Mikhael, Boushra: Month Of Meetings-2005-05 ~ Gen 49:22-26

And good evening to all of you. I apologize for my voice again, it is, uh, getting worse, and I had some antihistaminics this afternoon, but, uh, they didn't do the trick. Genesis chapter forty nine. Genesis chapter forty nine. I'd like to express my thanks, uh, to the elders for inviting me to, uh, be with you in the month of January. It has been a real, uh, thrill to my heart to be here with you. I have enjoyed very much the meeting, and I learned a lot as I prepared for this series. Um, I had given it before, but not so extensively as we did this time. I also enjoyed very much the Saturday morning prayer time, and I encourage many of you to, uh, try attend the, uh, Saturday morning prayer time. And I'll be praying for, uh, Shirley Heights, that the Lord will continue to bless you, that you may be a beacon of light for the gospel, continue to shine from here, and that you would be all involved in the work of the Lord. Uh, assembly life does not depend on one man or a group of men, or a group of women for this matter, but on every member in the body of Christ to carry on his function. Every one of you has a function, and, uh, you indeed need to put your shoulder to the wheel, as they say, and work for the Lord, because he is the best master you can ever work for, and our lifespan here is too short. And, uh, we, uh, if we waste, well, not waste, but if we lose our time in the things of this world and not work for Him, that would be a loss to us. He said, if any man loses his life for my sake, he will gain it. We're coming to the, um, last meeting today, and I had wished that we could have covered all the, the tribes, but we didn't have the time, and I wanted to go directly to Joseph. As you remember, beloved, uh, earlier in the study we had, uh, mentioned that there, among the twelve uh, tribes, there are two who stand as towering high mountains, uh, while, while the others are just little hills. And those two are Judah, the royal, the royal, uh, tribe, and Joseph, the one who was given the portion of two. Uh, the firstborn, in a sense. Uh, the two of them replaced, um, uh, Reuben. And, uh, much as we enjoyed the practical application of the lives of those men, the lessons that we could learn from them, and, uh, how the Lord, uh, indeed fulfilled these prophecies in the lives of the tribes. It's, uh, I keep getting more and more amazed that, uh, an old man would be sitting there in a deathbed in Egypt and would utter words, of course, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that will plan the future of the nation. And at the same time, that will look forward to Messiah and his first advent and again in his second advent. Tonight, however, we're not going to touch much on the practical issues, but we're going to look at Joseph as a type of the Lord Jesus. It's rather interesting that we never find anything in the New Testament that says that Joseph is a type of Christ, but yet his life from the very beginning, his sufferings, his glorification, his moral character points us so much to the, uh, blessed person of our Lord Jesus. And this would be our guide this, this evening. Let's read together from verse twenty two, Genesis forty nine twenty two. Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall. The archers have harassed him and shot at him and hated him, but his bow abowed him strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From there is the shepherd and the rock of Israel. Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee, with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies under, blessings of the breast and of the womb. The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills, they shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren. And rather amazing that if we were to turn to, well, we're not going to do that, if we were to turn to our parallel chapter in, uh, Deuteronomy thirty three, we will find very similar words, uh, uttered by Moses at the end of the journey in the wilderness regarding the blessing of the tribe of Joseph. Now, Joseph's name came, as the others did, uh, because of how his mother felt at the time of his birth. And in Genesis chapter thirty, we find that his mother Rachel, who was not able to have children for a long time until the Lord, uh, gave her, uh, remembered her and hearkened unto her. When she conceived and had this son, uh, she called his name Joseph and said, the Lord shall add to me another son. So the word Joseph means to add or adding. And therefore, when we start the blessing that Jacob, uh, pronounces here, we find that he is a fruitful vow. And fruitfulness, of course, was characteristic of Joseph. He brought forth fruits to the glory of God in his life and in his tribulation, in his, uh, in his time in, uh, in the prison. And he was a source of blessing for his brothers when he, uh, met them and made himself known to them. And also to the whole world around, because all the countries around Egypt at the time were suffering with the same famine that was taking place. But the one thing that stands out as fruitfulness in the life of Joseph is his sons, his children, who were born to him of an Egyptian mother. And we go to Genesis forty one and verse, uh, 50, uh, and unto Joseph were born two sons. Uh, we're talking about forty one verse fifty. Before the years