This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

My grandmother on my dad's side, whenever she would talk about death, whenever she would talk about, you know, buying their cemetery plots ahead of time, those sorts of things, she would throw up her hands. She'd say, I'm not morbid. I'm not morbid. Well, I'm not morbid, but what is the perfect length of life? You ever thought about that?

How old is the perfect time to live, or maybe putting it in a more negative way, the perfect age to die? Well, if you were an ancient Egyptian, that number would have been a hundred and ten years old. 110. That's a long time. Ancient Egyptian wisdom literature and funeral texts frequently treat a 110 as the ideal, complete, or divinely blessed lifespan.

In all of the ancient Egyptian texts that we found, there are at least 27 references to this ideal age of a 110 years in that literature. Egyptologist, Miriam Lynchatum, in one of her books says, 110 was considered the ideal lifespan granted by the gods to a truly blessed man. Similarly, a historian named James Hoffmeyer notes that a 110 functioned almost as an Egyptian idiom. You wanna talk about living somebody living a perfect life, you'd say they lived a hundred and ten years even if they didn't. A full and successful life was a hundred and ten years, which brings us to the end of the book of Genesis.

Would you turn with me to Genesis chapter 50? Genesis chapter 50, and we'll read verses 22 through 26 together. This is describing the end of the life of Joseph. And I believe what this text is doing is telling us what finishing well really looks like. Thank you for your presence this evening.

Whether you're in person or streaming online, we're grateful that you've come our way. And I want us to read together beginning in Genesis chapter 50 in verse 22 and think about this idea of what finishing well, the perfect sort of fulfilled life and what that really looks like. Verse 22, so Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived one hundred and ten years. Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation. The children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph's knees.

And Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. So Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. By any standard, Joseph finished his life well, but it is not the Egyptian ideal that is repeated here, a hundred and ten years of life, that interests me the most. But the finishing of a life by someone who was devoted to God, faced extreme hardship, and yet still retained his character as one who was devoted to the most high.

The likelihood that we any of us in this room live to 110 years old, no matter what modern medicine is doing and how we might think about those things, the likelihood of us living that long is pretty unlikely. It's even more so since the 2024 study found that the vast majority of people who were 110 years and older, over seventy percent of those people were actually dead, and the family were still collecting some sort of financial benefit in their name. 110 is rare even in our day. But how Joseph finished his life before God, that's achievable for all of us. If we will seek to do these three things as we grow older and the day of our death becomes closer and closer.

Joseph finished well because of these three things. Number one, his heart was filled with forgiveness instead of bitterness. We read verses 22 through 26. Would you go just a little earlier with me in Genesis chapter 50? Let's go back to verse 15 and read some verses together.

Genesis chapter 50 and verse 15. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, there was this whole thing where Jacob died, Joseph gets permission from the pharaoh, The whole family goes back to Canaan to bury him, and then they come back. So his brothers see that their father was dead, and they said, perhaps Joseph will hate us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him. How many years had they been sitting on that, worried that Joseph was holding a grudge, perhaps because it revealed more of what was in their hearts than what it revealed in his? So they sent messengers to Joseph saying they didn't even come into his presence themselves.

They're afraid. And so they send messengers saying, before your father died, he commanded saying, thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespasses of your brothers and their sin for they did evil to you. Now please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father. I don't know if Jacob actually said that or not. It could be these brothers are lying again like they've lied before.

But either way, they're asking, begging for forgiveness from their brother. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, behold, we are your servants. Are you as struck as I am in seeing the seeming joy in Joseph's life at the return of his family all the way to this finishing chapter. After all of the things that they did to him, all of the things that they put him through after selling him into slavery and lying to their father and saying that he was dead and that he's lost and all of these things, when he sees his brothers, he is overcome, not with hatred, but with love for them.

He finds himself in a place of great happiness that he's been reunited with him. And then he weeps here in chapter 50 when they suggest that his forgiveness of them is not genuine. He weeps at that. And that's amazing, isn't it, from a carnal, fleshly, physical perspective to imagine someone having this capacity to forgive? How easy would it have been for Joseph to become angry and bitter at the things that he had suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to love him the most, to hold a grudge.

And that's the way the New American Standard and the NIV translate verse 15. Perhaps Joseph will hate us. Those translations says, perhaps Joseph will hold a grudge. And yet, how is he described in these verses? He weeps when they speak to him in this way.

