God's Promises and Our Strength

Read from Deuteronomy chapter 33, if you'd find that in your Bibles. This is Moses blessing on the people of Israel as they're getting ready to enter the land of promise. God has already made a promise to them about what he would do. If you can read that promise a little more fully in Joshua chapter 1, and God's promise about how he's going to provide for them, chapter 1 of Joshua 1 through 9. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses' aid, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now then, you and all the people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I'm about to give them, to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert and from Lebanon to the great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite country, to the great sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead the people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you. Do not turn to it from the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let the book of the law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. You notice the third time he said that. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. So the promise that God had made to the people of Israel was that they would be victorious as they entered the land that he gave them. Now, this prayer that Moses is giving to them to bless the various tribes of Israel is sort of building on the promises that have been made. The promises that God makes are the way by which we see what he is going to do. And these promises outlined in Joshua, the first chapter of Joshua, lets us know what the promises really are, the success of conquering this land. So in chapter 33, the passage about Joseph, he has already talked about Joseph being able to grow good crops. About the fact that he would make the dew from heaven or the rain from heaven come. The deep waters below the ground available, the sun to be able to shine. And the crops would grow and the trees would grow so that everything that Joseph needed for provision would be given to him. Verse 16, then he begins to talk about why that's going to happen. The good crops are not the result of Joseph's farming skills. They're not the result of the climate. It's because God has said he would give that to them. In the book of Joshua, he's talking about, I will make you prosperous. God had already made this promise to them. Now he's saying, verse 16, with the best gifts of the earth in its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush. That all the rest of the head of Joseph on the brow of the prince, be on the brow of the prince among you. That Joseph would be a leader among the nation, that's what he was to be the prince. He lets us know that the one who was in the burning bush, and this is the only place in the Bible where that's referenced except where the story of the burning bush was. So the favor of him who dwelt in the bush is the result, is the one who brings the result of the promise made here. Your crops will be good because of what God has given you. The promise that he's made to you. Now that verse is a transition to the next part. For not only was Joseph promised that he would be prosperous, his tribe would be prosperous, but that also he would be a great warrior nation. Now whenever Jacob was making the promises to his children in chapter 49 of the book of Genesis, he said, Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branch climbs over the wall. With bitterness, archers attack him. They shot at him with hostility, but his bow remained steady. His strong arm stayed limber because of the land of the mighty one of Jacob, because of the shepherd of the rock of Israel, because of your father's God who helps you, because of the Almighty who blesses you with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb. Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the old age hills. Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers. Now you'll notice that the promise of Jacob is repeated here in the blessings of Moses. That gives you a clue that this was not something that Jacob was saying, nor it was something that Moses was saying, but this was something that God was saying. He was saying it through Moses generations before, and he was saying it through Jacob generations before, so that the distance between those two were many, many years, and yet their promises were very much the same, because the promises did not come from Jacob, nor did they come from Moses. They were promises God was making. You can claim in your own life the promises that are written in the scripture to the people who were followers of God. These are promises he made to his people. Here in this promise he makes to Joseph, he said, I'm going to provide for you, which is one of the four covenant promises God made. I will provide for you. He made it to Abraham, he made it to Isaac, to Jacob, he made it to the people of Israel, he makes it to us. I will take care of what you need. This is my promise to you. The promise fulfilled when they entered the land that God had given them, but in that first section in Genesis, the greatest portion of that was given to talk about how Joseph would be a powerful warrior. Now, in the blessing of Moses, it's a small section, and yet this very same thing is said. In majesty, he is like a first-born bull. His horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he will gore the nations. Even those at the ends of the earth. Such are the ten thousand of Ephraim. Such are the thousands of Manasseh. So, the promise made to Joseph, here again, was the same promise that Moses made. That there would be war, and that Joseph would be a mighty warrior. A powerful warrior to be able to defeat those who might come and attack him. He would have his territory, and