of famine came, from Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar's pe- priest of own, bore unto him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, for God, he has made me to forget all my toil and all my father's house. And the name of the second called he Ephraim, for God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction, because the word Ephraim means indeed fruitful. And if we were to carry this to the antitype, our blessed Lord Jesus, we'll find that those that are born into the family of God, those who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, are born because of what he has done. They are indeed his seed, in a sense. Uh, there are two particular verses that come to my mind. One is in Psalm twenty two, uh, the, the very familiar Psalm to most of us, and the Psalm ends in a very interesting way. I'd like to read it to you, please. Psalm 22 and verse 31. We read this. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he has done this. And the word he has done this is the word it is finished. When our Lord Jesus Christ cried this last cry after the work of atonement was complete, he opened the door for people to be born again through faith in him. Now, time does allow us to comment on this, but the psalm itself is a wonderful example of the blessed results of Calvary. In Calvary, we don't see just the birth of the church, which is true. The Lord said, I will declare thy name unto my brother in the midst of the congregation, I praise thee. But that extends to another wider circle, the circle of the great congregation. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation. Most commentators would think that this is referring to the nation of Israel when they repent and come back to the Lord. But even further, wider circle than that will go on to say, the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord. And of course, because the kingdom is the Lord's. And therefore, you can see those three circles, the church, Israel, and all the nations of the world that will be blessed in his millennial kingdom. All of this, all of these will be brought to our knowledge of God through the work that he has done on the cross. These people are be- going to be born in that he has done it, or that it is finished. Isaiah Isaiah fifty please. Isaiah fifty three, Isaiah fifty three. Mention has been made this, this evening of the travail of his soul. He shall see, verse eleven. Isaiah fifty three and verse eleven. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquity. There is the, the multitude that will be born because he has done the work on the cross. Um, earlier in, in the, in the very same chapter, um, he was, he, he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, verse nine, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. There is, there is the work of the cross. He has put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Here's the fruitful one, our Lord Jesus Christ, who adds to the church those who are saved. The Lord was adding every day, we read in the book of Acts, to the church, such as being saved. He is the real Joseph, the one who adds. He's the real Joseph, the fruitful one. But then we see something very interesting. It says a fruitful well, a fruitful bow by a well whose branches run over the wall. Now, of course, if a tree is planted by the w- uh, by the river side, it's got to be fruitful. Isn't that what we read in in Psalm one? You know, he'd be like a a tree planted by the waters. And of course, Psalm one ex- is the psalm that speaks of the moral glories of our Lord Jesus, you see. But there's something very interesting, beloved, and I want to give you another lesson in geography now. I don't have... Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Here, here is the, the lot as divided in the days of Joshua. Manasseh and Ephraim, who were the sons of Joseph, took that part of the land. The other half of Manasseh was on the east side of Jordan. But I want you to notice this, there's Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim in that particular area, in the land of Manasseh and Ephraim, which, who are the sons of Joseph. When we take this to the New Testament, we'll find Samaria here. All right? There's Mount Ebal, and there's Mount Gerizim, and there is a city called Shechem, and there's a little village called Sykar. What is the story of Sykar? That's where the Lord met the woman by the well. Let's look to together for some references here. Genesis chapter fifty, please. Genesis chapter fifty, just the one page from where we are, and we'll read verse twenty five. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and he shall carry up my bones from here. Joseph, Jacob was buried in the land of Canaan, but when Joseph died, he was put in a coffin in Egypt. But his heart was not in Egypt. His heart was there in the land of promise, and therefore he got them to swear to him that they will take his bones with him, uh, to the land of promise. And indeed, this is what happened. Exodus thirteen and verse nineteen, close to four hundred years later. Moses is the leader of the nation now, and verse nineteen says, and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had solemnly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones away from here with you. So for the whole forty years, the nation carried the bones of Joseph in a coffin. What was that? It was a token that God indeed will give them the land of promise. Very much like the, the, uh, and I'm, I'm saying this very carefully, very much like the memorial of the Lord's Supper. Uh, we don't carry the bones of the dead. We ha- we we we we worship and we adore a risen Savior, but yet this is the token that points us to heaven, because one day he will come, and we don't have to have the Lord's Supper after that. Joshua, chapter twenty four, The book of Joshua, at the very end of the book, when Joshua has divided the land to the people, we find something very interesting there. The bones have been carried through the, uh, through the, the wilderness, but in John, in Joshua chapter 24 and verse thirty two, it says, and the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem. This land here, this city here, in Shechem, in a plot of ground which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver, and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph. Now go to John chapter four, please. The Gospel of John and chapter four. And here we see that description of the fruitful bow by the well whose branches go over the w- the wall. Let's, let's read together from verse one. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples. He left Judea. He left Judea here and had to go to Galilee here, so he must go through Samaria. The word of God says he left Judea and departed again into Galilee, and he must need to go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar. There's a village of Sychar, very close to Shechem, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus says unto her, give me to drink. Who is the fruitful bow by the well? The one who could cross into Samaria, when most of the Jewish people used to go east of the Jordan and travel east of the Jordan to avoid being in Samaria because the Jews don't deal with the Samaritans. But this blessed one, whose branches go over the wall of partition between the Jews and the Samaritans, is there, uh, at the well, and he's there indeed to offer life eternal to a Samaritan. You see? Unheard of in the Jewish psyche. They they would not even feel that the Samaritans are worth speaking to, let alone offering them the offer of eternal life. And therefore, here we see a beautiful picture of our Savior, the fruitful bough by the well whose branch branches went over the wall. For us, we were even much farther than that. We were Gentiles. The, the Samaritans may, to a certain extent, talk of Jacob as their father. We don't even have that. We were separated from the Jewish nation by even a greater wall. And in Ephesians chapter two, Paul writing to the Ephesians says, for he, that's our Lord Jesus, is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us. We will always have been left out of the promises of God and of the covenants of God with Israel, were it not for the truth that this one who is the fruitful bough, whose branches reaches over the wall of partition, reaches us too, to give us, um, to give us eternal life. Now, let's go back to Genesis chapter forty nine. The, as I said earlier, beloved, the, the book, the, the prophecy of, uh, of Jacob deals with the sufferings of our Lord Jesus as well. We didn't have time to look at Naphtali, uh, in chapter, in verse twenty one, but, uh, he also speaks of the sufferings of our Lord. But here it is, verse twenty three. We're now in Genesis forty nine twenty three. The archers have harassed him and shot at him and hated. And of course, we think of the archers are those who were the enemies of Joseph, and his enemies could be his own brothers. They shot at him. They wanted to kill him. They ended up selling him. There were also the Ishmaelites who treated him as a slave and sold him as a slave to Pot- Potiphar. There was also the wicked wife of Potiphar who accused him falsely. You see? And and therefore his sufferings, as we we read in the word of God, where that his his brothers looked at him and hated him. And when he tells them, tells them of his dream, they he he hated him the more, says the book of Genesis chapter thirty seven. And and they they shot at him. They said, let's let's let's see what we can do with this dreamer. We'll kill him and see what happens to his dreams, you see? And then when, uh, when Reuben and Judah, uh, sort of interceded on his behalf, they sent him as a slave down to Egypt. How very much like our Savior. Who in the days of his flesh endured so much contradiction from sinners against himself. For no reason, they contradicted him. Uh, who are you? Where is your father? Uh, don't we say right that you are a Samaritan and you have a demon? Uh, you have not been, you have not been fifty years, and did you see Abraham? And and on and on went this process of ha- harassing the, the Savior of the world. And then he suffered at the hands of men. Isaiah fifty verse seven says, I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucketh off the hair. He was hated without a cause. Let me take you to Isaiah forty nine for a minute, please. Book of Isaiah chapter forty nine, And we'll read verse seven. For Thus says Jehovah the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to him whom man despises. He is despised and rejected of men. Men have no time for our Lord Jesus. Men are still despising him today. They despised him in his lifetime, but they still