Genesis 12 & 15, Exodus 1 - From Genesis to Egypt
Welcome and the Mission Ahead
Welcome to midweek! It is so good to have you here at The Well. If you happen to be a guest with us, I am so grateful that you’re hanging out. We are starting a new series tonight in the book of Joshua, so if you have your Bibles and want to turn there to get oriented, that would be great.
Before we dive in, I want to share a quick reminder for those who are new to our community. On February 2nd, we’re going to launch what we call “open groups.” This is a chance for anyone who wants to get connected in a life group environment to jump right in. We’ll be doing a condensed gathering starting that night, and you can transition straight into a small group right here at these tables.
I also have to share some incredible news from this past Sunday. We broke a record. We have never had as many kids at our church as we did this weekend across both campuses. We were two children short of 800 kids, which is just insane! What a privilege and what a responsibility. We know many of those families are going to start coming here to midweek because we offer children’s ministry, and we need to respond to that growth. I want to invite you to consider rotating through and serving with our kids. We will train you and walk with you. We often say around here that we are a battleship, not a cruise ship. We are sounding the alarm because the deluge is coming, and we want to be ready to care for every person God sends our way.
Setting the Stage for Joshua
As we open our Bibles, we’re going to be talking about Joshua, a man who responded to a faithful God. But before we can get into the book of Joshua, we candidly have to ask and answer a few questions. Who is Joshua? Well, Joshua took over after Moses. Okay, great—who was Moses? Moses was the one God raised up to lead the people out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. Where is the Promised Land? It was the land of Canaan promised to Abraham. Who was Abraham? He was the first patriarch chosen by God to raise up a chosen people.
In order to understand Joshua, we have to rewind the tape. In typical “Well” style, we have to start from the beginning. Tonight, we’re doing an overview from Genesis 1:1 all the way to Egypt. Next week, we’ll deal with the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Have you ever watched a movie where everyone around you thinks a scene is awesome, but you don’t quite get it because you lack the context? Understanding the backstory makes the experience so much better, and Joshua is no exception.
Genesis 1:1 (NASB)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Theology Proper: Who is Our God?
Genesis starts with what we call “theology proper”—an understanding of who God is. When we talk about God, we aren’t talking about the god of culture or a god we’ve made in our own image. We are talking about the God who revealed Himself in the Bible.
First, we learn that He is eternal and preexistent. He was there in the beginning. Second, He is infinite; He has no beginning and no ending. Third, He is the Creator. This world originated through a creative power and a designer. The fact that your ear operates the way it does isn’t a genetic accident; it’s because a Creator gave you the ability to hear. We are not accidents, and we are not just survivors of evolution.
We also see that God is all-powerful. He spoke the world into existence. When God is as big as He deserves to be, we see how small we actually are. He is all-knowing, or omniscient. As the prophet Habakkuk said, the Lord is in His holy temple, so let the earth be silent before Him. Isaiah tells us His thoughts and ways are higher than ours.
Habakkuk 2:20 (NASB)
‘But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.’
Furthermore, God is ever-present—omnipresent. You have to get outside of time and space to recognize that the God who created the world is everywhere at once.
Psalms 139:7-10 (NASB)
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
Finally, God is holy and sovereign. He is Lord over everything that is possible and everything that is actual. He is the authority, and everything in heaven and on earth is subject to Him, whether they acknowledge it or not. We live in a culture that says, “Well, that’s your truth,” but I could care less what “my truth” is. What matters is what the Bible says. Sometimes what the Bible says is terrifying and uncomfortable because God doesn’t apologize for being awesome. He is beholden to no one.
Jeremiah 10:6-7 (NASB)
There is none like You, O LORD; You are great, and great is Your name in might. Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Your due! For among all the wise men of the nations And in all their kingdoms, There is none like You.
Not Safe, but Good
This view of God can feel terrifying because it means you are not in control. C.S. Lewis captured this perfectly in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There is an interaction between Mr. Beaver and Susan about Aslan, the lion who represents God. Susan asks if the lion is safe, saying she feels nervous about meeting him. Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he is good.”
When you learn the attributes of God, it is terrifying if you don’t know His character. But His character is that He is merciful, gracious, and slow to anger.
Psalms 86:15 (NASB)
But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, Slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.
He is compassionate, faithful, and unchanging. By His very nature, He is love. The highest expression of that love was when He created humankind.
