Missions Paul

What would you ask for at the end of your life? What would be your final words? I suppose that depends on your circumstances and where you are.

Jacob is a hundred and forty-seven years old, and he knows he is dying. Seventeen years in Egypt, years of plenty, of reunion, of rest, and still, when the end comes near, Jacob makes one request. Carry me out of Egypt. Bury me where my fathers are buried.

What a man asks for at the end tells you everything about where his heart has been all along.

“Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years, and the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven. ²⁹ When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favour in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, ³⁰ but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.” “I will do as you say,” he said. ³¹ “Swear to me,” he said. Then Joseph swore to him, and Israel worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.” (Genesis 47 v 28-31)

Egypt had been the salvation for his family, but Jacob never confused rescue with home. He had been given a promise, a future that stretched beyond anything he would live to see. Egypt was a provision, not a destination.

So he calls Joseph. He asks for the ancient oath — hand under thigh, the most solemn of pledges. And he asks one thing: carry me out.

After Joseph agrees to his request to be taken out of Egypt, Jacob worships.

The writer of Hebrews holds this moment up as an example of faith: By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, worshipping as he leaned on the top of his staff (Hebrews 11:21). We will be reminded in the next chapter just who these sons really were. God’s choices rarely follow our logic.

If you were being perfectly honest, you wouldn’t have picked you. You know yourself too well. You know the detours, the failures, the long stretches of ordinariness. But He chose you when it didn’t make sense, when the odds were stacked against you, when others seemed more obvious candidates. He chose you, and He did it right on time.

This is the pattern all the way through. After Abraham came Isaac. After Isaac, Jacob. After Jacob, Joseph. After Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh — grandsons elevated to sons, the younger raised above the elder. God keeps raising the next generation, and His criteria are not ours. It is grace from top to bottom. The only fitting response is gratitude.

So this is not the day to waste time wondering whether God will use you, or when, or how. You belong to a long line of people who didn’t deserve to be called but they were. Don’t give up on that. Ask for much. Expect much. Do much.

Jacob had spent most of his life grabbing birthright, blessing, wages, and wives. But here, at the end, there is no grabbing. Only trust. He cannot carry himself to Canaan. He cannot see what God is doing on the other side of his death. He can only ask, believe, and worship.

The staff matters; it’s the sign of a pilgrim, a wanderer, a man who never quite settled. And he is still leaning on it at the end.

Do you know this experience? You look around and can see the evidence of God’s provision. You have put down roots. But something in you knows this isn’t the place you were made for. You are not ungrateful, but you know there is more. This is what verse 27 speaks to me about.

“Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number.” (Genesis 47 v 27)

Let’s pause a moment. We need to. We have had the famine, the reunion, the tears, the gifts, and the ongoing hardships for Egyptians living through the famine.

In this one verse, we have the opposite happening for Jacob’s family.

They settled. They acquired. They increased greatly.

But remember, this is Goshen, in Egypt; this was never supposed to be the destination.

So, is this blessing, or is this entanglement, or both?

The Promised Land was not this land. A nation was not meant to grow from within Egypt. This is still exile.

Ever wondered if you are in the right place? You are blessed, but something doesn’t feel right?

The promise of their own nation is alive, but right now it lives in exile.

Ever know the feeling of the blessing arriving in a form you didn’t expect?  You settle because there is no alternative. It is all you can do. You know this isn’t what you are called to or for, but this is it, for now.

Where are you settled right now? Is Goshen home, or is it just a fruitful place on the way to somewhere better?

Goshen was provision, but not the promise. The Israelites settled, and God was in that settling. But the story was not over.

Sometimes the only way to get to your destiny is to live faithfully in the place you are, until the road opens again.

Do you know those moments when you have tried everything, but the cupboard is bare? The Egyptians have no money and no livestock. All they have left is themselves. So that’s what they offer Joseph.

“When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, “We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land. ¹⁹ Why should we perish before your eyes—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.” ²⁰ So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s, ²¹ and Joseph reduced the people to servitude,from one end of Egypt to the other. ²² However, he did not buy the land of the priests, because they received a regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land. ²³ Joseph said to the people, “Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. ²⁴ But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.” ²⁵ “You have saved our lives,” they said. “May we find favour in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.” ²⁶ So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt—still in force today—that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh. It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s.” (Genesis 47 v 18-26)

The Egyptians have nothing left to bargain with. Their money and livestock are gone. So they came to Joseph with what they had left. ‘Take us’ is all they had.

