The Relocation of a Nation Genesis 47:1-12

The St. Croix River and made a new home here. It was it was a new start for Brianna and I. And for me, I'd left the only home I ever knew. While I've lived in several places over the years, over the first 30 years of my life in the West Metro of Minneapolis, that was always my home.

And to leave the only area you've ever known is no small thing. It's a big life event. But in this day and age, it's a much smaller deal than it was thousands of years ago, or even hundreds of years ago.

When people moved to a new location far from home, it meant that they may never see their homeland again. During the modern missions movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, missionaries would leave their homeland and say goodbye to some family, realizing they may never see them again.

This was the days before cars and airplanes and people would travel on ship overseas and it would take them a couple months voyage to arrive at their destination. It was a big deal to leave home. Now today, we're gonna see a family leave home, a nation leave home, when we see Jacob go from the land of Canaan to Egypt.

Now if we look at Jacob's life, remember Jacob lived for 20 years in Panorama, which is present-day Turkey, which is way to the north. So he didn't live his whole life in Canaan, but he spent most of his life in Canaan, over a hundred years in Canaan.

So this was no small thing, him packing up all of his stuff, all of his family, and leaving to go to a new location. And so we're gonna see the whole nation travel there this morning. So as we continue our sermon series through Genesis, we will look at this nation Israel, the offspring of Abraham, settling in Egypt.

And we are going to see important biblical truths to pull out from the conversation between Jacob and Pharaoh. Of course, Joseph and Jacob have this very good relationship, but now Jacob and Pharaoh are gonna get the opportunity to meet each other.

So our text this morning is Genesis chapter 47. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 12, so I encourage you to turn there with me. And if you're using one of those red Bibles in the pews, the ESV Bible there, it's on page 48.

This sermon is titled, The Relocation of a Nation. The Relocation of a Nation. And by the way, I don't always say this, I preach from the English Standard Version. Sometimes you might have a different Bible, but just so you know that, you probably figured that out by now.

But anyway, so our big idea, our proposition, is this. As Jacob settles in Egypt, we receive wise instruction from his conversation with Pharaoh. As Jacob settles in Egypt, we receive wise instruction from his conversation with Pharaoh.

And we're gonna see two truths, sorry, two truths for God's people in this text. And I'll introduce those later on here. But before we jump in to the text today, let me give you a little recap of last week's sermon from Genesis 46.

What we saw is that the Lord is a promise-keeping God. Joseph's brothers were sent back to Egypt to retrieve their father. Jacob was overjoyed of the news that his son was still alive. And not only was he still alive, but he also rose to be the number two most powerful man in Egypt.

And the Lord told Jacob not to fear to go down to Egypt, because the Abrahamic promises still stood. It wasn't as if the family was going to go to a new location, and the promises that the Lord made to them were going to be void.

No, the Lord was still going to give them to a promised land, give them the promised land, even though they went to a new location in Egypt. Now what we saw last week is that the Lord reminded Jacob of the Abrahamic promises by saying, I am the God of your father.

And we saw all the list of the names in the genealogy, the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. This showed that the Lord was multiplying the offspring as he promised he would, so he was in the process of fulfilling his promise.

And he would later fulfill his promise by bringing them into the land. And this should fill us as God's people with great hope and encouragement that the Lord is going to do everything he told us he's going to do to us.

The Lord will always keep all of his promises to us. And for those here today who know the Lord, he has already fulfilled some promises to you. He saved you. He's sanctifying you. But glorification has not come yet.

That's in the future. And we can look forward to that. That is a done deal because the Lord is going to preserve you in the faith to the end. So we should be encouraged by the certainty of God's promises to his people.

Now this leads us to our text today. At the end of the sermon last week, we saw Israel settle in the land of Goshen. The land of Goshen was located in the northeastern part of Egypt. And the reason Joseph had them settle in this location is to keep them pure from other peoples.

Joseph did not want his people to assimilate into another people group. So what we are going to see today is they are going to settle in this land, the land of Goshen. It wasn't it wasn't official yet that they were going to receive this land.

First the Pharaoh had to approve it, but this is where they are right now. So let's see how this officially took place in verses 1 through 6 of chapter 47. So Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, my father and my brothers with their flocks and herds and all that they possess have come from the land of Canaan.