The Image of God and the Problem of Sin
In Genesis 1, God says, “Let us make man in our image.” Notice the plurality there—Father, Son, and Spirit present at the very beginning. Unlike the rest of creation which was spoken into existence, God hand-made mankind to bear the Imago Dei.
Genesis 1:26 (NASB)
Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
Regardless of ethnicity or background, every human bears the image of God. We have shared worth, value, and dignity because of our Creator. We were created to reflect His glory in the world as His ambassadors. He blessed us and told us to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the earth.
Genesis 1:28 (NASB)
God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’
However, we know the world is not the way it should be. In Genesis 3, sin entered the world. Humankind chose autonomy, and that impacted us all. Yet, even in the fall, God pursued us. He promised a deliverer in Genesis 3:15 who would crush the serpent’s head. He showed a pattern of sacrifice by clothing Adam and Eve in animal skins—the innocent dying for the guilty.
As time went on, the plague of sin grew rampant until the thoughts of every heart were evil continually. God decided to hit the reset button with a global flood.
Genesis 6:5-7 (NASB)
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.’
That sounds harsh to our modern ears, but Romans reminds us that the thing molded does not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this?” The Potter has authority over the clay.
Romans 9:20-21 (NASB)
On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
Babel and the Scattering of Nations
In the midst of judgment, Noah found favor. After the flood, God gave Noah the same command He gave Adam: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
Genesis 9:1 (NASB)
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ’Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
But human nature still bent toward autonomy. Instead of filling the earth, the people settled in Shinar and decided to build a tower to make a name for themselves so they wouldn’t be scattered. God responded by confusing their languages, creating the various ethnicities and cultures we see today. He forced them to spread out and accomplish what He had initially commanded.
The Promise to Abraham
From this scattered humanity, God did something focused. He chose a special group of people to be His own. He called them Hebrews, and later they would be known as the people of Israel. He made a massive, unconditional promise to a man named Abram—the Abrahamic Covenant.
Genesis 12:1-3 (NASB)
Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’
This was a threefold promise: land, descendants, and blessing. This is where we get the context for Joshua. This family had to learn to walk by faith without a Bible. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6 (NASB)
Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
To claim the land God promised, Abraham did five things. First, he built an altar. Second, he walked the length and breadth of the land. Third, he planted a tree—a tamarisk tree. This is a slow-growing tree; Abraham knew he would never sit in its shade, but he planted it for his grandkids. Fourth, he dug a well. Fifth, he buried his dead. He bought a burial cave as a stake of ownership in the land. This land—from Lebanon to the Sinai, and from the Mediterranean to the Jordan—is the land Joshua is eventually called to conquer.
From Promise to Egypt
Now, these patriarchs were not perfect. If you’re new to the Bible, you’ll quickly see that these people were hot messes. Their families were full of deceit, favoritism, and failure. Jacob had twelve sons, and he played favorites with Joseph. The brothers were so jealous they trafficked Joseph into slavery in Egypt.
But God is sovereign. A famine hit the land of Canaan, and the only place with food was Egypt. When Jacob’s sons went to buy grain, they found that the brother they had sold was now the man in charge of the food supply. God had placed Joseph on the inside to preserve His people during a time of distress.
Genesis ends with God’s people in Egypt. You have to imagine they were wondering, “What about the promise? What about the land?” But as we will see next week, God is not slow about His promises. He is faithful.
Conclusion: The God Who Can Be Trusted
How does this overview impact us today? First, we can be assured that God is still in control. He is in control of all things, both actual and possible. If He could place Joseph in Egypt to handle a famine, He can handle whatever you are facing.
Second, He is still working out His purposes. You might pray and see nothing, but God is not asleep. He provided a blessing for all nations through the descendant of Abraham: Jesus Christ. The Old Testament points like a neon sign to the cross. Just as God was faithful to Abraham, He has made promises to us.
John 14:3 (NASB)
’If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, [there] you may be also.
It has been much longer than 430 years since that promise was made, but if we understand God’s character, we can stay faithful in the waiting. He is not safe, but He is good. And because He is good, He can be trusted. He loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life.
The story isn’t over; it’s just beginning. Let’s pray.
God, I thank You that You are awesome. We don’t need to be afraid because You are good. Thank You for the backstory of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and for the promises You have made to us. Give us courage in our waiting as we await Your faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.