Don't Die With the Blessing Still Locked Inside You | Genesis 48

What are you leaving? What truth will your children still hear? The memory of you long after you're gone. What prayer will your grandchildren remember? Hearing you pray over them. With faith will still speak when your voice can't.

Most of us are so focused on what we're building that we haven't thought about what we're transmitting. And Genesis 48 interrupts that whole thing because here is an old man and he's weak. He's nearly blind. He's barely able to sit up. He can barely sit up in bed. And instead of saying his final words about what he accumulated, which was a lot, he blesses. He speaks covenant over the next generation. He reaches forward in faith when his body just can't go any farther.

That's what this chapter is about.

And the question that leaves us.

The question that resonates in us that w that's hanging around. Inside of us in our head.

Is there any way you can turn up your phone? The reason I say that is because I'm turned up pretty loud. I mean, really, really loud. So it might be a phone thing. I don't know where you're listening. Look at the monitor. Boom. Yeah, we're we're pinging into the yellow and red. So it must be something on your end. So shalom and welcome to true word, faith for life. I'm Dr. Sean. Today is day 51. Welcome in. And we're in Genesis 48, and Jacob is near death. Joseph hears that his father is ill, and he brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to Jacob's bedside.

The chapter is tender, but it's not sentimental. It's covenantal. It's about adoption.

It's about inheritance, identity, memory, blessing, future. And right at the center is a reversal, the kind of Genesis. Well, it's the kind that Genesis it keeps showing us. Where the expected order gets overruled by divine purpose. God's blessing was well, it's never been controlled by our ranking systems, and it still isn't. That's me. If you've ever been counted out before you got started, before you even got started. Thank you so much. Amen. Amen. Jacob remembers the promise. He says, Before I tell you who you are, let me tell you what God promised. Before I tell you who you are, let me tell you what God promised. Oh, that's tricky. When Joseph arrives, Jacob strengthens himself and he sits up in bed. Don't rush right past that. When Jacob arrives, Joseph strengthens himself and sits up in bed. This is an old man gathering whatever strength remains for a holy moment. Picture it in your head. Picture it in your mind and your heart. This old man. He can barely sit up. And now he's he's gathering up whatever last strength that he has. Because this moment is holy. His body is done, but his assignment isn't. Before Jacob blesses the boys, he does something deeply, characteristically Hebrew. He remembers. He goes back to Luz, which is Bethel, where God Almighty appeared to him. The Hebrew name God uses here is El Shaddai. El Shaddai is usually translated God Almighty, and some have heard in that name the sense of God's sufficiency, the God who is more than enough. We should hold that word very carefully because the precise meaning of Shaddai is debated. But the point in this context is clear. Jacob begins with the God whose power and sufficiency are greater than famine, barrenness, exile, grief, and even death. I just saw a dude who's live on live currently offering demon assistance and is doing demonic cultivation on people. I don't know. I don't know anything about that. I'm not concerned with that. What I'm concerned with is this very powerful lesson, day 51. So that's the patriarchal covenant name. The name God used with Abraham in Genesis 17, El Shaddai. The name God used with Jacob himself in Genesis 35. And now, at the end of Jacob's life, that is where he begins. El Shaddai. Jacob doesn't begin with, no, it's no worry, Jackson, no worry. I just don't understand why you're asking that. Or stating that repeatedly. Jacob doesn't begin with family sentiment as you would think that he would. He begins with God's name and God's word. That's the right order. And it corrects something about how we often bless people. Modern blessing tends to be really vague. I'm so proud of you. You're very special. You can be anything. Those words are kind, sure. Sometimes they're delusional. Those words, they can be kind, but biblical blessing goes deeper. Biblical blessing speaks identity under God. Jacob is saying, in effect, before I tell you who you are, let me tell you what God promised. My friends, that's what this next generation needs. They don't need flattery or pressure. They certainly don't need fear. They need covenant truth. Ephraim and Manasseh are brought in to the room. God doesn't need a perfect family to keep covenant, he needs a faithful family. Jacob, he then makes a declaration that changes everything for these two boys. Imagine. He says, Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are mine. That is adoption language. It's not mere affection, it's not inheritance. Jacob isn't just saying, hey, I sure love these two boys. These