FAITH LOOKS TO ITS FULFILLMENT
 

Text: Heb 11:22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
Scripture readings: Gen 50:24 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Gen 50:25 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.
Gen50:26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
Exo 13:19 And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.

I. Faith in the future is essential for a child of God.
1 Cor 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

A Death held O.T. Saints prisoners of hope.
Zec 9:12 Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;

B. Yet that hope gave them courage.
Job 19:26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my
flesh shall I see God:
Isa 33:17 Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold
the land that is very far off.

C. Death now FREES US!
2 Cor 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Remember the freedom felt in salvation? Multiply it. Free from ALL constraints. Time, lust, pain, sorrow, etc.

D. This Hope and Assurance gives meaning to present service.

II. Our Hope is based upon the FACT of the resurrection of Christ.
Acts 17:31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Let others be concerned with the lord of the underworld and the powers of death, we have the Prince of Life!
Acts 3:15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.

III. This truth is so important that God used many ways to teach it.
A. Sheaf of Firstfruits.
B. Feast of Tabernacles.
C Even Joseph's burial in Shechem wasn't the end of the story!
Josh 24:32 And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.
Buried with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;
Mat 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Mat 8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

Conclusion; Consider the joyous departure from the land of toil and sorrow.