They are now in the land of Goshen. And from among his brothers, he took five men and presented them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to his brothers, what is your occupation? And they said to Pharaoh, your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were.

They said to Pharaoh, we have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. And now please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen.

And if you know any able men among them, put them in the charge of my livestock. So let's stop right there. Now, as I read these verses, they tie in better with the second point we're going to see today of Pharaoh treating the people of God well.

But I want to set the table here. Once Joseph's family arrived from Canaan, Joseph went to tell Pharaoh that they had arrived. Joseph's family was waiting in the land of Goshen. This land, as I mentioned before, was located in the northeastern part of Egypt.

Now Joseph, of course, has 11 other brothers. And what he does here is he selects five of them to meet with Pharaoh. Once again, what we see, what we saw at the end of the text last Sunday, is that Joseph told them to tell Pharaoh they were shepherds.

And you may be wondering, well, what's the point of that? Well, we received the note at the end of verse 34 last Sunday that every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. By making that statement to his brothers, Joseph is telling them to make sure to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds so that they won't get assimilated into other peoples in Egypt.

He wants them to have this land separate, the land of Goshen. And so that's why they tell them that. And so that they can do their herding in this land. So in the first four verses, Joseph's brothers make their case to Pharaoh for why they should receive the land of Goshen.

And in verses 5 and 6, Pharaoh responds to them graciously by giving them that piece of land. Pharaoh calls this land the best of the land. So this is a good land. Anyone ever been to the Badlands in South Dakota or North Dakota?

Beautiful to look at, right? You don't want that to be your land, though. You can't grow crops there. You can't do anything. There's a reason they call it Badlands. Now, this would have been good land, the land of Goshen to settle in.

So if you look back at chapter 45, verse 10, Joseph desired for them to dwell in Goshen from the beginning. And then Pharaoh said, I'm going to give you the best of the land in 45, 18. And then Pharaoh grants Joseph's desire and calls the land of Goshen the best of the land.

So in God's providence, he's keeping his people separate from the other peoples. And I mentioned last Sunday that the Lord has done this all throughout his history. He's preserved his people. He's kept them from joining another people group.

He's kept them pure. And we see in evidence of his providence right here in keeping the Israelites as his possession here. And now what we know from what is taking place here is that the Pharaoh is treating the Israelites very well.

This is in stark contrast to how a later Pharaoh would treat the Israelites during the time of Moses. Hundreds of years after this, Exodus 1 .8, we are told that there arose a king or a pharaoh in Egypt who did not know Joseph.

At that later point in history, several hundred years after this, Israel would have the opposite experience. This new pharaoh would force them into slavery. So the history of Israel in Egypt went from hospitality to the Egyptian leaders treating them very poorly, treating them with oppression.

But here as we read the beginning, this would have been very good for them. It would have been a good place to be as they lived out the remainder of the famine and beyond. Now we know the good relationship that Joseph has with Pharaoh.

Pharaoh would have been eager to meet Joseph's father. And we can imagine that Pharaoh probably told him all about his dad back home. And now they finally get a chance to meet. And this is where our focus is going to be today in this sermon.

On verses 7 -10. These are the key verses. This is the meat of the passage. So let's look at these verses. Verses 7 -10. This conversation between Joseph and Pharaoh. Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before Pharaoh.

And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Jacob, how many are the days of the years of your life? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, the days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few in evil have been the days of the years of my life.

And they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my father's in the days of their sojourning. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. Let's stop right there.

So what we see at the beginning and end of these verses is that Jacob blesses Pharaoh. And we will focus on that in the second point here. But before I do that, I want to zero in on what Jacob says concerning his life to Pharaoh in verses 8 and 9.

And this is our first biblical truth that we need to see for God's people. And that is this. Life is a brief sojourn filled with trials. Life is a brief sojourn filled with trials. Verses 8 and 9. This is what Jacob says in these verses.

Jacob is in a position here at the end of his life and he has time to reflect on his life as he looks back at the years that he has lived. And this is what he says to read it again. He says, few in evil have been the days of the years of my life.

And they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojournings. So Jacob says here that his sojournings are 130 years. It's significant that he describes his time as a sojourn.

