Faith Looks Forward

Hebrews 11:20-22

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 11

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, as he was nearing the end of his life, mentioned the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions concerning his bones.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

As we continue through this 11th chapter of Hebrews, I wanted to remind us of why the author is going through all of these stories and characters of faith.

Hebrews 10:32–36 CSB

Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way. For you sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession. So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.

These Jewish Christians were being persecuted and afflicted by others as they tried to live out their faith. The author alludes to a throwing away their confidence, that they needed to have endurance. Many of them could have been facing death, or had relatives or friends who had died for believing in Christ. The author is trying to show them others in the OT scriptures who lived their lives by faith, trusting God to carry them, provide for them, and keep his promises, even when those titans of the faith didn’t get to see the promises fulfilled with their own eyes.

The temptation for many is to live by what's in front of us — to let delayed promises, present confusion, or the cost of obedience shrink our trust in what God has said He will do. The original audience was drifting back to Judaism because the promises seemed slow. Today, we drift toward self-reliance, cynicism, or settling for less when God's timing doesn't match ours.

So today, as we look at the end of the era of Patriarchs in our list of Heroes of the Faith, we must remember to look forward.

Big Idea: Faith looks forward, even in the face of death — not to what we can see, but to what God has promised.

I. Isaac: Faith When the Process Is Messy (v. 20)

Hebrews 11:20 CSB

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

As we start off this passage, the author of Hebrews is very vague concerning the fact Isaac blessed both Jacob and Esau. But this story is much more complicated. This is one of the greatest examples of family dysfunction to be found in Scripture. You can read how this story plays out in Genesis 25-28.

So let me give an overview of this family. Isaac is 40 years old when he and Rebecca are married. They remain childless for 20 years before Isaac prayed for Rebekah to conceive. She becomes pregnant with twins who are constantly fighting in her womb. She asks God why this is happening to her because she is likely in immense pain. This asking God, or “inquiring of the Lord” usually meant going through a mediator like a priest. It could have been that Isaac was the one who brought this request to God on Rebekah’s behalf. And this is how God responds:

Genesis 25:23 CSB

And the Lord said to her: Two nations are in your womb; two peoples will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.

Throughout scripture we see a concept playing out called primogeniture.

Primogeniture - first born son receives greatest inheritance and rules family after the patriarch dies.

This is the idea that the first born is the one who receives the greatest inheritance and rules the family after the patriarch dies. And in this response to Rebekah in her pain, God is reversing this practice. You can probably guess that this would likely cause a little bit a family conflict. But we have only just begun.

The conflict between the two boys started in the womb and continued into life beyond the womb. Esau was born first with red skin and covered in hair, but as he came through the birth canal Isaac's hand was seen gripping Esau’s heel.

Unfortunately, the conflict also did not stay between the brothers. Scripture says that Isaac loved Esau because Esau was a hunter and outdoorsman and Isaac loved the wild game that he would bring home. But Rebekah loved Jacob, who likely stayed closer to home. So we are starting to see a little more dysfunction here.

When they are adults, Jacob is cooking a meal when Esau comes home exhausted from the fields. Esau orders Jacob to give him some of the stew. And so Jacob makes a deal with him, saying, “I will give you some stew if you give me your birthright.”

The birthright is the double inheritance that the oldest son would get from the father when the father dies. This means that Jacob, not Esau, would receive ⅔ of their father’s estate when he passes. Esau was so presently focused on his appetite, on what he was feeling right now, that he willingly gave up his birthright for a bowl of stew. And so he swore an oath to Jacob that could not be undone.

Esau was NOW focused, not FUTURE focused.

How many of us can see our actions following Esau?

When Isaac is near death and almost completely blind, he calls for Esau to hunt some game for him, make a meal, and then Isaac would give Esau his Blessing as the oldest son.

When we near death, we want to bless our children. We want God to bless them and work in their lives.

However, Rebecca was just outside the tent and heard the conversation. Now, remember what we stated earlier about Isaac loving Esau and Rebecca loving Jacob. It's about to get even more messy.

When Esau leaves, Rebecca tells Jacob to get a couple goats for her to make a meal for Isaac. That way Jacob could get the blessing instead of Esau. But Jacob knew that it would take a lot more for Isaac to give Jacob his blessing. Remember, Esau was born covered with hair, and remained hairy the rest of his life. Esau was also out in the fields all of the time as a hunter. Jacob was neither of these things.

Rebecca takes the skins of the goats she has cooked, putting them on the arms and neck of Jacob, gives him the meal for Isaac, and sends him to get the blessing Isaac had intended for Esau. Jacob walked into the tent, claimed to be Esau, came close to his father who did not believe it was Esau at first, felt the hair on Jacob's arms and neck, smelling the outdoors of the goats, and gave this blessing to Jacob;

Genesis 27:27–29 CSB

So he came closer and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothes, he blessed him and said: “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed. May God give to you— from the dew of the sky and from the richness of the land— an abundance of grain and new wine. May peoples serve you and nations bow in worship to you. Be master over your relatives; may your mother’s sons bow in worship to you. Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed.”