A fifth of every harvest, from that day forward, would belong to Pharaoh.

They came to Joseph with nothing, and they left with seed in their hands and a future in front of them. Four-fifths of the harvest was theirs to keep. The land they had surrendered was now, in effect, given back to them to work. What looked like dispossession was, in their own words, salvation.

The seed in their hands was grace. It often is. Grace may not look like a bumper harvest. It might look like a seed in empty hands. But it shouts of a future.

You may not have much in your hand today. It may even be a seed. But it certainly is grace and miracles happen through the grace of God.

Do you know that experience when ordinary life has to take a back seat? The rules change. Yesterday’s security has gone, and today we need new rules.

The famine has gripped the land, and the people, stripped of resources, are left with few options; they have only one thing on their minds: survival. They come to Joseph.

“When the money of the people of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all Egypt came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? Our money is all gone.” ¹⁶ “Then bring your livestock,” said Joseph. “I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock, since your money is gone.” ¹⁷ So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their sheep and goats, their cattle and donkeys. And he brought them through that year with food in exchange for all their livestock.”  (Genesis 47 v 15-17)

Livestock is the currency in a famine, not money.

But in a moment like this, when our world is completely upside down and what we relied on isn’t there anymore, what do we do?

What do we cling to when everything else fails?

What are we willing to trade just to make it through another day?

Survival often demands sacrifice.

Around the world, people still trade long-term security for short-term survival. They sell land, possessions, even their dignity, just to eat.

In this famine, we are reading that these people do not perish; provision comes, at a cost, but it comes.

I wonder what you think of this story. Preserving life is what Joseph did, but it came at a cost, maybe of their dignity and future hope.

These verses bring us to the point where we ask ourselves the kind of stewards we want to become when resources and compassion are both in our hands.

What do we cling to when everything else fails? What are we willing to trade just to make it through another day? When we are the ones with food in our hands and people at our door, what kind of stewards will we be?

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Joseph feeds his family while also serving his Pharaoh, tightening the economic grip on a starving population. He cannot make those two things fit neatly together. He doesn’t try.

“So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed. ¹² Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their children. ¹³ There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine. ¹⁴ Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace.” (Genesis 47 v 11-14)

How can the same hands that supply provisions for his family be involved in making life even harder for the population?  The two realities sit side by side. Abundance in one hand and desperation in the other.

He cannot save everyone. He cannot feed his family, serve his Pharaoh, and do it tension-free.

Most of us live in the complicated middle, too, where we struggle to please everyone at once. But while Joseph is preserving lives, he is also strengthening Pharaoh’s economic control. He is the man caught in the middle.

Both realities sit side by side; that is where Joseph actually lives.

Most of us live there too. We are pulled between people whose needs don’t always align, serving institutions while trying to protect those we love. Joseph doesn’t resolve the tension. To carry two things at once and keep going may be a fresh variety of faithfulness, and beneath it all, God’s plan moves forward.

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Jacob is standing before Pharaoh. He has survived famine, grief, betrayal, and the long silence of thinking his favourite son was dead. Now, Pharaoh looks at this old man and asks a question.

“Pharaoh asked him, ‘How old are you?’ And Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.'” (Genesis 47:8–9)

The summary of his own life is this: it’s been hard and not long enough. A pilgrimage marked by struggle. A journey with direction, even when the road was brutal. He doesn’t pretend it was easy. But he is still on pilgrimage. Jacob reveals his theology: this life is not the destination.

You are allowed to call your life tough if that is what it has been. But do so with the thought of it being a pilgrimage very much in your mind. It has been a journey, held by God who knows where you have been going, even when you didn’t. It is still a journey. This is a pilgrimage. Still moving ahead. Still going somewhere with God leading.

That is all we need to understand at times.

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A shepherd’s son, sold into slavery, once imprisoned, forgotten, yet now the 2^nd most important man in Egypt presents his elderly father to the most powerful man in the world. The story has been working towards this moment.