In other words, he had no true home and he was just passing through. I read earlier that passage from 1 Peter 2, 9 and 11, where Peter says we are sojourners. Then Jacob describes the difficulty of those years.

He says, few in evil have been the days of the years of my life. And they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojournings. Now in that last part, what he means is that I haven't lived as long as my grandfather and as long as my father.

His grandfather Abraham lived to be 175 years and Isaac lived to be 180 years. Jacob lived only to be 130 years. No, I'm kidding. That's a long time. But compared to them, not as long. And what he says here is he calls the years of his life few, evil, and a time of sojourning.

This agrees with the testimony of Scripture. James 4, 14 concerning the brevity of life says that our lives are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. I remember hearing an illustration from a pastor one time where he said, he said, go outside on a cold fall or cold winter day.

Take a deep breath and you see your breath. It's a mist, right? And then it eventually vanishes. That's your life. Your life is a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. And how much we hold on to this life when it's so short.

Now the second word here, evil, is important to look at. Now the Hebrew word here, the original language, can also mean bad, unpleasant, or painful. I think the best understanding here is painful. Jacob is not describing his whole life as nonstop pain, but he is saying my life was full of difficulty.

And part of it was self inflicted. Remember, he deceived his brother Esau out of the birthright and blessing and he was far from a perfect man. But he also suffered when he didn't sin, right? His beloved son Joseph was ripped from him.

And he was lied to and told that he was eaten by an animal. Think of how much Jacob suffered from that. He said he was so sad that he was going to die in sorrow until he goes to Sheol. And he also lost his beloved wives, Rachel and Leah.

Jacob knew that life brings lots of hardships. Psalm 90 verse 10 says the years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80. Yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away.

This is true. Life is painful. It's full of trials and you may be experiencing a trial right now. And I know some of the trials that you're going through right now. And I pray for you as you're going through those.

You may find a little pleasure in life because of your trial. And that you may experience that. That's the experience of so many. It's an experience of God's people that he's planned for his people. God uses trials in our lives for many reasons.

And one of the reasons he uses them is to give us a longing for heaven. That's the focus here today. If everything in your life always went so good, you might never long for heaven. But when you face difficulty, you realize this is not where you're going to be forever.

And this isn't where you want to be forever. And the Lord taking you in his time sounds beautiful. It sounds desirable. And you are given a homesickness for heaven. Now the question is, was Jacob looking forward to being in the Lord with in heaven as he went through his trials in life?

Was he looking forward to entering the presence of God? We know that he was a believer. And the author of Hebrews gives us insight in to Jacob here. And not only to Jacob, but also to his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.

This is what Hebrews 11, 9 and 10 says concerning their sojourning. By faith, Abraham went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Then in verse 16, the author of Hebrews wrote, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

That's Hebrews 11, 9 and 10. And so the author of Hebrews would have looked at these verses and this is what he pulled out of it. And we have inspired scripture in Hebrews and we can pull this meaning out of it too.

So we see here that Jacob along with his forefathers lived in this world as exiles. They're just passing through. They knew they were just passing through and they were awaiting something much better beyond this life.

And in their case, it was a specially fitting because they went, they traveled so much throughout life. And I know many of you, you've lived here your whole life. And you know what? If you belong to the Lord and you've lived here your whole life, your life here is still a sojourning.

This is not your permanent home. You're just passing through. And you may be here today and you may be wondering, why is life so difficult? This life that Jacob describes here, this painful life. You see all these advertisements on the internet and on TV and you may wonder, isn't life supposed to be great?

That's what the world tells us. Heaven on earth. But the world cannot deliver heaven. But God can. And it's a place he has prepared for those who love him. But you only enter this once your life ends or Christ returns.

So your life in this world will be similar to Jacob's. Your days are few. They are painful. And your life is a sojourning. You're just passing through. Before I knew I was going to go into ministry, I worked a job as a sales representative for a running shoe company.

And my territory was the Dakotas and all of Minnesota. And there were some beautiful places on my route. And I loved going to northern Minnesota. But there were also places I had no interest in going to.

Some places in the Dakotas where I had no interest in going to. And it was one of those jobs where I always looked forward to going home. When you travel for work, and I think anyone here travel for work?