Twice he tells them not to be afraid in this chapter. He comforts them, and he speaks kindly to them. He is in the position of power, a place where retribution could have been obtained, oh, so easily. He could have snapped his fingers and had their very lives. But his response is to do good to them, to do good to those who hate him, to pray for those who used him, and to love those who were his enemies even among his brethren, to think of others and how he might serve them.

And we know, of course, that this exposed his heart to future hurt from them, but I think this was always what was in his heart. Bitterness has no place in the heart of someone who is seeking to finish well, and yet bitterness is often what comes in the hearts of those who've been betrayed, in the hearts of those who have been through trials, maybe like Joseph. Not to the same extreme, no doubt, but like the trials he's been through. The Hebrew writer warns us of this. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 12 for just a moment.

And if you're the kind of person like me, I've got one, two, three, four bookmarks in my bible. If you've got more than one, I would encourage you to mark Hebrews and Mark Genesis chapter 50. Hebrews chapter 12 Hebrews chapter 12, read verses fourteen and fifteen with me. Hebrews chapter 12 verses fourteen and fifteen. Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord, looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest, listen, any root of bitterness springing up caused trouble, and by this many become defiled.

The Bible tells us that bitterness is the result of unresolved conflict. More specifically, bitterness springs up when we fail to forgive someone who we believe has wronged us. And I love the image that is used there, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. So the root of bitterness that springs up. Now what happens when a weed springs up in your garden or your flower bed or whatever?

Well, it hasn't much root there at the beginning, and so you can get it out. But if you allow it to fester and if you allow it to stay, it gets harder and harder and harder to remove. So let me tell them myself here a little bit. We've got some flower beds in the backyard. Squashco.

I can't remember exactly the name of this company. It's a great company. Came out and did some flower bed work for us, and everything was looking great. And then I see over the edge of the deck, I see this thing spring up, and it's one of those, like, really leafy looking weeds. I'm like, I'll get to it.

I'll get to it. I'll get to it. And it gets taller and it gets taller and it gets taller and it gets taller. Well, finally, with some gentle, kind encouragement from my wife, I went out there and I'm gonna pull up these now weeds that are this tall. Right?

And I'm gonna pull these up. I get in there. What I didn't realize is they had sprung up on the underside of the deck and they had grown through the lattice work and come up. And so in order to get these weeds out, what I had to do was actually remove the lattice work and cut them on both sides in order to get them out and then put the lattice work back. Don't look too carefully.

I've not fully fixed it yet. But that's what happens when we allow things to take root, when we allow them to continue. And that's exactly the way bitterness works. When forgiveness is needed and it is given, there's no place for it to take root. But if we allow it to take root, if we allow this root of bitterness to spring up, few things can destroy a happy life quite like it.

But few things can restore a happy life quite like forgiveness. And I would suggest as we think about finishing well, I won't make the same mistakes as Preston this morning and preached to the old people, But as we think about the age in which we usually finish well, I think few ages of life are more prone to bitterness than the winter of life. And some people look back, and those wrongs from so long ago seem as fresh and as new as when they were committed. I know of a older sister in Christ. She was in her eighties when I first met her, and she is now passed from this life, I assume, to go to Abraham's bosom.

And she was one of those sisters. This was back when I was a baby preacher back in Lindale, And she was one of those sisters who was always an encouragement. You know, we had a little tradition where we visit on Wednesday mornings, and she was kind of our fallback because she would always say yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Come on. Come on. Even though other people say, well, we had this going on or that going on and canceled on us, we could always go and see miss Land. And she was such an encouragement to us even though her house was about 97 degrees every time we went there, even though she had gone through two forms of cancer and the treatments that went with it, Other ailments left her in pretty much constant pain. She was someone who was always filled with joy and a smile and a warm house not just in temperature, but in attitude.

And I remember since my dad grew up in Lindale and I knew that he knew her, I commented on her joy and how encouraging she was to me. And I remember I was talking to him on the phone and there was this long pause, and he told me her story, a story I had never heard. She was a faithful Christian for many, many years, and she had a falling out with some of her brethren in the congregation. Slowly, she drifted from the Lord and then from the church, and she became angry and bitter and hostile toward Christianity. And one Sunday morning, she showed up at the congregation, and everybody was nervous.