“Joseph went and told Pharaoh, “My father and brothers, with their flocks and herds and everything they own, have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen.” ² He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh. ³ Pharaoh asked the brothers, “What is your occupation?” “Your servants are shepherds,” they replied to Pharaoh, “just as our fathers were.” ⁴ They also said to him, “We have come to live here for a while, because the famine is severe in Canaan and your servants’ flocks have no pasture. So now, please let your servants settle in Goshen.” ⁵ Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you, ⁶ and the land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen. And if you know of any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock.” ⁷ Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh.” (Genesis 47 v 1-7)

He doesn’t hide who they are. The brothers could have lied; they were good at that. They all were. They could have played down their identity. Shepherds were outcasts in Egypt. What is your occupation? This time, there is the truth. No apology. Just the truth about where they come from and what they do.

The family that would become a nation doesn’t arrive in Egypt as diplomats or merchants. They don’t even arrive as a perfect family, far from it. But their occupation meant they were outsiders, and they began to live in Goshen, separate, distinct, preserved, and ready to be their own nation.

Behind Pharaoh’s generous hand is the hand of the One who moves kings and famines alike. We end this devotion today with Jacob and Pharaoh together. What happens next? At this moment, we are reading that Jacob and Joseph do not know. We rarely see where the story is taking us when we are inside it. But the story is definitely taking us into something else.

God was always there. He was there in the famine, in the reunion, in the open hand of a foreign king and in the resettling into Goshen. The story was never lost. It was simply still being written.

One of the things I do in my job is chair interviews between prospective ministers and the church leadership board. I seem to have had a run of them recently. In preparation, I tell the minister to simply be who they are, be honest, don’t oversell themselves, and be genuine above all things. To keep it simple, I could say, ‘don’t lie,’ but that seems a bit harsh; however, that’s what I mean.

Joseph’s family have spent years tangled in deception, and now, on the verge of settling in Egypt, Joseph’s advice runs counter to everything they have known and lived by. No spin, repositioning, or attempt to make the family sound more impressive than they are.

“Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father’s household, “I will go up and speak to Pharaoh and will say to him, ‘My brothers and my father’s household, who were living in the land of Canaan, have come to me. ³² The men are shepherds; they tend livestock, and they have brought along their flocks and herds and everything they own.’ ³³ When Pharaoh calls you in and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’ ³⁴ you should answer, ‘Your servants have tended livestock from our boyhood on, just as our fathers did.’ Then you will be allowed to settle in the region of Goshen, for all shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians.” (Genesis 46 v 31-34)

Tell the truth, Joseph says. Tell him you are shepherds.

Why?

This is refreshing to see that the family is no longer lying over anything. They were so used to not telling the truth over the years. So why now?

Shepherds were detestable to the Egyptians, and so Pharaoh would want them out on the margins of Egypt, in a place like Goshen. The stigma becomes a shelter. They will stay together, distinct, and they will be ready as a new nation, Israel.

Like Joseph, we don’t need to lie on our resume. The occupation of this family, maybe even the smell of the animals, is exactly what God used to place them where they needed to be.

God’s plan for your life doesn’t need you to manage people’s expectations, to impress them by boasting or even lying. God can position you exactly where He wants you simply by you saying who you are.

Goshen may not have been the centre of Egypt, but it would be theirs, and it would be where God starts a new chapter for them.

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I’m sure you know that feeling of waiting for something that doesn’t come. At first, it is as if you are waiting at the door or picking up your phone every minute to see if you have received that message. Then, eventually, you stop expecting.

This is where Jacob had been living. Until he received news that he may have stopped dreaming of receiving.

“Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions to Goshen. When they arrived in the region of Goshen, ²⁹ Joseph had his chariot made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph appeared before him, he threw his arms around his fatherand wept for a long time. ³⁰ Israel said to Joseph, “Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that you are still alive.” (Genesis 45 v 28-30)

Some people have to learn to live with very difficult circumstances. Like Jacob, they have to learn to live with a shadow. Jacob endured what many believe to be over 20 years of constant silence from his beloved son. These long periods of time can cause our expectations to die before we physically do. Living with grief with hope is one thing, but living with grief and a permanent loss is another. He was dead, and Jacob lived under the shadow of that death. So much so that after Joseph had stopped weeping, after ‘a long time’, then Jacob is ready to die. He can die in peace. His heart is now healed. Some people stay alive because of the wound. That would be true of Jacob. But now his life is complete.