You kind of, you always, a little bit. You never leave home though. I'm talking about my neighbor Mickey. He travels for work. He's gone a few nights a week. But you always look forward to going home because there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed and being able to cook your own food and being with your family.

And hotels get old. The car gets uncomfortable. And that's what it's like for the believer, right? You're never quite comfortable here. You never quite feel at home. Even when life is going at its best.

You feel there's something missing here. I'm not quite there yet. And that's the experience of the believer. And once you enter the presence of God, it's going to feel like, okay, this is where I belong.

This is what I've always longed for. Now C .S. Lewis had a quote that, let me see if I remember it here. He says, if I find in myself desires which no experience in this world can satisfy, the only probable explanation is that I was created for another world.

Right? And this longing inside of us that we have for the world to come. And the Apostle Paul describes our journey through life as one is sorrowful yet always rejoicing, longing for our heavenly home.

It doesn't mean you're always, it's all pain. There is joy in the midst of it, but there is pain. It's not joy without pain. They're intermingled together. They go together. And so believers should always be those who, even in the midst of pain, find that deep joy in the Lord as he sustains you through it.

So as Jacob reflects on his life, he is honest to the Pharaoh here. And his assessment is an accurate one. As we see from the full testimony of scripture, life is indeed a brief sojourn filled with trials.

So as you go through this life, understand this truth. So as Jacob settles in Egypt, we receive wise instruction from his conversation with Pharaoh. And the first truth for God's people in this text is that life is a brief sojourn filled with trials.

The second truth for God's people in this text is that we are rewarded for blessing God's people. And this point is covered in verses 1 through 7 and verses 10 through 12. Now that we have looked at Jacob's comment about his life and life in general, we also need to zero in on the blessing that Jacob gave to Pharaoh.

We already saw in verses 1 through 6 that Pharaoh treated God's people very well. This is why Jacob does what he does in verses 7 and 10. In verses 7 and 10, Jacob starts by blessing Pharaoh. Then in verse 10, Jacob blesses Pharaoh as he leaves him.

We should not see this merely as a greeting, hello, and then they're done with the conversation, bye-bye. But we should see this as a blessing. We have seen the importance of one blessing another throughout the book of Genesis, particularly the patriarchs.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bless people throughout the book of Genesis. We have seen that everyone from the chosen line of Abraham has the blessing of God. Isaac had the blessing, but Ishmael did not. Jacob had the blessing, but Esau did not.

However, that is not the kind of blessing that we see in these verses right here. In verse 7, Jacob blesses Pharaoh. Then in verse 10, he blesses Pharaoh again. To understand this blessing, we need to go back to Genesis 12 .3.

In that verse, the Lord tells Abraham, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. What we read here is that those who treat the offspring of Abraham well experience blessing from the Lord.

Now this does not necessarily mean salvation, but it does mean the Lord's favor in some way will be upon the one who treats Abraham's offspring well. And as a side note, it is true that salvation comes to the world through the Jews, right?

The Messiah, Jesus Christ, comes from the line of Judah. He is a Jew, and in that way, all the nations of the earth are blessed as people are saved from every nation. But that is concerning salvation.

Blessing even comes to unbelievers in a non-salvific way, a non-salvation way. And that comes when people treat God's people well. And this is what we see in our text. What we have seen over the last couple of chapters is that Pharaoh has treated Abraham's offspring very well.

This Pharaoh seems like the uncle who spoils you. And this is odd as we read this because we know how bad a later Pharaoh is, and we see this Pharaoh and he does the opposite. He treats them so well. He's treated Joseph and Jacob and all his sons and the whole nation with generosity and hospitality.

And then what we see in verses 11 and 12 is that Pharaoh keeps his word from verse 6 by giving Joseph's family the land of Goshen. He keeps his word. He says, I'm going to give you this land. And then in verses 11 and 12, he gives them the land.

And you'll notice this is a side note here. It's called the land of Ramses. This is the same land. It's just a later editor put that name there because later it was named this, but the land of Ramses is the land of Goshen.

And Ramses was a Pharaoh from the 13th century BC. So this would have been several hundred years after this. But that's just a side note here. What we need to see here is the blessing of the Lord that is transmitted through Jacob to Pharaoh.