Isaac pronounces this blessing in faith, that God would work and provide for his son and his sons descendants. Isaac is trusting God to provide even though Isaac won't be alive to see it.

Faith looks forward beyond our own life.

This was meant to be the blessing for Esau, the hunter, the outdoorsman, the one who lived on the land. But as we can see throughout Scripture, this is a description of what God would do for the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob. The blessing still carries weight because God's purposes aren't derailed by human failure.

God's purposes aren't derailed by human failure.

When Esau gets back from the fields and brings his meal to Isaac, he was extremely distraught, as was Isaac. But Isaac had already given his blessing to Jacob. Esau begged for his father to bless him, weeping loudly. And Isaac finally says to Esau:

Genesis 27:39–40 CSB

His father Isaac answered him, “Look, your dwelling place will be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of the sky above. You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will break his yoke from your neck.”

Esau received more of an anti-blessing — dwelling away from the richness of the land, living by his sword, serving his brother. This does not feel like much of a blessing at all. The one consolation was that one day Esau would break free from serving his brother. Even with Esau, Isaac spoke toward what would happen beyond Isaac’s life. It may not have been as grand as the future for Jacob, but there was still blessing there for Esau.

Isaac wanted Esau to have his blessing. He tried to make sure that Esau would receive it. Because the blessing he wanted to give Esau was meant to carry on the promise God made to his father Abraham, and that God later confirmed to Isaac as well.

God's promises don't depend on our ability to protect them — they depend on God's faithfulness.

I said this last week. When God makes a promise to do something, the fulfillment of that promise is not dependent on us protecting and guarding the means by which we think that promise will be fulfilled. He will do what he has promised. He already knows how we are going to respond, what we will do, and how we will fail in the midst of carrying out his mission in this world. That should be freeing for us today. The fulfillment of God’s promises does not depend on you and me. God already knows how he is going to keep all of his promises, even through the sins and mistakes of humanity.

Isaac spoke in faith about future blessings for his children. And after Jacob and Rebekah’s deception, he had to trust that God was still going to fulfill his promises.

II. Jacob: Faith at the Boundary of Death (v. 21)

Hebrews 11:21 CSB

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

The next man that we see blessing others as he nears his death is the deceitful one himself, Jacob. Before we dig into how Jacob blessed his grandsons, I want to take a look at the last part of this verse where it talks about Jacob worshipping.

Let’s start with the odd part about this verse. The author of Hebrews is quoting from the Old Testament in Genesis 47.

Genesis 47:31 CSB

And Jacob said, “Swear to me.” So Joseph swore to him. Then Israel bowed in thanks at the head of his bed.

Why the difference in the texts between the OT and NT? Because ancient Hebrew had no vowels. The word for staff and the word for bed both have the same three consonants in the same order. The author of Hebrews is quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT that was commonly used throughout the priesthood of Israel during this time. When Jesus quotes the OT, he is quoting from the Septuagint, not from the Hebrew texts. The Greek text translated the word as staff, while the Hebrew Masoretic texts that added the vowel structure around 600-900 AD translated the word as bed. The important thing to note is that whether Jacob leaned on the top of his staff or bowed at the head of his bed, it does not change the meaning of the text.

There are critics who point to inconsistencies in the Bible like this one as proof that it cannot be inspired and that it is full of contradictions. Discrepancies like this do NOT change the theological meaning of the text.

Now that is out of the way, let’s look at the fact that Jacob worshipped. He gave thanks and praise to God. The reason this is significant is because Jacob was not always a servant of the Lord.

We have already seen how he lied to his father to get his blessing. When Jacob left, fearing his brother’s retribution, he came to a place called Luz, where he laid down with a rock for a pillow. That night, he has a dream about angels going up and down a ladder. During this dream, the Lord reestablished his covenant that he made with Abraham and Isaac, that he would give the land of Canaan to their descendants as an inheritance.

Jacob responds to this dream by using the stone that he slept on as a marker, pouring oil on it, and calling that place Bethel. Then Jacob makes this vow.

Genesis 28:20–22 CSB

Then Jacob made a vow: “If God will be with me and watch over me during this journey I’m making, if he provides me with food to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safely to my father’s family, then the Lord will be my God. This stone that I have set up as a marker will be God’s house, and I will give to you a tenth of all that you give me.”

This is very much like the story of Gideon in Judges when God tells him to lead an army and Gideon says, “If I lay out this blanket and there is dew on it in the morning but not the grass, I will go.” There were even more steps to this, but you see what I mean.