Notice that ‘Jacob’ sends Judah, but ‘Israel’ meets Joseph. Is that written on purpose? If so, it could be that the name ‘Israel’ given after the wrestling match, as the name of the promise, the name which is now revealing the man God made through the suffering of life?

The last two words are powerful – ‘still alive’. Sadly, in our lives, there are people and things that are very much dead, yet, look again, perhaps something of their legacy is still alive. If that is the case, then life has not defeated you.

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This morning, you are going to read names that will make you speed-read.  Hanok, Pallu, Hezron, and Karmi are names that make you want to move quickly to the point. A family is on the move. An old man has climbed into a cart sent by Pharaoh, leaving behind everything he has known in Canaan, heading toward a son he thought was dead and a land that is not his own.

Travelling with him are seventy people whose lives are held in the hands of a God who is keeping a very careful count of the overall number and the individual names.

“Then Jacob left Beersheba, and Israel’s sons took their father Jacob and their children and their wives in the carts that Pharaoh had sent to transport him. ⁶ So Jacob and all his offspring went to Egypt, taking with them their livestock and the possessions they had acquired in Canaan. ⁷ Jacob brought with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons and his daughters and granddaughters—all his offspring. ⁸ These are the names of the sons of Israel (Jacob and his descendants) who went to Egypt: Reuben the firstborn of Jacob. ⁹ The sons of Reuben: Hanok, Pallu, Hezron and Karmi. ¹⁰ The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. ¹¹ The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. ¹² The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan had died in the land of Canaan). The sons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul. ¹³ The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puah, Jashuband Shimron. ¹⁴ The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon and Jahleel. ¹⁵ These were the sons Leah bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram,besides his daughter Dinah. These sons and daughters of his were thirty-three in all. ¹⁶ The sons of Gad: Zephon,Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi and Areli. ¹⁷ The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi and Beriah. Their sister was Serah. The sons of Beriah: Heber and Malkiel. ¹⁸ These were the children born to Jacob by Zilpah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Leah—sixteen in all. ¹⁹ The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. ²⁰ In Egypt, Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On. ²¹ The sons of Benjamin: Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim and Ard. ²² These were the sons of Rachel who were born to Jacob—fourteen in all. ²³ The son of Dan: Hushim. ²⁴ The sons of Naphtali: Jahziel, Guni, Jezer and Shillem. ²⁵ These were the sons born to Jacob by Bilhah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Rachel—seven in all. ²⁶ All those who went to Egypt with Jacob—those who were his direct descendants, not counting his sons’ wives—numbered sixty-six persons. ²⁷ With the two sons^[ who had been born to Joseph in Egypt, the members of Jacob’s family, which went to Egypt, were seventyin all.” (Genesis 46 v 5-27)

A long list of names, and this is one of those many passages that we are tempted to skim past or even not read at all. But of course, this morning we are not going to do that. We are reading what appears to be an important point: a large family is on the move. All of them.

The list looks boring, yet they are there because these names are important to God and His story. Even names we would rather forget, like Er and Onan, who died in Canaan. God knows these names, and that’s the point. Even people like Hushim? Serah? Malkiel? All of them, no one is anonymous to Him.

Seventy members of the family went down to Egypt. It seems to be a number of completeness and mission in the Bible. Seventy nations in Genesis 10; seventy elders appointed by Moses and seventy sent out by Jesus. Here, on the way to Egypt, is a significant number, seventy, that is a seed of the great nation God had promised Abraham. From this family of seventy, including an old man on a cart, comes a nation and through the tribe of Judah, whose sons Perez and Zerah appear quietly on this very list, the name above all names, Jesus.

God is faithful in the details. Behind every unfamiliar name is a life held in the hands of a God who forgets nothing and loses no one. Seventy went down to Egypt. Not sixty-nine. Not seventy-one. He numbers the stars and calls them each by name, and He numbers His people too. I’ve heard many people in my life suggest that God is not concerned with church attendance numbers. I understand the point being made, but the truth is God is most definitely concerned with numbers, every single one, you and me included.

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