are sweet boys. No, he's saying they belong within Israel's covenant inheritance. They become sons of Israel, not just grandsons. And they each receive a tribal inheritance, which means Joseph receives a double portion through his son, and that's not random. Reuben was the firstborn, and an ancient inheritance expectation, the firstborn received special preeminence. Do you remember Esau? But Reuben forfeited his preeminence through sin. He violated his father's household in one of the darkest moments of Genesis. So that double portion had to go somewhere. And God, who never wastes anything, not even family failure, he roots it through Joseph. The rejection, the rejected son gets the firstborn's blessing through his children. The rejected son gets the firstborn's blessing through his children. God isn't pretending the family is clean. He's preserving promise through a wounded family. Some of you need to hear that today. You look at your family story and the damage feels disqualifying. You say, Oh man. Maybe you look at your own life and you you disqualify yourself, just like I did. The sin, the grief, the complicated chapters. The dysfunction that you didn't choose, or maybe you did. But in this biblical case, it was chosen for them. How about the choices you regret? Anybody? Anybody out there regretting some choices? Genesis keeps saying, look again. Look again. El Shaddai doesn't need a clean lineage. He needs a covenant to keep. And then there's this little detail we can't skip. Aphraim and Manasseh were born in Egypt. They grew up in Joseph's Egyptian household. Their mother was Asanath, the daughter of Poferah, priest of One, a major center of Egyptian solar worship. Let that land. Let that get in your head. These boys have an Egyptian priestly grandfather on their mother's side. But by every external measure, they're connected to Egypt, not Israel. And Jacob brings them into Israel. He's saying, Egypt is where you were born, but Egypt doesn't get to say who you are. If that's not a word for today, I don't know what is. Our children are growing up in a cultural Egypt. They're formed by screens and algorithms and philosophies and value systems that have nothing to do with the covenant God. Our calling is not despair. Bless them. Teach them. Pray over them. Speak identity rooted in God, not in the culture they're swimming in. Type the word covenant in the chat if you're believing God for a family line that the culture doesn't get to define. Covenant. If you believe, you're believing God for that. By the way, good morning to everyone. So nice to have you both on playback and live. Or streaming live to I think eight or nine locations. And then every podcast location there is. If you're a you know, you do Spotify or uh Amazon Music or iHeartRadio or any of those, iTunes, click on the show. True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. Do the follow, the thumbs up rating, whatever. It helps us. Amen. Thank you. Good morning, Sean. Spelled correctly. I'm always teasing about that. I don't mind. My parents spelled my name this way because where I grew up, nobody would be able to pronounce Sean spelled correctly, which is S-A-S-E-A-N. So they spelled it S-H-A-W N. So Jacob remembers Rachel. What do we do at the end of our lives? Grief often stands very close to blessing. Then Jacob pauses and mentions Rachel. Oh my. He remembers her death on the road to Ephrath. That is Bethlehem. And he remembers her burial there. We talked about it here. It may not. Look, you may think, Wow, why is this fitting in? Why is he putting this in? This doesn't seem to fit. This seems weird. Feels like an interruption, maybe, but it's not an interruption. Jacob is about to bless Joseph's sons, the sons of Rachel's son. And the memory of Rachel rises. Grief often stands very close to blessing. And then geography matters. Rachel is buried near Bethlehem. That's not incidental. Bethlehem will become the city of David. And in the fullness of time it becomes the birthplace of Yeshua, the one through whom every blessing of the covenant finds its fulfillment. Jacob doesn't know that, but God does. But also grief is real. The grief is real. The burial is real. And the place of burial is inside the trajectory of redemption. That is deeply honest scripture. Sometimes the holiest moments still carry ache. A wedding with someone missing. A grandchild born after loss. A milestone that reminds you of the person who should have been there to see it. I told you about my watch yesterday. Somebody sent me a thing. I don't even know who they are. They don't know me. I don't know them. This watch, they go, Why are you begging money? I don't ask for money. If you want to give, give. Um said, What are you doing running begging money running around with a Rolex watch? First of all, this is a probably 20-year-old Seiko. It's a solar watch. And my friend, my dear friend, Jerry Summers, who has gone on to his reward. He ran this little church shop and uh little thrift shop. And this was a watch that came in. And he called me and said, Hey, you