genesis sermon

8/2/2019 Genesis Sermon

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Dan Morrison Genesis 47:29-48:22

HOM II Sermon Manuscript

You must not lose sight of what God has promised you. Jacob was on the brink of death

and all he knew was that God has made him a promise. Therefore, he chose to believe what

God told him. Looking at your own life, what has God promised you? For some, it may be

healing, for others deliverance. For some, it may be the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And you

may wonder, Will Gods promise ever come? Will I be healed? Will I ever walk in freedom?

Will I receive what I have asked of God? And I tell you, what you should do is take the attitude

of Jacob. Though about to die, Jacob believed against his present circumstances and held

strongly to the conviction he learned throughout his life that God is faithful.

Jacob, believing in the faithfulness of God, had his son Joseph make a sacred oath not to

bury him in Egypt, but to bury him with his fathers. This oath didnt just have to do with Jacob,

it had to do with the promise God made and the future of the people of Israel. The scope of

Jacobs vision was bigger than he. Therefore, he held on to the promise of God. How strong is

your conviction about what God has spoken to you? Are you willing to step out simply on Gods

word when there is nothing you can naturally see that supports it? This is the question of faith.

When you are in a situation like Jacob was in, you need to remember those things which

God has promised you in the past. When you dont see or understand just how the promise of

God is going to be a reality in your life, you have to look back and remind yourself of what God

has done. Jacob remembered the promise God made him and this gave him hope for the

future. In verse 3 Jacob says to his son Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the

land of Canaan and blessed me.

The account of the Lord appearing to Jacob at Luz is found in Genesis 28. Verses 13-15

give account of what God promised Jacob. I am the LORD the God of Abraham your father and


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the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give you and to your offspring. Your offspring

shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and

to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be

blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to

this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Now God is no respecter of persons. This was a specific promise to Jacob, but there are

principles in this passage apply to your life. The same way God told Jacob I am with you and

will keep you wherever you go I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised

you, Jesus says to you I will never leave you, nor forsake you. And this is one thing you have

to keep in mind when looking at the promise of God. Remembering what God has done in the

past stirs your faith to believe Him for the future. The fact that I have known God as a savior

gives me faith to believe he still saves. The fact that I have known God as a healer gives me

faith to believe He still heals. The fact that I have known Him as one who baptizes in the Spirit

gives me the faith to believe He is still the baptizer in the Spirit. Your history with God should

be good enough for you to believe God will come through for now and in the future.

For Jacob the lesson of learning to trust God took him a lifetime to learn, but in the end,

he was able to say, This is what the Lord said to me. Jacob was a deceiver. His very name

means he who supplants. Another way to put it is that his name means one who takes the

place of another through scheming. And this is exactly what Jacob did. When he received the

blessing from his father Isaac, it was the blessing intended for his brother Esau. But through

deception, he was able to take the place of his brother and receive the blessing of the first-born

son. In this case, you are about to see a blessing which parallels his own, but in this case, the


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blessing was not obtained through scheming deception. Rather, it was done by the hand of the

Lord.

Even as youre about to see, God does not always work the way you want Him to work.

So many times we have in our minds how we want God to move and we make that our

expectation. But what you have to do is acknowledge the fact that God is God, He knows all,

and has His own agenda. Read verses 13-20 with me please. Now, as we can see, Joseph

already had in mind how he wanted God to work. His expectation was that Manasseh, the

older son, receive the greater blessing. He had a plan in mind, but he quickly learned, from all

people, his father, that God had another agenda. For what Jacob did, seemed quite

unconventional in the blessing of his grandsons. Based on how Joseph had positioned his sons,

Israel took his right hand and placed it on the one on his left and the left hand on the one on

the right. When Joseph saw what was taking place, he took his fathers right hand in order to

place it on Manasseh.

How many times have you tried to change what God was doing in your own life,

because, like Joseph, you were displeased with what was taking place? You must learn, as

Jacob had, to trust God. For Jacobs response to Joseph is much like Gods response to you and

me today, I know. He says, I know it is not how you thought it would be. I know this is not

what you had in mind. I know this is hard for you to understand. But I know whats best.

Thats what you need to hear, that God knows whats best and He is faithful.

Whether you see immediately what you are looking for or not, you must depend on

Gods faithfulness to see you through your situation. Even in Jacobs blessing, he says a couple

of things about God. In verses 15-16 he says, that God was the one before whom his fathers


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walked. God had been his shepherd all is life. And He was the angel who had redeemed him

from evil. And just as Jacob reported these things about the Lord, Jesus said of himself for you,

Before Abraham was, I AM. I am the good shepherd. It is by his life, death, and

resurrection that we are totally redeemed.

God is with you. HE is faithful, and just, and kind. His intention for you is good, even

when you dont understand what is going on - even when things are not going according to

your plan. Learn to do what Jacob did. Learn to trust God, have faith in Him, and believe that

he is one who does what He says.

genesis sermon

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