob. But he describes him as his redeemer, his rescuer. And that's that Hebrew word goel, which means something like kinsman, redeemer, and this relative that would be responsible for you if you were to get in over your head in debt. or were in some terrible legal trouble, or even became enslaved, they would redeem you from that situation. They'd also be the first to avenge you in the case of murder. And Jacob has no human rescuer, at least at points in his life. He had no human rescuer to do that for him, so it was God himself who said, I will be your redeemer. I will step in and rescue you when you're enslaved to Laban. And he did. And when you're running from Esau, who wants to kill you, and he did. When we speak of Jesus as our Redeemer, this imagery should come to our mind. The one who came as one of us, as a kinsman, who was fully man and stepped in to pay the debt that we owed, our sin debt against a holy God. And he avenged the glory of God by paying it himself, by taking the wrath upon himself on the cross. And he rose from the dead as a sign that that payment was enough. It was finished. Our Redeemer lives. And I would call you to trust Jesus. Trust him. He saves and he shepherds. Trust him all the way. I'd love to talk to you more about that if you have questions about what it means to be a Christian or to follow Jesus after our time together. Jacob blesses the boys that they would become a great people, and that's the language there for Manasseh the older, and then a multitude of peoples, a multitude of nations for Ephraim. And as you follow Israel's history, you just see this played out. You see Ephraim kind of explode in number in comparison to some of the other tribes and and things ebb and flow a bit you can follow the kind of trace that through Psalms like Psalm 78 that that outline the way that that that that takes place and then Judah comes into prominence later but you do see Joseph's house larger in terms of people and being blessed than the others but let's look at the the last few words then that Jacob speaks to Joseph here at the end of the chapter Genesis 48 down in verse 21 Then Israel said to Joseph, behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you, rather than to your brothers, one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow." And so we have here just a promise that number one, Joseph is gonna return himself to Canaan, and also that he's gonna give him this piece of property, this one mountain slope that he's acquired in battle. And we're not totally sure about this battle against the Amorites. That could be also kind of a general term. It's the inhabitants of Canaan. It's used that way sometimes. But one mountain slope in Hebrew means something like one shechem. And so it likely points to the land being in Shechem. And that's where, if you remember, Levi and Simeon killed all the males after that incident with Dinah. And whether it was, so perhaps this is Jacob kind of assuming that land as a place, but whether it was that incident or another one, we know where Joseph would eventually be buried. If you look down at Joshua, Joshua 24 verse 32, we read this, "...and for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph." So it's likely that's where it is, and it would be there, if you fast forward even further, that a woman from Samaria, hundreds of years later, would get a lot more than she bargained for when she went to the well at the middle of the day. When John records that instance, Jesus going to Samaria, he says this in John 4, verse 5, He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. And she asked for something, a drink, and got something completely different. A spring of water welling up into eternal life. Surprising grace. In all of this, God, His Word is coming to pass in His timing, through the means that He provides. Marcus Dodds kind of brings this story back to our world, and we'll close with these thoughts here. He says, again and again, and I quote, We put forward some cherished desire to God's right hand and are displeased, like Joseph, that still the hand of greater blessing should pass to some other thing. Does God not know what is oldest with us, what has been longest at our hearts and is dearest to us? Certainly he does. I know it, my son, I know it. He answers to all our pleas. It's not because he doesn't understand or regard your desires, your natural and excusable preferences, that he sometimes refuses to gratify your whole desire and pours upon you blessings of a kind somewhat different from those you most earnestly covet. He will give you the whole that Christ hath merited, but the application and distribution of that grace and blessing, you must be content to trust him. Sometimes God crosses his hands when he blesses us. Sometimes he surprises us with grace. And sometimes that, if we're honest, disappoints us. He blesses us in unexpected and unasked-for ways. He blesses us in such a way that makes himself more prominent in our lives. He is sovereign in his blessings. And he is also right, also always good. And he's always loving in the way that he cares for his children. And so on that day, if the Lord tarries and we find ourselves old and on our own deathbed, having walked with him, May we be able to say with Jacob, he has been my shepherd all my life long to this day. He has redeemed me from all evil. He did more than I ever asked or could have imagined. I didn't think it was gonna go this way. I didn't think he would bless this way, but I'm so thankful that he did because he's brought me home to him. Let's pray. Lord, that is my prayer for each of us, that we would have the long-term view to see you working in our entire life and match that, Lord, with the promises that you give us, that it's about your character, that you are good and you're sovereign. And so, Lord, we want to submit ourselves to you and know that your ways are higher than our ways, and ultimately they're better. Ultimately, we're gonna have more of you, and others are gonna see more of you in our lives. And so that is our prayer, Lord. And we pray that you would work that desire deep into our hearts, that you would receive all the glory. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.