Jacob is still on his way to Laban’s house where he will meet Rachel, with whom he falls in love. He works for Laban for 7 years for the right to marry Rachel. He gets tricked into marrying her older sister Leah. He then promises to work another 7 years for the right to still marry Rachel and marries Rachel a week after getting married to Leah.

When Leah starts having kids but not Rachel, the two sisters fight it out by giving their slave girls to Jacob as wives to have more kids for them.

During all of this, Jacob is in charge of his father-in-law’s sheep but wants to take his family back to his father’s land. Laban makes a deal with Jacob to give all of the goats and sheep in the flocks whose coats are streaked or spotted, as Jacob’s wages if he stays.

What Jacob did not tell Laban was that he knew what would make the fur of the goats and sheep be speckled, spotted, or streaked when they were born. So when the stronger, healthier goats were breeding, Jacob made sure to do this trick with wood in the water and they produced speckled offspring that would belong to Jacob. When the weaker of the flocks were breeding, he left the water troughs alone, giving Laban the weaker offspring in his herds. Honesty is still not his forte.

It was not until Jacob was on his way homeland with his family, about to meet with his brother Esau, that he has a wrestling match with a mysterious man (possibly a Christophany) who dislocates Jacob’s hip, but Jacob kept fighting. When the man says that he needs to leave, Jacob begs the man for a blessing, saying, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

Genesis 32:28 CSB

“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

It was not until this time that Jacob started to show continual signs of seeking the Lord and choosing to follow after him.

This is why it is significant that the author of Hebrews states that Jacob worships at the end of his life. I am sure Jacob remembered the vow he made to serve the Lord if he carried Jacob through the trials of his life.

Jacob is now frail, weak, and almost blind. News gets to Joseph that Jacob is close to death and so be brings his two sons with him to visit Jacob. While there, Jacob claims Joseph’s two sons as his own.

Genesis 48:3–6 CSB

Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. He said to me, ‘I will make you fruitful and numerous; I will make many nations come from you, and I will give this land as a permanent possession to your future descendants.’ Your two sons born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are now mine. Ephraim and Manasseh belong to me just as Reuben and Simeon do. Children born to you after them will be yours and will be recorded under the names of their brothers with regard to their inheritance.”

So Jacob just tells Joseph, your sons belong to me now? What is going on here?

Jacob stated that Ephraim and Manasseh were his sons as much as Reuben and Simeon. He is actually replacing his two oldest sons with Joseph’s sons, making them “firstborns” to Jacob. This then gives Joseph a “double portion” of an inheritance, which usually went to the firstborn son.

Why replace Reuben and Simeon, his two oldest sons? When Jacob and his family were returning to the land where Isaac and Esau lived, Reuben slept with Bilhah, the slave girl of Rachel, one of his father’s wives. That is a quick way to lose your inheritance.

As for Simeon, he lost his chance to inherit Reuben’s portion after their sister Dinah was raped by Shechem, the son of a local chieftain, Hamor. The Chieftain came to ask Jacob and his sons for Dinah’s hand in marriage for his son, the one who took advantage of Dinah.

Jacob’s sons tell him that they are not allowed to intermarry with the uncircumcised people of Canaan. (Circumcision was an identifying mark of those who were in covenant with Yahweh.) So they tell Hamor, “We will do this only if all your men are circumcised as we are. Then we will let our daughters marry your sons.”

Hamor and Shechem go back to their city to let the men know the deal. The men agree. And on the third day, while all these men were still in pain from the procedure, Simeon and Levi went through and slaughtered every man in the town including Hamor and Shechem. Then the rest of Jacob’s sons showed up to finish the job and plunder the city, taking the flocks, herds, donkeys, capturing all the city’s possessions, children, and wives.

Jacob then yells at Simeon and Levi because of the possible ramifications that could come back on Jacob and his family from the other peoples in the area.

So the first, second, and third sons have shown themselves to be dishonorable.

But why would Jacob do this great blessing for Joseph and not his next son in line, Judah? Because Joseph was the first born son of his favorite wife, Rachel. Rachel was the one he fell in love with and wanted to marry. This favoritism of Joseph is what led Jacob’s other sons to get jealous and sell Joseph into slavery.

So Joseph brings his two sons to kneel before their grandfather. He puts Manasseh, the oldest, at Jacob’s right hand (which was meant for giving the greater blessing) and Ephraim at Jacob’s left. As Jacob is about to give his blessing, he crosses his hands, putting his right hand on Ephraim, the younger brother, and his left on Manasseh. Then he gives this blessing to Joseph:

Genesis 48:15–16 CSB

Then he blessed Joseph and said: The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all harm— may he bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow to be numerous within the land.