And she went forward at the end of the service in tears. And from that day forward, she lived her life in joy despite her circumstances. I was shocked to imagine this woman that I knew with any bitterness in her heart because she had plucked out that bitterness, and she had become a woman of peace and joy who could finish well. Peace is possible no matter what has been done to us, but not if we hold on to the bitterness. And we should follow God's example of forgiveness and Joseph's example of forgiveness, knowing that God has forgiven us despite how we have wronged him through our sin.

And, unfortunately, we cannot overcome being sinned against by someone. Many cannot overcome being sinned against by someone. Sometimes, it's only an imagined wrong, not even a real one. But if even if someone has really failed to treat us in the way they should have, it is not an excuse for an unforgiving, bitter attitude toward them. Who gets hurt by our bitterness?

It's not ourselves. John Adams, one of the things he always said to me, I've thought about looking up this quote through the years, and I just wanna keep attributing it to him, whoever else said it. He said bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You ever heard that from him? Because that person is free to go about their lives.

And if we treat them wrongly and return to the way they've treated us, they are justified in their own minds while we ourselves become trapped by our feelings. We hurt ourselves, not the other person. And so we need to learn from Joseph and find peace in the forgiveness that we can offer toward those who are who have wronged us because that, loved ones, is how we can finish well. But it was not just this heart that was filled with forgiveness instead of bitterness that allowed him to finish well. It was that his love was expanding instead of contracting.

I want you to go back to Genesis chapter 50. Genesis chapter 50 and read with me verses 21 through 23. That should be 19. Start there in verse 19. Joseph said, do not be afraid for am I in the place of God?

But as for you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. Now focus on verse 21. Now, therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones, and he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived one hundred and ten years.

Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation. The children of Machar, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph's knees. We see that what Joseph does here is that he provides for many. And sometimes the finishing stages of life bring out a selfishness that draws the circle of love and generosity tighter and tighter and tighter. This is my money.

This is my time in retirement. This is my family. This is my legacy. And the things that I have are for no one else besides those. But other times, as we see people finishing well, it seems that that circle of love and generosity grows wider and wider as more and more people are impacted by that love and generosity.

I mean, that was the case with Joseph, wasn't it? Notice that he first pledges to take care of the descendants of his brothers. He calls them their little ones, and he comforts them and speaks kindly to them. He says, I'm gonna provide for your descendants. We also see his active involvement with his own direct offspring to at least his great great grandchildren.

This was not and Joseph, this was not some distant benefactor. You know? This was not somebody who sent a check on somebody's birthday, but someone who was actively involved in the raising of these children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. And this phrase that is used there in verse 23 of his great grandchildren being brought up on his knees probably means raise your hand if you're reading from the ESV tonight. Who's reading from the ESV?

You see what it says in your translation? It probably means that they were counted as his own. A Jewish idiom meaning these were basically adopted, whether through a formal adoption process or more likely through the informal influence that he had on them. My grandparents on my mother's side, they both for as long as I remember, my grandmother still does, but my granddad and while he was alive, they called me son. Not grandson, not Reagan.

They called me son, and I was to them. I wasn't formally adopted. I didn't live with them full time, although sometimes I wanted to, and there were some summers where it was several weeks at a time. But they always treated me like I was their own, and their influence on my life cannot be overstated as a grandchild, that I would not be the person that I am today was it not for them. May I suggest that finishing well means that your love and influence and generosity should continue to spread rather than being hoarded up.

And it should spread even beyond those who are technically yours in the flesh. How can you impact the next generation or even the next next generation? How can you use what you have to provide for the little ones? A phrase that Jesus uses to describe Christians. How can you impact Christians in need through your prosperity?

Not just the Christians here in Lufkin, but Christians other places even around the world. And in this way, Joseph finished well because his love and generosity was expanding instead of contracting. And then finally, Joseph finished well because his perception became more like god's instead of like man's. I want you to read again verses nineteen and twenty with me, please. Joseph said to them, do not be afraid for am I in the place of God?

But as for you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. And then drop down to verse 24 through 26. And Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. So Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

But what happened when the children of Israel left the land of Egypt? They took these bones with them. And what happened when they entered the promised land? They buried Joseph in the land that was promised to his fathers. We often imagine what Joseph was thinking.

