Last week we saw a beautiful reunion between Joseph and all of his brothers. After 22 years of separation, they were all back together again. But there was still one thing left to do – bring the entire family back to Egypt to live with Joseph. So Joseph sent his brothers back home to Canaan to get his dad and the rest of the family.
[Read Genesis 45:25-28.]
Jacob is determined to move his entire household to Egypt where there was food, since there was a famine in the land, and where there was Joseph, his long-lost son.
Now even though this was going to be a good move for Jacob and his household, there would still be a lot of stress involved. Moving from one place to another carries a lot of stress and even fear with it – even if you’re moving for a good reason.
Jacob’s family would have food to eat in Egypt, Jacob would be able to see his son Joseph, and God was going to transform Israel from a tribal family into a great nation there. But as we’re going to see, Jacob was afraid of the move.
You see, moving means change. And change is always at war with comfort. We get to a place in our lives where we’re comfortable. Everything is set and working great. No surprises, no problems and little stress. We’re comfortable with life and don’t want to upset the applecart. “If it aint broken, don’t fix it!”
[Getting out of bed to turn on heat illustration.]
We sometimes get that way in life. We don’t want to be uncomfortable for a minute even if it’s for our own good. And more often than not, change in our lives is good. Especially if it’s directed by God. The change coming to Jacob’s life was directed by God, but he still feared it.
I. Change is feared
[Read Genesis 46:1-4.]
Now the reason we know that Jacob was afraid of this move was because the Lord told him not to be afraid. Jacob might have been on his way to Egypt, but deep down he didn’t know what to expect. Change was coming and his stress level was rising.
The great thing about this is that it drove Jacob to his knees. At the beginning of his journey he went to that familiar place of worship in Beersheba and offered sacrifices to God. I wonder if he went to the same place where his father and grandfather worshipped.
[Jacob - read Genesis 46:1-3a.]
[Isaac - read Genesis 26:23-25, altar.]
[Abraham - read Genesis 21:33, tree.]
Do you think it’s possible that all of these worship sites are one in the same? Trees live hundreds of years. Altars last hundreds of years. I think it’s very possible that Jacob worshipped in the same place where Isaac worshipped and where Abraham worshipped. Especially when the Lord identified himself to Jacob and Isaac as the God of their father; Whom had worshipped in that place.
Anyway, Jacob is afraid of the change coming associated with his move to Egypt so he goes to a familiar place of worship and calls on the Lord.
You know, when we’re facing change in our life that’s kind of scary, we need to go to that familiar place of worship and call on the Lord. Not necessarily a special place or form or worship, but the familiar posture of trusting our loving God. God has always and will always love us and be with us. He’s gotten us through scary changes of life before and He’ll be with us through scary changes again. He’s the familiar constant that holds or feet sure through the waves of life.
Jacob trusted him with this change and look at how God reassured him:
1. “I will make you a great nation”, (I will fulfill my promises)
2. “I will go down with you”, (I’ll never leave your side)
3. “I will bring you up again”, (You won’t be buried in a pagan land)
4. “Joseph will close your eyes”, (You won’t be separated from Joseph ever again)
God comforted Jacob’s fears concerning the move and encouraged him to travel on. And travel on they did. Now instead of fearing change:
II. Change is embraced
[Read Genesis 46:5-7.]
They packed up everything and moved to Egypt. Everything! All their family, all their livestock and all their possessions. They just picked up and moved. That’s what initially made things so scary. But now having been encouraged by the Lord the change was embraced.
Now the next twenty verses list the names of most of Jacob’s family. (The names of his son’s wives aren’t listed.) The list was to represent all of Jacob’s direct descendants. Not the people married into the family, but the people with Jacob’s blood.
[Read Genesis 46:26-27.]
So Jacob’s traveling with 66 sons and grandsons, his and their wives, and all their stuff, to meet up with Joseph and his two sons already in Egypt. Can you imagine what an undertaking that must have been? I mean, to successfully journey with that kind of group, along with the animals and all your earthly possessions, you had to be committed to what you were doing. You couldn’t half-way travel with a large group like that. You had to embrace it!
What if Jacob hadn’t been fully committed to moving to Egypt? No doubt, the journey would have been full of unnecessary stress and delays and who knows what else.
You know, when God wants us to do something different in our lives, if we don’t fully embrace the coming change we’re setting our self up for problems. If we don’t embrace what God’s doing then when He moves we won’t receive it like we should. We’ll find ourselves bitter and critical and trying to manipulate things back into being comfortable for ourselves.
[Kids going to Keswick from home schooling story.]
