The Ephraim and Manasseh Blessing [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

No. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in a series on blessing, the Ephraim and Manasseh blessing as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or you can call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Now, more on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here's Alan Wright. You know, we gloss over verses like this one in the Bible, Genesis 41, 46. You could just read right on and not pause. Joseph was 30 years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He was 30.

You know what those 30 years consisted of? Being hated by his brothers, abused in the worst way, hated and abused, constantly, emotionally, and verbally abused by them, put down, wanted, they wanted to kill him just by a thread that Joseph hang on to his life, got thrown into a pit, sold as a slave. They just used him and made a little bit of money off of them, took his robe that they detested, put blood on it, carried it to their father, and let their father believe that Joseph was dead, devoured by a wild animal. Meanwhile, Joseph was carried into Egypt, put into slavery in the household of Potiphar, and then Potiphar's wife accused him falsely, and they threw him in jail, unjustly incarcerated. And up until he's 30 years old, it looks like his life is basically over, complete tragedy. He had suffered for 30 years.

In other words, the definition of what he'd experienced in this world was trouble. But after 30 years, he became second in all of Egypt because God used providentially Joseph's prophetic ability to interpret dreams, and next thing you know, he's running the country. He was used by God to save the world from famine because they save up grain for seven years. And during that time of plenty, when they're saving up, he has a son and the son he names Manasseh, because it comes from the Hebrew words, it means to forget. And Joseph says, because I've forgotten all my troubles.

All of a sudden, he was acting prime minister of Egypt, and he'd been blessed with a baby boy, and it was so good that it was as if the bad had never happened. It's like a mother who has a long labor in travail, and then the baby's born, and it's almost like you've forgotten the travail. You don't forget that it happened, you just forget it relative to the blessedness that you now experience. You have experience, so it's like, if something really bad gets eclipsed by something really good, it's as if the bad hadn't really happened.

It becomes no longer the preoccupation of your life. Some years ago, our son while he was at Baylor, they had a great football team, and we got to go to a football game in 2014 when Baylor was ranked number five in the nation, and they were playing TCU, who was ranked number nine. And so it was a top 10 battle, and we were there watching it, and we thought Baylor might have a chance to go all the way this year, you know, and be in the playoffs and everything. And they got down by three touchdowns, and my wife had left.

She's wandering the concourse. I'm grumbling with other people in the stands about how the season's ruined, and there's 11 minutes left in the game, and Baylor's down by 21 points. Game's over, and by some miracle, Baylor scores 24 unanswered points in the last 11 minutes and wins the game 61 to 58.

It lives on in the folklore of Baylor. Everybody, you know, came rushing down to the field. I don't think I've ever done this before, but I said we're going to, and we went down there, Sycambe Bears onto the field, and that's our faces, that's our faces. Now three and a half quarters of that game we were getting beaten, and it was miserable, but in the end the scoreboard said Baylor won, so we're down there Sycambe Bears celebrating.

The final score eclipsed the rest of the game. Forgot all our troubles because the victory was at hand. Joseph said I'm going to name this boy Manasseh because yeah, yeah, yeah for 30 years I've been traumatized, abused, beaten, and forgotten, and then misused, but now here I am. I'm king in Egypt, and I got a baby boy. Thank you Jesus.

His name is Manasseh. I've forgotten all my troubles. What would happen if you could just start living like Manasseh, like I've forgotten all my troubles? God can heal memories. God can heal memories such that the trauma of yesterday is not defining how you live today. You can live as though you've never been hurt. You can love as though you've never been hated. You can live from this day forward. Oh hallelujah. May God make you like Manasseh from this day forward.

You're not defined by the past. You're defined by what God's doing today, and he had a second son there during this season of plenty. He's named him Ephraim. I think this represents the third gift of the Ephraim Manasseh blessing. Ephraim means twice fruitful. I just wanted to show you a little bit of Hebrew here because it's really kind of beautiful. It should be translated Ephraim if you're transliterating it directly, Ephra-Yayim, and this Ayim is the suffix that makes this word in Hebrew dual in its noun form. So in English, we've got singular nouns like you individually, and then we got plural nouns like y'all. So we got you and y'all. That's the proper way to do the singular and the plural.

That is the way. In Hebrew, they've got singular and plural, but there also is a dual form, Ayim. Ayim is the dual form. It's the suffix in Hebrew. So if you see Ayim, it means two of it.

So one day in Hebrew is yom, but there's a word for two days, yomayim. So Ephra, Ephra is the word for fruitfulness, and Ayim means twice or dual. So Ephraim means doubly fruitful, twice fruitful. Part of this was it was a second son. Look, we've been fruitful.

We have a second son, but I think there's more than this. I think that this is prefiguring what it means to live in Christ. It means to be twice as fruitful as you ever imagined you possibly could be. It means to be twice as fruitful in Christ as you ever would be without Him.

It means to abide in Christ like a branch on a vine, and as you abide in Him, you bear much fruit. And I'm blessing your life as we go into this year to be twice fruitful. Just open your heart and receive that. If you've had some joy, a fruit of the Spirit, let me bless you and say, may God make you like Ephraim, twice joyful, twice as joyful you've ever been. If you've known what it is to experience love, may you experience it twice as much.