What was he thinking on the way to Egypt after he's been sold into slavery? What was he thinking in the jail cell first after he was accused of a crime he did not commit and then later after people promised they would get him out of the cell and they didn't, what was he thinking in those moments? But we know what he was thinking in some of those moments, don't we? And what we see is a man who, as time went on, was seeing things more and more and more from God's perspective rather from man's perspective. And that is revealed in three different ways in the text.

It is revealed in his interaction with these three things. First, it's revealed in his interaction with the world. We see that on a lot of occasions, don't we? We think about with Potiphar's wife, and she comes on to him. And what does he say?

I can't do this great sin, sure, against my master, but I can't do this great sin up against God. I can't do what you're saying because I'm a servant of the most high God. But my favorite example of how we see his perception being like gods in terms of the world and his interaction with the world comes from Genesis 41. Would you turn back there with me for just a second? Genesis chapter 41.

So he's interpreted the prisoner's dreams. We remember it didn't turn out well for the baker. It turned out great for the cup bearer who goes back to his job there with Pharaoh, but he forgets about Joseph back there in prison until Pharaoh has some dreams that cannot be interpreted. And so the cup bearer says, wait. Back there in prison, there was this Hebrew, and he was able to con to interpret our dreams, and it was exactly as he said.

So here comes Joseph out of prison, and this is what happens there in verse eight. Now it came to pass in the morning that his, Pharaoh's, spirit was troubled, and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. And Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh. Then the chief butler spoke to Pharaoh saying, I remember my faults this day. When Pharaoh was angry with his servants and put me in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, both me and the chief baker, we each had a dream in one night, he and I.

Each of us dreamed according to the interpretation of his own dream. Now there was a young Hebrew man with us there, a servant of the captain of the guard, and we told him. He interpreted our dreams for us. To each man, he interpreted according to his own dream. And it came to pass just as he interpreted for us, so it happened.

He restored me to my office, and he hanged him. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon, and then he shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, notice, I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it, but I have heard it said that you can understand a dream to interpret it. So Joseph answered Pharaoh saying, yep. Sure can.

I've always been able to do that. It is not me. God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. Joseph viewed his audience with Pharaoh as an opportunity not to glorify himself, though he needed some help. He needed to be glorified.

He needed to be brought out of the prison. He used it as an opportunity to glorify God. And that throwaway line is so powerful. An acknowledgment of God is being the source of all power and might and insight. In Hebrew, it is not me is just one word.

We might say, not me, God. That's what Joseph's saying. No. Not me. God is the one.

Joseph is supposed to point us to God through his good works and reliance on God, and Joseph pointed Pharaoh to God by the things that he said. And Pharaoh got the message after Joseph interprets his dream. Notice down in verse 37. Notice verse 37 of chapter 41. So the advice was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of all his servants.

And Pharaoh said to his servants, can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the spirit of God? Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and as wise as you. And even Pharaoh himself gives glory to God. And it reminds me of what Jesus says in Matthew five and verse 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

As you, as all of us are finishing life, let us be more concerned with God's legacy through us rather than our own legacy that we might be leaving. His perception became more like God's instead of man's, and we see that with his interaction with the world, but also his interaction with his brethren. Joseph viewed his their sins against him as an opportunity for good and to do God's will. Remember what he said there in verse 20 of chapter 50? But as for you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

God could use what they had done against him to the greater benefit of even Joseph himself. And I want I want you to know if someone has done something against you anywhere in the realm of what was done to Joseph, it doesn't make those things right. It doesn't mean that you haven't been deeply wronged, but it does show that if we have faith, God can use those things for our good no matter how bad they might be. Isn't that the message of the cross? What more egregious evil has been done in the history of the world than putting the son of God on a cross as a symbol of sorrow and shame and death.

And yet it is through that terrible day and that terrible act that God brought about our salvation. God took it and used it as the means of the salvation for the world. And if God is able to use Jesus' death in that way, can he not use evil against us for our good and the good of those not going able And We're be be able do do going But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings that when his glory is revealed, you also may be glad with exceeding joy. And so Joseph's perception was he was looking at things like God looked at him, and all of these things that they meant for evil, God meant them for good. And then finally, his perception being more like god's was revealed in his interaction with his own mortality.