might be interested in this because I wasn't wanting a reliable, sturdy watch. And it was damaged. Little piece missing, but he said, if you want it, I'll sell it to you for the cheap, cheap price. I think I paid 50 bucks for it or something like that. I don't remember. Maybe, but I rem all kinds of things. I I remember Jerry. He was a pivotal and key point in my life. And he's not here. Something happens to think. Oh, I should ask Jerry. I should ask Jerry what he thinks. Who do you think of in pivotal moments in your life? Jacob isn't faithless. He's not faithless because he remembers Rachel. He loved Rachel with all his heart, still does. Faith doesn't require some emotional amnesia. Biblical hope doesn't pretend loss never happened. It brings grief into the presence of the God who keeps covenant all across generations, even when we're not here to see it. God isn't limited by your seating chart. Joseph brings his sons close, positions them deliberately. Manasseh, the firstborn, toward Jacob's right hand. Ephraim, the younger, toward Jacob's left. In the ancient Near Eastern world, the right hand was the hand of power, priority, and covenantal favor. You wouldn't know that unless you studied it. That's why I teach the way I do. Joseph's positioning is correct by every cultural convention. But Jacob crosses his hands. He puts his right hand on Ephraim and his left hand on Menesse. But Joseph tries to correct him. Not this way, my father. This one is the firstborn. And Jacob says essentially, I know, my son. I know. This isn't. Some senile old man making a mistake. This is a prophet speaking of future. And I'm not talking about the pretend prophets, the people on the internet that call themselves prophet or prophetess and they say weird things, and then when they don't happen, they explain it away. You are not a prophet if you get even one thing wrong. Because there is no word from God that is incorrect. Somebody calls themselves, I I have God gave me a prophetic word. Be wary. Be wary of that. That's somebody letting their emotions run away with them. And this guy, Jacob, is a real prophet. And he's not see now. He's old and he's about to die, but he's not see now. And he's not making any mistake here. This is a prophet speaking a future. Ephraim will be greater. His descendants will become a multitude of nations, and history proves it out. Ephraim becomes the dominant tribe in the northern kingdom. The prophets Hose especially use Ephraim as a way of speaking about all northern Israel. The younger gets the larger inheritance. Jacob sees it before it happens. And this pattern, this reversal runs like a thread through the entire book of Genesis. Isaac, not Ishmael, Jacob, not Esau, Joseph, not Reuben, Ephraim, not Manasseh. God is consistently, deliberately choosing the not obvious vessel. This isn't just birth order mechanics. This is sovereignty over human systems. In the ancient Near Eastern world, firstborn status carries legal, economic, and social weight. You didn't just casually overturn it. And Genesis keeps showing us a God who is free. God does what he wants to do. The blessing isn't controlled by some family machinery. The future belongs to God. No, you may not be the obvious choice. You may not have the pedigree, the title, the platform, the position that others were expecting, but you're still in the room. God is unlimited by the seating chart. The most surprising word in Jacob's blessing. The God who shepherded me and redeemed me. Now, this is the theological heart of this chapter. Don't miss it. Miss anything else. Don't miss this. Are you ready? Jacob blesses the boys and he says, The God before my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked. The God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from evil. Bless the boys. There's so much here. There's so much. If you understand it, the Bible is the most incredible sixty-six book compilation of our history and our future. And if you don't understand Genesis, you will not understand the rest. The God who has been my shepherd. The Hebrew here is participio. Literally the one shepherding. Me, not shepherded, shepherding. Ongoing, continuous, present tense at the end of a a 147-year life. Jacob was a shepherd. He knew what shepherding meant. The tracking, the searching, the protecting, the guiding in the dark. He's saying, That is what God has been doing to me all of my life, even when I don't see it. In the ancient Near Eastern world, folks, the shepherd was also an image of the ideal king. Rulers presented themselves as shepherds who are supposed to guide and protect and provide for his people. Jacob is saying, God has been my king, my true ruler, the one actually in charge of my life, not Laban, not Esau, not Pharaoh, God, and that's profound. But there's a second phrase that's even more stunning, and it's the one many people just skip right past: the angel who has redeemed me from all evil. The Hebrew word here is Hagoel. Hagoel, the Redeemer, the one who acts to rescue, recover, and reclaim. Later, this word becomes central