May 2021 be twice as much a blessing as you ever could have imagined. And I think God wants us to bear fruit, and He wants us to know the sweet savor of that fruit. And so He said, make sure that you speak of your children that they become like Ephraim.

And then there is the greatest mystery of this blessing, which is the fourth gift of the blessing, which I think is a picture of favor. And it has to do with the strange way in which Jacob administered the blessing. If you've been around here much at all, you know, I love Jacob, his story, and it occupies a lot of the book of Genesis, and it occupies a whole lot of the attention of the Old Testament because Jacob's name has changed to Israel, which becomes the name for the nation of the people of God. And we who are in Christ are engrafted into Israel, and Jacob's just one of the most important figures that ever lived.

And yet he was a scoundrel, he was a conniver, and he was a striver. He was the second born of two boys, two twins. His older brother Esau was born first, and Jacob was born holding onto his heel, like he was trying to pull himself into first place.

Because in that culture, he knew that the firstborn son got so much attention, and Jacob was the second born. And it just created a complex in him where he felt unblessed and like he had to do something to get himself blessed. So he's always striving, always trying to find a way to get himself favored. And it just shows up over and over in his life.

It's the definition of his life. So when they're young, when Esau is really hungry, and Jacob's got this nice bowl of soup, and Esau comes in and goes, let me have some of that tomato bisque. And Jacob's like, no.

And Esau's like, what, please, I'm famished over here. And Jacob's like, well, you sell me your birthright, I'll give you a little bit of my bisque. And so he sells him his birthright, he just cheats him out of it. Later, it comes to its ultimate climax when their father Isaac is old and blind. And it comes this moment where every firstborn child anticipates one of the greatest moments of his life would be for his father to speak the full and comprehensive blessing over the firstborn's life.

In that impartation, most scholars agree there is a releasing of a double portion of the inheritance for the firstborn. He's going to manage the family farm or run the family business, he needs more. He needs a lot of blessing, a lot rests on his shoulders.

And every son looks forward to that. And it comes to that big moment and Jacob just does something just awful. He pretends to be Esau, dresses up like his brother so he'll smell like him, feel like him, he goes in and tricks their father Isaac into speaking the blessing over Jacob instead of Esau. And when old blind Isaac realizes he blessed the wrong son, you'd think he'd just take the words back and say, oh, well, nevermind, I'll just bless Esau. That's not the way it is.

No, no, no, no, no. God created the world by speaking words, words of power. And the words of blessing had come forth out of his mouth and they could not be taken back and stuffed back in. Maybe one thing I learned about blessing when I saw that story was the power of blessing is irrevocable. Oh, I always, always, I took that, I just believe that over my children.

I just believe, I believe it over your life. If I speak a blessing over your life, you're blessed. And Isaac said, when Esau came in crying, Isaac said, I've blessed your brother and indeed he will be blessed.

Wow. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing. It's free and just a click away at pastoralan.org. Embark on a journey of transformation with our free yourself, be yourself resource bundle. Imagine a shame-free life, no more self-condemnation, no more inward angst, wondering if you measure up as you soak in the message of healing grace.

This empowering bundle includes pastor Alan's landmark book, free yourself, be yourself, plus an accompanying resource guide and access to the exclusive companion video series. Act now, support Alan Wright Ministries with your donation and step into the abundant life God has awaiting you as we send you this limited time resource bundle as our thanks this month. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860, or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. This is Jacob's life, conniving, stealing, lying, trying to get in first place, and it continues. This is the guy that wrestled all night with an angel. This is the guy that worked for seven years to get the woman that he loved. This is a man who was afraid his brother was going to kill him. He lived his whole life like this. I assume, Jacob said, that I'm not blessed and I got to do something to make myself blessed.

That's the way he lived his life. And now he's nearing his death and Joseph has brought these boys and Jacob gets ready to bless them and he does a very unusual thing. Knowing full well that all Hebrew custom mandated that the strong blessing symbolized by the right hand should go on to the first born son. Jacob does something unimaginable.

So envision the scene. Joseph brings these two boys, Manasseh the older, Ephraim the younger, and he, because Jacob's getting old and he carefully brings them up, Joseph puts Manasseh under Jacob's right hand, the first born under the right hand. He puts Ephraim the second born the second born under the left hand.

Okay, you can bless him, daddy. And Jacob crosses his arms and takes the right hand, the strong first born blessing hand and puts it on the younger. It is so stunning that Joseph, being very respectful of his father, but he tries to correct him. In verse 17, Genesis 48, 17, when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him. And he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh. So here's what happened. Jacob has crossed his hands and Joseph being respectful, but he takes his hands, no daddy, he's kind of like, you know, you're a little bit old now, you're a little bit blind, but you get doing it wrong.

This one is the first born, moves it back over. And Jacob takes his hands across them again and said, no. Look what Jacob said. He said, in verse 19, his father refused and said, I know my son, I know.