You know when we don’t embrace the change God wants for our lives we miss out on the blessing of the change itself. God doesn’t mix things up in our lives to give us a worse life. He mixes things up in our lives to bless us and to draw us closer to Him. If we never changed, if we never moved forward, if we never took any chances, what a weak and superficial faith we would have. Because when everything’s fine and comfortable what do we need to trust God for? But when life starts to change and when discomfort comes, our chance to grow closer to God and receive His blessings come too. Just what blessings did Jacob and his family receive from this huge change in their lives? Well lets look at them.
III. Change is fruitful
Lots of wonderful things can come about when a person embraces the change that God has for them. In Jacob’s case, we’re going to classify them in four arenas. The first is:
1. Emotional blessings
Emotional blessings came to Jacob, Joseph and the entire family because of him obeying
the Lord and making that incredible journey to Egypt.
[Read Genesis 46:28-30.]
It’s been twenty-two long years since father and son had seen each other. Twenty-two years! The last time they were together Joseph was still a teenager and life was grand. Through those twenty-two years Jacob thought his son had been killed and seemed to live with that thought constantly hanging in his heart. Through those twenty-two years Joseph had tried to put out of his mind the past and probably thought he’d never see his father and family again.
But because of the change that God had brought, the family is back together again and blessed emotions could come forth. I get the picture of Jacob and Joseph embracing and crying and letting the past twenty-two years of frustration pass in their tears. I also see the family coming close after a few minutes creating a massive group hug as they were all back together again. It must have been great to clear the air and feel joy as God wanted them to.
You can tell emotions had been healed since Joseph now tells the brothers how he’d go to Pharaoh on their behalf so they could live peaceable lives in the land. So now we’ll see:
2. Social blessings
Remember, Egyptians didn’t like foreigners or shepherds, and Joseph’s family was both! So Joseph instructs them to emphasize before Pharaoh that they tend cattle and deemphasize that they also tend sheep.
It’s also important to note that by this time, according to history, a new Pharaoh had come into power, (Sesotris III). So even though Joseph is still Prime Minister of Egypt, he wanted his brothers to make a good impression on the new Pharaoh.
[Read Genesis 46:31-34.]
So Joseph tries to get them to beef up their resume a little bit. Let’s see what happened.
[Read Genesis 47:1-4.]
Can you see Joseph’s face as they just came out and said, “We’re shepherds, our father is a shepherd, and his father was a shepherd.” But their unashamed honesty, and undoubtedly Joseph’s position and reputation, paid off!
[Read Genesis 47:5-6.]
They would be living in the best land and even working for Pharaoh himself. These foreigners would be accepted into the community with the blessing of Pharaoh himself. It’s always nice when you feel at home in a new place. Jacob and the family could feel at home.
So the change has brought about emotional and social blessings. Next are the:
3. Spiritual blessings
[Read Genesis 47:7-10.]
Jacob expresses to Pharaoh that he knows he won’t live as long as Abraham and Isaac lived. (They both lived about thirty years longer than Jacob.) And that his life as a pilgrim, never really having a place he could call his own, was a life filled with difficult times.
But Jacob’s faith was strongly ensconced in him as he speaks up and blesses Pharaoh. Now this wasn’t a blessing like when God blesses someone. This was the current Patriarch of the faith pronouncing a benediction, or blessing, over the life of Pharaoh. It would be like some ordinary, American pastor going to Russia, meeting face-to-face with Vladimir Putin, and verbally speaking a specific benediction of God’s blessings over that ungodly man. Something that would take an incredible amount of courage to do.
Jacob had that courage because God had blessed him spiritually through all of these journeys of change. Finally, we see more fruit from this embraced change.
4. Physical blessings
[Read Genesis 47:11-12.]
All of their physical needs had been met in the midst of a famine! They’ve got the best land, they get to tend their flocks, and Joseph’s giving them all the grain they need for the entire family. None of this would have been possible if they would have stayed in Canaan! None of this would have been possible if Jacob didn’t embrace the change and move to Egypt.
Because of his willingness to obey the Lord, move to Egypt, and embrace the change, emotional blessings, social blessings, spiritual blessings and physical blessings had come to him and the entire family. When we follow God with the change He wants for us, much fruit comes into our lives because of it. Fruit that wouldn’t come otherwise.
Way back in the day farmers in Alabama were accustomed to planting one crop year after year – cotton. Then one year the dreaded boll weevil came in and devastated their crops. The next year many farmers mortgaged their farms and tried planting cotton again. But the insects came back and they lost their crops again. The few farmers that were left after that then decided to do something different, something they’d never done before, plant something else. That something else was the peanut. The peanuts grew well and sold even better. They made so much money they could pay off all their losses from the previous two years. Along with that, some of the farmers pulled some of their new found wealth together and erected a monument in the town square in honor of the boll weevil. They realized that the change brought by that bug was really a blessing in disguise.
When God leads us into change, He will lead us through the change. Let’s do our best to embrace what He’s doing so we can enjoy the fruit of the change.
Next week we’ll look at Jacob’s final days on earth.