in Israel's family redeemer laws and in the story of Boaz and Ruth. But already here, Jacob is saying something astonishing. God hasn't merely guided him, God has redeemed him. God has recovered him from places where he should have been permanently lost. Can anybody say amen to that? Because that's what God has done for me. And I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it. I don't know about you. That same Redeemer. Jacob says, that same Redeemer. Bless these boys. Some of us need that word today. Not just that God will guide you, whether you're young or whether you are old. God's guidance in our lives never stops. It's not just that God will guide you, but that there is a redeemer, someone who steps into your broken situation and brings you back. Someone who doesn't look at what the enemy has done to your family or your reputation and say, well, they're too far gone. They can't serve. They can't be a blessing. They can't do what God has for them to do. Of course they couldn't be chosen. Look at what their life was. Look at what they did too far gone. For Jacob, that divine Redeemer, pointed forward. For us, that Redeemer has a name. His name is Yeshua, Jesus Christ. Listen, mature faith looks back and sees, I was not alone. Now notice what Jacob is doing in this blessing. He's looking back over a hundred and forty-seven years, running from Esau, deceived by Laban for twenty years, all because he loved Rachel, watching his household fracture with rivalry and violence, burying Rachel by the road, grieving Joseph for what he believed was more than twenty years, limping from a wrestling match with God. This wasn't a smooth life, and Jacob says, and yet Jacob says, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long, not just in the good years, not just at Bethel, when the dream came, not just when Joseph was restored, all my life long. That's mature faith. Mature faith isn't the faith that's never been tested. Mature faith is the faith that can look back over a hard and complicated life and say, I can see it now. I wasn't alone. Even then, he was shepherding you. Maybe you're not at the end of your life. But maybe you can already see some of what Jacob saw, seasons that felt like abandonment, and now you can see the hand, the closed door that felt like a no, and now you can see the redirection, a loss that felt like the end. And now you can see the seed that it planted. You are never alone. If you can look back and see God's hand in something you didn't understand at the time, drop an amen in the chat. Don't die with the blessing still locked inside you. Genesis 48 isn't just about Jacob. It's a question directed right at us. Are we blessing forward, not just criticizing the next generation? Not just complaining about the culture, not just mourning how different things are now. Blessing forward. That means the people coming behind you hear more than your opinions. They hear you are God. They hear you say you belong to God. You belong to God. Egypt doesn't get to name you. Yeshua is worth following. The Lord has been faithful to me, and he can be faithful to you. Don't trade covenant for covenant. Covenant for comfort. Here's what makes it powerful. You don't have to be at a deathbed to do this. Let your people see you. Let the ones of youth see this and hear this. Because no matter where you are, some of you listening, you are near your deathbed. I've been on my deathbed, I don't know, Miss Colleen would tell you, I don't know how many times. And all I wanted to do was assuage my heart of the regret. And tell the story of Jesus. That's it. That's it. But I can tell you, I've learned more since I've been sick then. When I was a stud. You don't have to be at your deathbed to do this. You don't have to wait till you're 147 years old. You don't have to wait until you've figured it all out. You say, I want to keep my mouth shut. What have I got to say? No, the question isn't what have I got to say, it's what does he have to say. You don't have to wait until your own light is your own life is completely clean and sorted. My friends, I have about it as unsorted past as you can imagine. I kept my mouth shut for a very long time. I had to learn the hard way. You don't have to wait until your life is completely sorted. Jacob blessed from a very complicated, limping, grieving life. Don't wait to bless. Bless now. Because every day you stay silent is a day the culture speaks louder than you do. Okay, the landing gear is down. We're on our final approach. Here's the step today. Choose one person younger than you, by age or by faith. A child, a grandchild, a nephew or a niece, a student, a new believer, a struggling friend. Speak or write a real blessing over them this week, not vague positivity, a covenant-shaping blessing. Something like, may the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shepherd you all of your days. May Yeshua, the divine redeemer, hold you when life is hard. May Egypt never name you. May your life be fruitful in the purposes of God, and may you look back one day and say, I was