I know what I'm doing, he said. He shall become a people and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he. In his old age and his great moment of his life, Jacob is showing us that he finally got it. Going back to look at verse 11, you can see some of this, Israel, that's Jacob. He said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face.

I thought you were dead. And now God's let me see your offspring too. He's really, life's a surprise blessing, not a surprise curse. And then he says at verse 15, he blessed Joseph and he said, the God before whom my father is Abraham and Isaac, the God who's been my shepherd all my life long to this day.

You know what he's saying? He's saying, I always thought I was on my own, but now as I look back over my life, I realize he's been shepherding me the whole way. That God's been there every step of the way. I spent a lot of time with bereaved families, three this week. And I'm telling you for sure, this I've seen for sure, the secret of joy at the end of life is to be able to look back over your life and say, God was shepherding me. I messed up here.

I would have maybe done it different here, but look at this. God, I realize has been taking care of me. God has been blessing me. God has been with me.

I've never been alone. I'm a sheep in his pasture and he's been guiding me along the way. And therefore I'm satisfied. What I'm saying is that Jacob who lived by law and shame and moralism and trickery and strife at the end of his life, he finally got it. And he realized that's not what it's about. It's about grace. It's about God giving unmerited favor. It is about grace to the undeserving.

And so he took his hand off the deserving one and he crossed it over and he put it on the one who didn't deserve it. And he said, he said, no, my son, I know what I'm doing because this is what life with God is all about. It's about grace. The New Testament says of the old, that the old consists of shadows pointing to the reality that is found in Christ. So if you see a Passover lamb in the Old Testament, you can count on this. There's a Passover lamb in the New and that Passover lamb is Jesus. And if you see Jacob cross in his hand, you can be sure that somehow it's pointing us to Jesus because the whole book's about him.

And here's what happened. God the Father had a firstborn, the Bible called Jesus the firstborn of all creation. He was perfect. He just loved people.

He served everywhere he went. He healed the sick. He delivered the oppressed.

He fed the hungry. And yet they hated him and put him on a cross. And by his own decision, the son willfully obeyed the father's will. He said, not mine, but yours father be done. And he hung upon that cross, the firstborn of all creation, the perfect, sinless one who only deserved all that Jesus deserved was the right hand of the father's blessing on him. But instead he hung there and he who knew no sin became our sin and took our shame. And there while he bore our shame, he felt what it was like to be separated from God. And he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And what he was experiencing was absolutely breathtaking from our perspective, because what God did in the heavenlies in those moments was he took his hands and he crossed them. And he took his right hand off of the son who deserved his blessing.

And instead let Jesus take the curse for us all. And he extended the right hand of blessing to those who didn't deserve it to the second born to all the Ephraim to you and to me for anyone who would receive it. And what it means is that we have received the strong right hand of God's blessing.

Maybe the angels were up there saying, father, father, this is the firstborn. He's the one deserve this. And God said, no, I know what I'm doing because he'd planned it out from the very moment that Adam and Eve had sinned. He knew this moment would come that he had a plan. He had a providential plan. He had a plan where he would show both his justice and his mercy. He had a plan whereby he would adopt you. He had a plan by where you would have all your sin forgiven and you wouldn't live according to the past, but according to all that is new, he had a plan by which he would make you twice as fruitful.

He came to make you as Ephraim and Manasseh. And so I bless you as we start the new year to say, God make you like an adopted one, secure in his love like Manasseh. Live from this day forward.

Forget the past. God can do something so good right now you forget everything that happened that was ever bad in your life and make you twice as fruitful as you ever dreamt of and put you under his favor now and always because God wants you to be as Ephraim and Manasseh and that's the gospel. Alan Wright, today's good news message in our new year's blessing. It's the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing. It's free and just a click away at pastoralan.org. Embark on a journey of transformation with our free yourself, be yourself resource bundle. Imagine a shame-free life, no more self-condemnation, no more inward angst, wondering if you measure up as you soak in the message of healing grace.

This empowering bundle includes Pastor Alan's landmark book, Free Yourself, Be Yourself, plus an accompanying resource guide and access to the exclusive companion video series. Act now, support Alan Wright Ministries with your donation and step into the abundant life God has awaiting you as we send you this limited time resource bundle as our thanks this month. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries.

Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Back here in the studio with Pastor Alan, our parting good news thought for the day, and this is our new year's blessing. And this really also pairs well with the theme of a new book, The Power to Bless. The Power to Bless is all about how a positive vision spoken in faith over your life can change everything and how your words can bring life to others.

You can learn to speak life and empower the people that you love. The blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh Daniel, an ancient mysterious blessing, is so, so intriguing. Why Ephraim and Manasseh?

Why for 3700 years has God had Jewish fathers saying to their children, make God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh? All of it is unveiled when you see it through the lens of the gospel. It's the theme, it's the story, it's the arc of this new book, and it is in many ways the story of God's redemptive purposes. You can be blessed instead of curse and you can bless others instead of cursing them. And this is God's way of changing the world.

Anyone can discover the power to bless. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.