despise him today. They don't want to have anything to do with the Christ of God. They don't want to hear anything about a gospel, uh, where the blood was shed, even in places where the name of Christ is named. To him whom the nation abhors. The nation, of course, speaks of the nation of Israel. They hated him, says he in John fifteen, without a cause. Why would they hate him? Did he stretch his hand to harm anyone? Never. He went about doing good and healing those that are oppressed by the devil. He did among them the works that no one else has done, and yet, that the scripture may be fulfilled, they hated him without a cause. To him whom the nation abhorred, to a servant of rulers, of course. The history of our Lord dealing with those wicked men of the time, Caiaphas and and Annas and and Pilate and Herod and Tiberius and all of these wicked men gives us an idea of how he put up with all of this because he went to the cross for you and I. So mankind as a whole, the nation, and of course the rulers, the rulers of the nation, they harassed him. They shot at him, they hated him, but verse twenty four, thanks the Lord for verse twenty four. But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. This is the ultimate victory. It looked like, for Joseph, it looked like this is the end of it. He'd spend the rest of his life forgotten in a dungeon, in a prison in Egypt. Well, God has other plans. As he said to his disciples, say to his brothers, he said to them, you didn't send me here. God brought me here to pre- preserve life. God has a plan for him, and and and he raised him back again and gave him that position second to only to Pharaoh in Egypt. And he became the savior of the world because through his wisdom, he stored enough grain to keep the nations from starving to death and to keep the nations around him from starving to death. For our Lord Jesus, we've been thinking this morning of his resurrection. Thou shalt not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. He rose again. He rose again, and he showed himself alive by so many infallible proofs. Let me just read to you from Isaiah fifty, please, for a minute. The book of Isaiah, chapter fifty, where we have read regarding his, his suffering at the hand of men. Yet here is his victory, yet here is his ultimate, uh, success. And we'll read from verse seven. For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near who justifies me. That's God, who's the only one who justified him when the whole world condemned him? Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me. Who is it that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall grow old like a garment, and moth shall eat them away. Where is Pilate and Caiaphas and Tiberius and all of these great men who condemned our Lord? They're gone to a lost eternity. Uh, is their memory has gone out of the world, and yet he, blessed be his name, is the object of worship of millions over millions, not only here on earth, but in heaven. He's the one who will be remembered forever for what, for what he has done. And God has glorified him and give him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Just for the sake of time, we'll go to, uh, verse twenty four again. Uh, by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, there is, uh, from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel, or a better translation, the rock of Israel. And, and, and beloved, shepherding the sheep, uh, was as- associated with Abel earlier in, in, in, in our book. Later on, we find that Moses is a shepherd, David is a shepherd, and so on. Uh, Joseph himself, uh, though he was not actively involved in, in the shepherds, yet this is refers to someone greater than Joseph, someone who's the rock of Israel, someone who's the shepherd of Israel. Our time doesn't allow us to, to, to look at this, but if you were to go to the book of Ezekiel, you'd find that all that came before the Lord Jesus failed in their message because they did not care for the sheep. They ate the fat. They did not feed the hungry. They did not look after the broken. Uh, what a responsibility is it for those who are leading the assembly, you see? And yet God decided, I am going to shepherd my own people. And Ezekiel, uh, chapter thirty seven, we find that God has chosen that son of David to be the shepherd of his people. Let me read it to you again, Ezekiel chapter thirty seven verse twenty four, where all the, the leaders of the nation in the past, as the Lord Jesus Christ said, all that came before me were thieves and robbers. But here he is. And David my servant, thirty seven twenty four, and David my servant shall be king over them. And they shall all have one shepherd. They shall also walk in mine ordinances and observe my statutes. So when, when Jacob uttered this, uh, prophecy, he certainly was not talking about Joseph himself, as we will see later on that this is not the case anyway. But he was talking about the greater Joseph, the one who indeed will be the shepherd and the rock of his people. Of course, we read in, in First Corinthians ten that the rock was Christ. And in the book of, of, uh, of Psalms, quite often we read of God being the rock of salvation of his people. God is the rock of salvation, and, and, and the Lord Jesus Christ is that rock who is the strength and the refuge of his people. Verse twenty five speaks of