Remember that I mentioned “primogeniture” earlier, that the oldest son gets the greater inheritance? Jacob has now flipped that for the third generation in a row. Ishmael was older than Isaac. Esau was older than Jacob. Manasseh was older than Ephraim. In his old age, Jacob is fully seeing God’s working in this world, knowing that God will bring about his plan as he sees fit and is following the Lord’s guidance in blessing Joseph’s sons.

When we look at how the land of Israel was split up between the tribes, you can see God’s working in it.

(Map)

The largest plot of land went to the descendants of Joseph’s oldest son, Manasseh, who had a lot of people when they entered the promised land. But Jacob’s blessing was that Ephraim would be greater. Joshua, who led Israel into the Promised Land was from the tribe of Ephraim. And when they settled in Israel, Ephraim was the center of political dominance, to the point that during the Divided Kingdom, the prophets Isaiah and Hosea simply referred to the Northern Kingdom as “Ephraim.”

Reuben’s tribe got a small piece of land. Simeon’s tribe rebelled and ended up getting folded into the tribe of Judah. The Levites were given the job of running the worship to the Lord and the tabernacle, but were not given any land for their own. They were dependent on the sacrifices and tithes of the other tribes to provide for their needs. Judah gets a large portion of land as the oldest son that remained faithful to his father, and is the one through whom Jesus would eventually come.

Jacob is seeing, in some way, how God is working out his plan to fulfill his promise of making numerous descendants from Abraham. Jacob is acting in faith, proclaiming blessing to Joseph’s sons. He is looking past his frail body that is about to die, and forward to the promises of God.

III. Joseph: Faith That Acts on a Promise Centuries Out (v. 22)

Hebrews 11:22 CSB

By faith Joseph, as he was nearing the end of his life, mentioned the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions concerning his bones.

The last example that the author of Hebrews gives to his readers from our passage today is that of Joseph. This looking forward in faith feels a little more self-serving than the blessings that Isaac and Jacob give. But Joseph’s focus is actually on the Lord fulfilling his promises.

Genesis 50:24–25 CSB

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will certainly come to your aid and bring you up from this land to the land he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” So Joseph made the sons of Israel take an oath: “When God comes to your aid, you are to carry my bones up from here.”

Joseph is proclaiming that God will bring the people of Israel out of Egypt. He is predicting the exodus centuries before it happened. He knew that Israel would leave Egypt.

God spoke to Joseph through dreams. When he was younger, he had a dream that his father and brothers would one day bow before him, which as fulfilled when Joseph was 2nd in command of Egypt and his family came for food.

God showed him the meaning of Pharaoh’s dream that there would be 7 years of plenty and then 7 years of famine. God showed him the meaning of the dreams of the baker and cup bearer while in prison, that one would be executed and the other would return to his station.

He had seen God fulfill the things he said would come about. He knew that God kept his promises. And so, speaking in faith, believing he served a God who kept his promises, he told his brothers that God would one day bring them out of Egypt and give them the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Joseph’s one request was that they take his bones back to the promised land when the people finally leave Egypt. A couple weeks ago, we talked about the faith of the Patriarchs as they looked for a homeland, living as foreigners in the land. I think we can apply this a little bit to Joseph, who wanted his bones to be buried in the land of his people.

Egypt was not his home. That was where God placed him to minister, to provide for the needs of many, to show the mighty works of God. But it wasn’t his home.

The author of Hebrews is trying to remind his fellow Jewish believers that our current circumstances should not determine our faithfulness to God. When we are NOW focused like Esau, we will not see the terrible ramifications of our choices. There is no blessing in only being focused on what is right in front of you.

Now, that does not mean that we worry about everything that is coming up. Instead, we look forward with faith, forward in hope, beyond what we can see to the fact that God keeps his promises.

God remains faithful, even when we are faithless.

Isaac, Jacob, Joseph — each one looked forward to promises they'd never see fulfilled, and each one blessed the next generation anyway. Their vision was on the Lord and what he would provide for his people.

And God’s blessings are not generic. The author is not telling his readers to just keep going in faith, even though you can’t see the ending. The conclusion to all of these stories of faith are pointing to Christ!

Hebrews 12:1–2 CSB

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

When we face trials in this life, when we struggle to believe that God is working, we can look to this list of people in Hebrews 11 as those who went through all kinds of hardships, both self-inflicted and hardship from others. In the midst of that trial and hardship, the author of Hebrews is telling us to look forward to Christ. Keep your eyes on Jesus!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look full in his wonderful face And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of his glory and grace

Do you struggle to look to Christ? Do you let your current circumstances dictate how you see the world? Do you let your current trials rob your joy because you can’t see God working in them?

Look to Christ. Look forward to the blessings that can only be found in him. This world is temporary. The pain will not last forever.

If you have not given your life to Jesus, if you have not turned your eyes to him, depending on him for your every breath, today is the day to do so.