Exodus 1:1-7: in context

The book of Exodus opens by recalling the names of Jacob's sons who came into Egypt, seventy souls in all. Then it notes the passing of an era: Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. The founders were gone. But the account does not end there. The children of Israel, it says, were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and grew exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. Even after the first generation had died, and in a foreign land, God's promise to multiply Abraham's descendants was quietly being fulfilled.

There is a quiet testimony to God's faithfulness in this opening. The generation that came into Egypt died, Joseph and all his brothers; the ones who had received the promises passed away. By ordinary reckoning, that might seem the end of the story. But God's purpose did not die with them. Across the generations, in a foreign land, the people multiplied and grew numerous, God fulfilling steadily his ancient promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars. The promise advanced across the generations, fulfilled even after those who first received it had died, even in an unlikely place. This speaks to how God's purposes work across time. We tend to think within the span of a single lifetime, our own; and it can seem that when a generation passes, its hopes and promises pass with it. But God's purposes are not bound to a single lifetime. He works across the generations, fulfilling his promises steadily over long stretches of time, so that what is begun in one generation is carried forward and fulfilled in later ones. The founders of Israel died; but God's promise to multiply them was fulfilled in their descendants, generation after generation. As the time of the promise drew near, Stephen recounts, the people multiplied in Egypt. God's faithfulness spans the generations. This gives us a longer view than our own lifetime. The purposes of God, and his promises, are not exhausted or ended when we die; they continue, carried forward and fulfilled across generations we will not see. What God is doing is larger than our own span; we are part of a purpose that stretches far beyond us, fulfilled across the generations by his faithfulness. One generation, the psalmist says, shall commend your works to another. This frees us from measuring God's faithfulness only by what we see in our own lifetime. His promises may be fulfilled long after we are gone, as Israel's multiplication was fulfilled after Joseph's generation died; and his purposes advance steadily across the generations, so that we may trust his faithfulness even in what we will not live to see, part of a work larger than our own lifetime that God is faithfully carrying forward across the years.

Do I measure God's faithfulness only by what I see in my own lifetime, feeling that when a generation passes its hopes pass with it, and can the opening of Exodus, where God's promise to multiply Abraham's descendants was fulfilled steadily even after Joseph's whole generation had died, teach me that God's purposes advance across the generations, so that I trust his faithfulness even in what I will not live to see, part of a work larger than my own span that he is faithfully carrying forward?