blessings, even by the God of thy Father who shall help thee, and by the Almighty who shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, and blessings of breast and the, and the womb. And, and, and there, there, beloved, we see how all these blessings, whether they are rain and dew from heaven, or fertility of the land with, with great crops, uh, or blessings of children, the breasts and the womb, were all the portion of the nation of Israel. The Lord promised them, uh, all of these, uh, blessings. But for us, of course, at a future time in the millennium, this, these blessings will be theirs again. But for us, we are a heavenly body. We have a heavenly calling. We have heavenly blessings. We have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, you see. And we have a heavenly, um, a heavenly call. We are, we are partakers of that great and heavenly calling. And therefore, our hopes are not here on earth. We're not seeking riches and wealth and prosperity and rest and ease in this world. We're seeking to do work that will work, that will endure for all eternity when we will meet our Savior. But then he says something in verse twenty six, beloved. The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hill. Most certainly he's not talking here about Joseph. Because Joseph's lifespan, though it was a long lifespan, he died at age one hundred and ten, could not have covered this particular phrase of the utmost, uh, the, the, uh, the utmost bounds of the, of the everlasting hills. And what I would like to, to step, to concentrate on in the next few minutes before we finish is what he says that. On the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brothers. And I want to point out to you, beloved, that it's true that Joseph himself was separate from his brothers. But he points us to, again, to the greater Joseph, our Lord Jesus Christ, who indeed has the preeminence among his, his brethren. Let's look at this a little bit more detail. How was Joseph separate from his brethren? In his life, in his earlier life, he enjoyed the father's love. The word of God says in, in Genesis thirty seven that Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other children, and you remember the story of the, of the coat of many colors. They themselves were hating him and hateful, and they were, they were wallowing in their sin, and they indeed, uh, decided to execute their plan of getting rid of him. In his humiliation, in his time in Egypt before he was raised to the, to the position of Prime Minister, he was morally and geographically separate from them. He was in Egypt, they were in Canaan. In, in Egypt, he stands up as one who fears God. He says to that wicked woman, how, how can I commit such great wickedness and sin against who? Against God. You see, there were no Ten Commandments given yet. Moses has not given the Ten Commandments. There was no commandment that says, thou shalt not commit adultery. But this man knew the mind of God on this issue, and he stood tall, a young man, a young man who is more subject and more vulnerable to this kind of temptation, stands separate from all his brethren. If we have the time, and we don't have to, we can, we don't have the time, you can go back to chapter thirty eight and see that shameful behavior of Judah, seeking after harlot and ending up, uh, you know, sleeping with his daughter-in-law. And compare this to someone like Joseph in Potiphar's wife, in Potiphar's house, and certainly in humiliation, he was morally separate from them. In his glory, what happened when they came and saw him? They worshiped him. They all fo- fell on their faces, uh, before. So in a sense, these words apply to Joseph very clearly. Now, our Lord, and I'm going to suggest to you, uh, there are four different circles where our Lord is separate from those that he might call his brethren. And the first circle I want to suggest to you is the human race. The human race. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, all means not a single one in the human race has not sinned, except him, of course. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. What do we read of him? He is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. That's the one who's separate from sinners, and he's made higher than the heavens. Peter says of him he did no sin. Paul writes of him he knew no sin, and John says in him there was no sin. How beautifully separate is he from the human race and from its sin. The Lord Jesus also, during his earthly ministry, was found to be separate from his people according to the flesh, the nation of Israel. Let me take you to John, uh, chapter eight, please. The book of John, chapter eight. There's a big conversation about him there when he announced that he indeed is the light of the world. They challenged him about his witness and said, well, you're witnessing to yourself. Your witness is not valid. He says, no, I have another one who's witnessing with me, and and the world will stand by the mouth of two or three. And then they they come to the point where they ask him this question. They said, where is he going to go that he says you cannot come? Verse twenty three, and twenty three, John eight twenty three. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath, I am from above. Ye are of this world, I am not of this world. And how true these words are, beloved. Their thinking, their, their planning, their, their plotting was only the result of a fallen human nature. He tells them, to their chagrin, of course, that they do the works of their father. They say, oh, we have only a father, our God. He says, no, no, your father was a murderer from the beginning, the devil, and that's why you want to kill me. He was indeed separate from those who were his brethren according to the flesh. And then again, beloved, there's another circle the Lord stands separate from, and these are the kings of the earth. Go to Psalm forty five, please. The book of Psalms and chapter forty five. Here we have him, a king whose kingdom, as we were discussing on Sunday morning, uh, a king whose kingdom is not of this world. And in Psalm forty five and verse seven says, Thou lovest righteousness. Let's read verse six for connection. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of righteous- of thy kingdom is the right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. Therefore, God, thy God, has anoint thee, anointed thee with the oil of ga- gladness. Above whom? Above thy fellows, the other kings of the earth. He is so much superior. He's the only king who will reign in righteousness when they all reign in wickedness. Go to Psalm eighty nine, please. Psalm eighty nine. again a psalm of Messiah. And verse twenty seven. God speaking of Solomon at the time, but he's certainly indeed pointing to his son. I also, Psalm eighty nine verse twenty seven, also I will make him my firstborn higher than the kings of the earth. Or I make him firstborn higher than the kings of the earth. And here the word firstborn denotes position, denotes superiority. And finally, in Revelation chapter one and verse seven, John, who saw him in his glory, writes to us these words. John chapter one and verse five. I'm sorry, verse five. And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth. He indeed is separate from the kings of the earth, the prince of the kings of the earth. And finally, beloved, the the the dearest and nearest circle to him is his own brethren who are redeemed by his blood. And I want to take you to Colossians chapter one, please. The book of Colossians chapter one. Here we have him, and your verse that you have on your platform here is a reminder of that. Here we have him in preeminence in resurrection, Colossians one and eighteen, and he is the head of the body. Is the head superior to the body? There's no question. There are those men who try to usurp this position and make themselves heads of the church, but you and I know that the body of Christ has only one glorious head, that's Christ himself in him. He is the head of the body, uh, the church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have, in all things he might have the preeminence. He is separate from his brothers. This morning we were reading from John chapter twenty, and when John and Peter looked inside, they saw that the napkin which covered the head was separate from other clothes that were in the body. That's symbolic, indeed symbolic, but certainly the head has the preeminence. It was separate from the rest of the body. And, uh, when he speaks to Mary Magdalene, as you remember, we didn't cover this verse, though we were there this morning. When he speaks to Mary Magdalene, he uses a very interesting expression. Let us go to it for a minute. In, uh, in John twenty and verse seventeen. Now she has recognized him. Now he is Rabboni, and Jesus says unto her, verse seventeen, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren. Now, this is his brethren who were never, were not his brethren before until the work of atonement was finished. And say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God. Why is he using this language? Why didn't he say, I ascend to our Father and to our God? It's because he has a very special relationship to God. He is the only begotten, the eternal son. We are adopted into the family. So he, it is my father and your father, my God and your God. He's separate. He's superior. He's free, he's preeminent. And finally, just for the sake of time, we'll go to Ephesians chapter 1, please. Ephesians chapter one. In his glory, in his glory, we read this of him. Ephesians one and verse twenty. That mighty power which he wrote in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come, and has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. The crown of the head of him who is separate from his brethren is no one else but our blessed Savior. Uh, we didn't cover everything on Joseph. We didn't cover every detail on his blessing, but I thought that I just stimulate your hearts to study more. This, uh, this, uh, particular blessing is so, uh, rich and so encouraging to our hearts. Our Father, we thank and praise thee again for the one who is indeed separate, separate from the sinful human, uh, race, separate from the kings of this earth, and we bless thee and, and, and, and praise thee because he is indeed the head over the body, his church. And Father, we ask that thou would, uh, encourage us to always give him that place of preeminence and never to forget his cause and never to slacken in working for him and in bringing honor and glory to his name. Bless thy word, thy word to the hearts of thy people, Father. We repent thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus. Thank you very much.