not alone. Then make it personal. Add their name. Add what you see in them. Add what you're believing God for in their life. That's not small. Words can carry life across generations. Jacob's blessing shaped the history of tribes. You don't know what your blessing will shape. May I say this? The other day, a couple days ago, my friend, uh Stephen Bonnie Fields, let me know that our friend, our very complicated friend, Don passed away. He had fought cancer for many, many years. Don was one of the originals in our Khala. I talk about it all the time. It's the greatest ministry experience I've ever had in my life. Some of the sweetest and deepest friendships that still are today, and many of them are gone. They're gone. But Don sometimes would call me and ask me very, very difficult questions. Not because he was trying to stump me, it's just because he was struggling. He was such a kind and sweet and good man, and yet he struggled. He was very honest. And I was given the privilege, privilege to bless him. I have for you today a challenge and a choice. Here's the challenge. Take a deep breath. Will your pain make you silent? Or will your faith make you bless? Will you spend whatever strength you have left criticizing Egypt? Or will you speak a covenant over the next generation? Jacob was old. Jacob was weak. Jacob was nearly blind. Jacob had suffered more than most of us will ever know. And still he crossed his hands in faith and said, Bless the boys. Maybe today God is saying something to you. Don't hold back. Don't wait. Don't assume someone else will say it. Don't die with the blessing still locked inside you. Speak it. Pray it. Write it. Live it. Bless forward because Egypt may be where they're growing up, but you get to tell them who they are. Prayer is not asking for an easy journey. It's asking for a strong back. And we know this. Avraham Heshel said, something sacred hangs in the balance of every moment, and this may be for you a sacred moment. Let's pray. Father, in the name of Yeshua, teach us to bless forward. Forgive us for speaking more fear than faith, more complaint than covenant, more criticism than truth. Help us to remember your faithfulness over a real life with real pain, and then pass that faithfulness on with courage. Bless our children. Bless our grandchildren. Bless our spiritual children and everyone who comes behind us. May El Shaddai, the God who is almighty and more than enough, cover them. May Yeshua, the divine redeemer, hold them. May Egypt never name them. And may they look back one day and say, I was not alone. In the name of Yeshua, your son, and my redeemer. Amen. Listen, your moment might be right now. If you've never given your life to Yeshua, if you've never given your life to Jesus. Maybe you've been living in your Egypt your whole life. You've been going by Egypt's names and playing by Egypt's rules, trying to survive on your terms. Today the divine Redeemer is here, and he's not here to condemn you for where you've been. Don't put it off one more moment. Your time is now. Yeshua, I believe that you are the Son of God. I believe you died for my sin and you rose again. I turned from my sin, my self-rule and every false identity Egypt ever gave me. Forgive me, cleanse me, make me new. I receive you as Savior and Lord. Teach me to follow you. In your blessed name. Amen. If you prayed that prayer today, listen, if you prayed that prayer today, welcome to the family of God. You've just been adopted into something bigger than any bloodline. You don't have to figure out your next step alone, by the way. Reach out to me at true wordfaithforlife.com. Contact. No, I don't get a toaster every time somebody goes there. I pay for the whole thing so you can be blessed by it. Go there and be blessed by it. Read the blog. Click on the blog. Drive down. Every Saturday, I post a summary of the prior week right before we do the big lesson on Sunday night. The summary and deepening. But there's lots of other things there that I've written and they'll help you. They're not designed to be some high and lofty theological thing. They're designed to help you. And they will if you let them. But you can contact me through that. There's multiple ways, but you can do the true word faithforlife.com slash contact and then type it out. You get more space and all that there. If you click on the right of the website, there's a little thing that you click on. I think it's gray. Um, and that's a voice message. It comes directly to me. Everything gets vetted first, so it's not instantaneous. So just remember, as soon as I receive it, I will respond to it. I will personally, not that I'm anything big, I'm not, but I will personally connect with you and I'll help you take your next step. If you gave your life to Yeshua today, or if you still have honest questions, that door is open. Listen, if this episode helped you, share it with someone. Share it with someone who needs to speak life into the next generation, or someone who needs to hear that God can redeem what Egypt got its hands on. Send it today. And now.