It's interesting, you know, thinking about that question. What's the perfect age to live or the perfect age to die? The answer sorta changes on those sorts of things depending on the age that you are. I think maybe it's kind of a bell curve a little bit. Right?

You know, it's like, well, you know, I don't wanna get too old. And then you get a little older and you're like, you know what? 110 sounds great. Then you get a little older and you say, a 110? That sounds exhausting.

But whatever the case might be, our own mortality, the way we look at the day of death should be changing as we grow more like Christ, as we grow more like God, and even as we see things more from God's perspective. That's true certainly with Joseph. Joseph looked forward in faith to God fulfilling his promises to his people. Consider where this story of Genesis has gone as you look there in these last of these verses. Verse 26, so Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, our last ditch effort at preserving life on this earth, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

So we have gone from Eden and the tree of life and eternal life with God to a coffin and embalming in death. And we have gone from the land of Canaan, the promised land of God to down in the land the foreign land of Egypt. But despite those circumstances, Joseph knew the people would return to the promised land. Why? Because God had promised it.

And though he found great physical success in the world of Egypt, he knew and acknowledged that that place was not his true home. Shouldn't that be us? I ask you to mark your place in Hebrews. Would you turn back to Hebrews, this time to Hebrews chapter 10? Hebrews chapter 11.

What's in Hebrews chapter 11? Well, sometimes we call it the hall of faith. It's all of these examples of people of faith. But why are these examples used? Two reasons.

Because these were people who finished well, and these were people who are types, images, shadows of Jesus Christ. So here's what I want us to do. Let's read Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 39, then we'll read Hebrews chapter twelve one and two. We'll bookend Hebrews chapter 11, and then we'll read the verse about Joseph in that chapter. Do that with me.

Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 39. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, destruction, but those who believe to the saving of the soul. The issue in the book of Hebrews was these people weren't finishing well. They had believed for a while, and now they were drawing back. They weren't committed to Christ like they should have been before, and it was pressure from family.

It was pressure financial pressure from their businesses. There are all these things kinda pushing them down saying, I don't know about this Christianity thing. And Hebrews chapter 11 is written to say, you've gotta finish. And so we go to chapter 12 verses one and two, and that point is made expressly by the Hebrew writer. Therefore, we also, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus finished well, and so should we. And what is one of the least known examples that the Hebrew writer uses of finishing well? We remember Noah, and we remember Enoch, and we remember Abraham. But I want you to look there in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 22. By faith, Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones.

The Hebrew writer says this is finishing well. What is? Believing that God will fulfill his promises even after our physical death. Do you have that same belief that God's promises will be fulfilled not just in this life, but in the life that is to come? Thinking back to my time in Lindale, I worked with a preacher up there named Wayne Fancher.

Wayne was a great guy and was a great guy back then. And as all of us are prone to do, he had his little phrases that he would use. I don't have any of those that I use a bunch, but he did. And we had to do announcements up there fairly often. And Wayne's phrase that he used when somebody was nearing the end of their life is he would say he had a very deep voice, has a very deep voice.

He'd say, they're running the last mile of the way. And there was one lady, I kid you not, he announced that she was running the last mile of the way, and two years later, he was still announcing that she was running the last mile of the way. That last mile was awfully long. And sometimes, the last mile, the finish is long. Sometimes, it's quick, unexpectedly short.

But either way, our concern as children of God should be finishing well, however long that mile might be, so that eternity might begin. Have you started that race in Jesus Christ? The only way to finish is to start. If you're not yet a Christian this evening, our encouragement to you is that the promises of God are true and that they're fulfilled in Jesus Christ who came and gave his life so that you might live. Won't you accept that reality not just as true, but accept the ramifications of that reality on you and your life by submitting yourself to the king of kings, coming in humble submission, saying my life is gonna be more than just this physical life.

I want hope beyond this life in Jesus Christ. And if you're willing to make Jesus your king, you can put off the old man of sin. Bury that man in baptism so that you might rise to walk in newness of life, racing well so that you might finish the race in Jesus. And if you're already a Christian and you realize maybe in the last however many miles of your life, you've not been running or finishing well. Maybe you need help and support.

Maybe you need the prayers of your brothers and sisters in Christ. There's anything that we can do for you. Won't you come while together we stand and while we sing?