be able to claim it, and protect it, and provide for it. Now, in his discussion in verse 17, he said, in mystery, he is like a first-born bull. The Hebrew word for bull is very similar to the word Baal. If you read the Old Testament, you find that name Baal showing up time and time again. It is a reference to the pagan deities in Canaanite country. Now, he promises to Joseph that he will be a rival to the gods of his enemies. No human being could be a rival to a god. But he says, when you get into the conflict between the deities you are going to find in the land of Canaan, you will be a strong bull, or even a Baal. I will give you the power to be able even to fight the enemies who claim to be gods. There is not anything in this world that can master you. You will be a strong, first-born Baal. As if the oldest, or the most powerful, or the leader of the group. So that the power that you have, and remember verse 16 leads into this. The power that you have is from the one who is in the bush. It is not your personal strength. Whenever you are called to do something for God, the thing that gives us the most difficulty is we look at the task, and then we try to assess our own ability and strength. And when we look at the task and we see that the job is greater than we are, we tend to get discouraged, overwhelmed, afraid. Remember this passage. What God says to Joseph is not that you will be strong because of yourself, or not that you will be strong because of your skill, not that you will be a great warrior because of your training, but from the one out of the bush you will be like a bull. What you will have is the very power of God as you go out to fight. Now you see when the people of Israel move into the land of promise and they get into battles, they are never the superior in size, nor military skill, nor military ability. But they are able to win because God gives them the plan, and then empowers them to be able to do what they need to to defeat the enemy. This is a powerful thing for us. Because when God gives you an assignment of something to do, whatever it might be, and you know it's from God, and you know it's what He wants, He will always give you every resource that you need to be able to do it. When you find yourself in a place where you've taken on responsibilities that God hasn't given to you, you will find constant frustration and failure. But if you know God has asked you to do a job, then He always gives it to you. The most difficult thing to talk to people about is to say, we think that you have the ability and skill to be able to do this job. And people say, well, I don't think I can do it. I've heard that a lot. But what we say is, you ask God if it's something you should do. If you feel that it is something you should do, then the skill and the power to be able to do it will be provided. It's a promise as old as the story of the scripture and as current as our lives today. It is the power of the one in the bush that enables us to do the things that we do. Now, the strength that He gives him is a strength that is equal to the challenge of his enemy. You'll run against the bales as you go into this land of promise. I will give you the strength of like a firstborn bale, a bull that's powerful and strong. The result will be, the horns of this ox will be like a wild ox, untamed. You go out into the wilderness where there's a wild animal with big horns, and you're no match for that animal. You will be that way. With these horns, He will gore the nations. No peoples. He's talking about nations here. He's not talking about what we think about like Canada, the United States, Australia. He's talking about different people groups. All those people groups that are settled in the land of Canaan where He was going to go. Every one of them, they'll get their armies together, and your strength will be able to drive them out. Joseph got one of the largest sections of the Holy Land. He got the section in the middle, stretched almost from the Jordan River, almost to the Mediterranean Sea. And this was prime territory, so it was a place other people would fight to be able to retain. But with your own strength that I give you, and the power that I give you, you'll be like a wild ox, and able to gore the nations like an animal would gore them. Even those at the ends of the earth, there is no stopping it. As far as you go, everything that you do, My power will be with you. Now, the powerful thing for us is the promise that God gives us. The promise that whatever job and task I give to you, you will be equal to it, and it will be forever. Now, you think of the promises in the New Testament to us. When Jesus closed His ministry, all power and authority, He said to His disciples, was given to Me. I want you to go and make disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I will be with you to the end of the age. This is sort of a parallel to the promise He made here to Joseph's clan. I will be with you even to the end of the world, to the end of the earth. But God's promise to us is the very same thing. Many people shy away from the idea that they can be a disciple maker. They shy away from it because they say, I don't have the skill and ability. And so it keeps us from doing what we need to do. Very few believers that I find who have as a priority in their life seeing someone coming to know Christ. It is the priority He gives to all of us. You begin by simply saying, okay, God, You made a promise to me to do this. I don't know how to do it. I don't have the ability to do it. I want you to point out to me someone who you think I know who needs to become your follower. And you begin to pray every day that God would reveal that person to you. And whenever you do get that revelation, you write it down. Now your assignment is given to you. Are you going