Wait on a Faithful God

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are still continuing on in Genesis, no, 1 Chronicles, chapter 7. We're going to talk about the family of Ephraim. Let's go ahead and we'll have two more tribes to get through. And so we're at Ephraim today. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. You are truly a wonderful, remarkable God. We thank you for your great blessings that you have given us in this life. We thank you for your Word. And we pray that as we read your Word, your Spirit would please help us to understand it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Here we go, 1 Chronicles, chapter 7, beginning at verse 20.

Ooh, some of those have lots of, uh, uh, T-H-N-Eth.

The men of Gath, who were born in that land, killed them, because they came down to take away their cattle.

Then Ephraim, their father, mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him.

And when he went in to his wife, she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Beriah,

because tragedy had come upon his house.

Now his daughter was Sera, or Sera, who built lower and upper Beth-Horon, and Uzzin, Sera.

And Repha was his son, as well as Resheth, and Tellah, his son,

Tahan, his son, Ladan, his son, Amihut, his son, Elishamah, his son, Nun, his son, and Joshua, his son.

Now their possessions and dwelling places were Bethel and its towns,

to the east, Naran, to the west, Gezer and its towns, and Shechem and its towns, as far as Ayah and its towns.

And by the borders of the children of Manasseh were Bethshean and its towns,

Tanakh and its towns, Megiddo and its towns, Dor and its towns.

And these dwelt the children of Joseph, the son of Israel.

Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about?

B, what's the best verse to summarize this?

And C, what are we called to do?

So, A, what is this about?

This is the family of Ephraim.

If you notice, not unsurprisingly, we've gone through this chapter after chapter.

I'm going to underline verse 20 as the best verse.

The sons of Ephraim were.

But if you notice, right, there's a little bit more information given.

Some tragedy in the family, right?

The men of Gath, who were born in that land, killed them because they came to take away their cattle, right?

This is part of the story of oppression.

Of this fighting between the Canaanites and people of Israel.

But then we also see that there's Bariah, right?

Ephraim is comforted by his brothers.

He has another son.

God is faithful.

He continues to build the tribe.

And so we have even the building up of lower and upper Beth Horon.

And so we see God still prospering and caring.

Actually, Ephraim is going to be one of the most numerous tribes in all of Israel.

And so you have all these sons who are listed.

And then their dwelling places.

Now, this is interesting because their dwelling places are listed here, city by city.

And we've not really gotten a lot of city.

I mean, remember just in verse 13, the family of Naphtali, they only have one verse.

And here we actually have like, hold on, Bethel.

Bethel is a house of God.

Bethel is literally the house of God.

And so there's Bethel with its towns east of Naran.

There's Shechem in its towns.

You have the border of Manasseh where Bethshean in its towns, Tanakh in its towns, right?

And Megiddo.

So you have all these different towns.

And so this is a well-known geographic boundary.

What is this talking about?

Why is this matter at all, right?

This is God being faithful to his covenant.

God had made a promise to Abraham.

The land that he was standing on, he would surely give to his ancestors.

And here's Ephraim.

Standing with towns.

Here's the family of Ephraim.

Removed from Joseph.

Removed from Egypt.

And they have a home.

They're in the promised land.

God had been good and faithful to his promises.

All right.

So what is this sea calling us to do?

I would say, well, calling us to do, showing us Christ to remember the covenant, right?

I would say that this shows us, once again, God's covenant faithfulness.

God had promised the land hundreds of years before that he was going to give it to Abraham.

And God made it good.

He did it.

He accomplished that.

Now, there was a part of that, that once Sinai came, right?

You're going to be in the land.

But if you don't actually serve me, if you don't follow my ways, you're going to be exiled from the land.

And God upholds that end of his covenant, too.

And so we find in Ephraim this covenant-keeping God.

And that also points us to the greatest covenant he made, the covenant of grace, where we know that we are reconciled with God.

He gives us Jesus, the Messiah.

He makes us even a home, not a home here, not an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom.

It doesn't mean the earth doesn't matter here, right?

God is, we live in the already and not yet, right?

Jesus is king now.

He cares about the nations now.

He cares about kingdoms now.

He cares about the king now.

And yet, we also know that he has promised us a kingdom imperishable.

And so we long for that kingdom.

But we know, if he was good to Abraham's promises way back then, and he made it so, he made promises in Jesus, and he's going to make it so.

So let's pray.

Father, we pray that you would please, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Lord, we pray that you would let us run our race with great endurance, because you are a covenant-keeping, wonderful God.

And even though things may be slow to us, Lord, we know that to you, a thousand years is but a day.

So Lord, you're not slow to keep your promises.

So we thank you.

We thank you for keeping your promises, and we pray that you would please let us be faithful in waiting upon you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

May God bless you as you wait upon the Lord with joy and great anticipation.

I'll talk to you later.

Bye.