The Faith of Jacob and Joseph Revealed by the Word [1][New Year’s Eve Service]

Today's passage begins with the scene in which Jacob, having met Joseph, goes before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to greet him. When Pharaoh asks his age, Jacob sums up his life and confesses it as ‘one hundred thirty years … few and evil.’ This shows that what was stamped most deeply on him was not the glory of being an ancestor of faith specially chosen by God, but the life of a wanderer, pursued and drifting all his days.

The passage finds the reason Jacob's life was so hard in the way he made his judgments and decisions. Jacob deceived his brother to gain the firstborn's blessing, was deceived by his uncle Laban for twenty years, and put his family and a city in danger through what happened to his daughter Dinah; at every moment he put his own thinking and desires first. Even though God commanded him to go up to Bethel, he held on to human judgment and chose Shechem, which looked safe, and because of this his family had to go through great suffering and sin. God allowed hardship in order to correct his wrongs, but Jacob still chose human ways and could only live like a wanderer all his life.

We need to look back on whether we are living by our own righteousness and failing to see God's careful involvement in our lives. The sermon asks whether true faith means entrusting every judgment and decision to God within the peace and circumstances he has given, or whether we will live by our own thinking like Jacob and end with a sad confession.