to know what to do? No. You say to God, okay, what do you want me to do next? And then you start making friends with that person, doing things that will allow you to get to know who they are. As you get to know who they are, you ask God to say, if a time comes when you want me to say something, I promise you I will say it. And you keep making friends with that person, talking with them until they reveal to you what's inside of them and the needs that they have. And from your own experience in life, you will find that God has already shown you what it is that you should say to them. And you'll be able to say it. Why? Because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. And he has given you an assignment. This is what I want you to do. So he's going to provide everything you need to do it. I don't know anyone, never met anyone who was this unskilled, to say to someone, I have a job for you to do. I want you to do it, but I'm not going to give you any idea about how to do it or any tools to be able to do it. Why would you do that? Why would you ask somebody to do a project and withhold from them the very things they would need to have to be able to do it? Only a foolish person would do that. God is not foolish, nor is he negligent. So when he says to all of us, every one of us, I want you to go and make disciples. He's ordering us to do the same thing he did with Joseph. Go into this land and accomplish the mission and purpose I have for you. And I will make sure that you'll have the strength and the power to be able to do it. And nothing in this world can stop you from achieving the purpose I have for you. The only thing that stopped them from being able to do what God wanted was when they got crossways with his plans and his purpose. When they didn't do what he told them to do, then failure came immediately. And if you start trying to do the very thing that every believer, follower of Christ has been told to do, not being concerned about making disciples, you can expect to have a frustrating spiritual experience. Because here's the job in front of you, and you've already decided you can't do it, and you're not going to try. Now, I'll tell you, if you go to work for somebody, they give you a job that they know you can do, give you all the things you need to be able to do it, and you just sit there and refuse to do the job, you will find your boss upset with you. And when you say to God, I'm going to be a follower of yours, and I commit my life to live in obedience to you, and he gives you the job of making disciples, and you say, I don't think I have the tools to be able to do it, and so I'm not going to even try. I can promise you that you're going to have frustration between yourself and God. You may blame it on a lot of other things, because our frustration, oftentimes we try to find another reason for it other than ourselves. But if you stop and say to God, I know you've asked me to do this, I'm going to begin doing what I know I can do, ask you to show me people around me who need to know you. Then I'm going to ask you to tell me how to be able to be a friend to them, and I'm going to listen to them and their problems and their issues, and I'm going to say to them only what I think you want me to tell them. You will find yourself to be a disciple maker. Nothing in the world can stop you. Excuse me, did you have something you wanted to say? I was thinking that in the ministry, a lot of times we, and I'm sure you've seen this too, we hear people sing and talk about Jehovah Jireh as a provider, and a lot of people have the idea that that providing is in possessions, or in being able to do this or do that, but they forget the fact many times that as a provider, that's exactly what he's talking about, not only giving you, providing you the knowledge and the wisdom, and it seems to me like a lot of people separate the two when they talk about God in that manner. What the provision is, is for what he's asked you to do. He's smart enough to figure this out. If I've asked you to do something, I've got to give you the provision to be able to do it. This provision is what you expect from God. It is your hope. It will not show up in you until you begin to do what you're supposed to do. All the fighting ability of Joseph would never have come to this tribe if they've said, well, we're not going to go out to fight, for we're guaranteed that they're going to fall over dead before we get there. It's not going to happen. It's the battle that shows the power of God. It's your effort to do what you know God wants you to do that allows him to show you this. And I'll tell you from my own experience that sometimes it comes at the very moment you never even realized you knew what to do or say. You're sitting down talking to someone, they say something to you and a thought comes to your mind and you say it, and that person says, wow, that's really something I needed to hear. Sometimes they'll even tell you a week or two later, you know, we were talking the other day and you said this to me. I can't tell you how much that shaped my life. He does that sometimes to let us know that we don't always know the power of what he has to say to people. But the provision is always there. I will give you the power that will be more strength, more power than any other enemy of yours, even Satan for us, the great power that he has. Now, he closes this promise to Joseph by saying, such are the ten thousands of Ephraim and such are the thousands of Manasseh. These are to the children that were born to Joseph, to the people that he had at his side whenever the promise of Jacob was made to him and his children. And when the children was made, Jacob was going to bless his sons. And in that story, in verse 22 of chapter 49, he's talking about how he was going to bless the nation. And then he accidentally blessed the wrong one of Joseph's children. The second born was given the privilege of being the firstborn. And the second and the firstborn was demoted to be the secondborn. We don't know why God did this. It's not the first time in scripture that he did something like this. I reflect on this to wonder what it is that God does. How does he take the one who thinks of his future, I will always be second rate, and suddenly he becomes the first of God. I think maybe there's a lesson here as to how God deals with people. He doesn't always take the people that we think are the most powerful and qualified to be able to do the work that he has to do. Because sometimes, you know, whenever we see qualified people, people with excellent skills, who are able to accomplish things, we sit down and say, boy, you know, if I were that talented, I could really do a good job. What we're doing is we're basing our ability to do the work without the man from the bush again. What he shows us, it doesn't matter if you're the secondborn. In this culture, the firstborn got half of the property. He was the one who was always going to be the one who was the leader. But God sometimes took the person who was second and said, I'm going to make you the leader. We should not assess ourselves based on what the world thinks about us or what we think about ourselves or how we see ourselves fitting in the world. If God wants to take your life and he wants to make it powerful and he wants to give you a position of influence, there is not anything in the world that could stop it. Now, in this story, Ephraim, there was not any way in the world, according to their tradition and law, they thought that God was going to take them. There was not any way in the world, according to their tradition and law, that Ephraim could be the firstborn. All their customs, all their traditions made him the second. But when he came to his father to bless this tribe, Jacob, he accidentally took the wrong one and gave him the blessing. The wrong one in Jacob's thinking and in Joseph's thinking. But when it was over, Jacob said, no, the blessing I've given will stand. Now Manasseh will be the second and Ephraim the first. What Jacob did was something God wanted done and God intended to do. He wanted to do in the life of Ephraim what he planned, to show that he can take this man and use him and place him anywhere he wants to. We are not limited by the world around us. The story of David is a perfect example of this. They went out looking for who was to be the successor to Saul. They started out with the tallest people. They'd be the best fighters. The strongest people, they would be most likely to be good fighters. They went through all the sons. None of them, Samuel said, is the one God has. Do you not have another son? Well, I've got a little boy out there with the sheep. Bring him in. When he came in, God said, this is the one. What seemed insignificant to everyone else, God saw in him someone through whom he could do everything he wanted to do. We should never see ourselves based on our own estimation of who we are, but we see ourselves in terms of what God asks us to do. David, I have chosen you to be my follower. And when he accepted that responsibility from God, then the whole future of his life was changed. No one could see in David, the great king, except God. No one might be able to see in you what God sees in you. But you may see limitations to yourself that mean that you can't do the work of God. You'll read stories all the time about people have speech impediments, become great singers or preachers. You hear people's stories about people who have handicaps in this world that are very difficult for them, who become great and powerful people for God. Because they did not allow what the world would see as a handicap to stand in their way of obedience. It all goes back to one thing. We listen to God, what he tells us to do, and we do it. Don't let our failures stand in the way of obedience. Don't let our estimation of ourselves or the people around us estimation of us stand in the way of our efforts. For God, the one in the bush, stands by you. He empowers you. He gives wisdom to you. Nothing in this world can keep you from accomplishing what God has asked of you if you obey. The promise to Joseph is a promise to his people, is a promise to us. You do what I tell you, and I'll give you the wisdom, the power and the strength. And even the strong gods of this world cannot stop what I have for you. Would you pray with me? I want to ask you to reflect on your life. There's been a time in which you had something in the back of your mind you thought God may wanted you to do. You let it go by because you had good reasons to think maybe you weren't going to do it or you weren't able to do it or there were limitations you had. Now, God may have told you, no, that wasn't right. That's okay. You change your direction. But if you know God has something or someone, some task that he wants you to do, but you backed away because of the limitations you think you have, I want you to rethink that. You will be like a firstborn bull. Your horns will be the horns of a wild ox. With them, you will gore the enemy, even to the ends of the earth. And so, Father, we ask you speak clearly to us. We ask you to speak clearly to us. And so, Father, we ask you speak clearly to us. Let us know what you want from us and for us and give us the courage to do the things that you've said we must do. We ask that as these things are accomplished, we would give glory and honor to you, the one in the bush, who can make an unskilled speaker one of the great figures in your history. We know you can do anything with any of us. Give us obedient hearts. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen. Thank you.