Now, I've already made the comparison about how Israel was treated very well to Pharaoh and treated very poorly later on. And to think about this as the readers are reading this from the time of Moses, they're thinking, man, I wish we had that Pharaoh because the one we had was bad.

Much different. And you might wonder, how was this Pharaoh in the time of Jacob blessed for treating them well? We don't know for sure, but the Lord probably provided for Egypt, giving them sun and rain for their crops as they went down the road here.

But as we know from the first 12 chapters of the book of Exodus, the Lord's blessing was not on the nation of Egypt anymore. And that's, of course, because the later Pharaoh treated them so poorly. He forced them into slavery and wouldn't let them go.

And we need to remember what Genesis 12, 3 says. If you dishonored the offspring of Abraham, then you will experience the curse of the Lord. We know the story of Pharaoh and the Egyptians as the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

And as Pharaoh hardened his own heart, the Lord continued to send plagues on them. Ten plagues in all were sent before Israel finally escaped from the Egyptians and crossed the Red Sea. So Egypt at that time in history dishonored Israel.

They dishonored the offspring of Abraham and experienced the Lord's curse. So you can see the importance of blessing the people of God. To bless means to do well to them, to do well to another. So the Lord calls us to bless God's people.

We at Eureka Baptist to bless God's people. This blessing is intended not only for the church, but even ancient Israel. I mentioned this last week. They're still among us. There's 14 million Jews in the world right now.

And as we saw, the Lord has promised wonderful things to his ancient people. And right now, a temporary hardening has come upon them, as Romans 9 through 11 explains. And we need to pray for them. We need to do well to them.

If there's an irrational hatred directed toward them, which there often is, there always is, we should stick up for them. To do this is to be obedient to the Lord and to experience his blessing. Sadly, maybe the saddest part from church history is that some very good men did not do this.

And right, we want to follow people as they follow Christ. If someone's not following Jesus, we don't want to follow them. But as long as someone's following Christ, we follow them to that point. Some of our heroes, Martin Luther and John Calvin, treated the Jews very poorly.

They said some very bad things about them. Martin Luther said this concerning God's ancient chosen people. He said the Jews are a base, whoring people that is no people of God. And their boast of lineage, circumcision and law must be accounted as filth.

They are full of the devil's feces, which they wallow in like swine. That's an interesting quote, huh? Wow. Luther might not have been the kind of guy you wanted to have lunch with. I mean, when he was right, you're like, amen.

And you're with him. When he was wrong, you're like uh-oh. His passion that he had and conviction. But you know what? God used this man to change the world. And we have to remember that. The gospel was rediscovered through Luther and the reformers.

And we say amen and we rejoice over that. But we don't want to follow him on this. His animosity towards the Jews. And you may wonder, what was it about Luther and Calvin? I didn't quote Calvin, but Calvin said some things too.

What was it about them that made them have so much animosity towards the Jews? Here's why I think they were so hard. The reformers and many others from church history thought these people rejected the Christ and therefore God's promises were no longer for them.

So in other words, there was no future for Israel. When the Apostle Paul said all Israel will be saved, that's not referring to Israel. That's just referring to the church. So this is called replacement theology.

The church replaces Israel. So there is no future for Israel. And we see the damage that has come. This is the fruit of that. And sadly, I think anti-Semitism was fueled by people from church history, which is a great tragedy.

Now, the good news is that what Genesis 12, 3 says, that if you dishonor God's ancient people, that you will be cursed. Of course, no believers are cursed because Jesus paid the curse for us. Galatians 3, 13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So they don't experience the curse personally, but Christ experienced that curse for them, for these sins against God's ancient people. Now, God's ancient people, Israel, right now are at arm's length, right?

A temporary hardening has come upon them. But as the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 11, 26, all Israel will be saved. The Bible describes a mass conversion at the return of Christ where many will come to know the Lord.

So we should pray for their salvation. We should treat them well. We should treat them similar as we would to a fellow brother or a sister in Christ, because those who honor the offspring of Abraham will be blessed.

But we should not only bless God's ancient people. If you might know a Jew, or even if you don't know a Jew, you can pray for them as they're far off from you. But he doesn't just want us to bless his ancient people.

By extension, we should also bless God's people, the church. The Apostle Paul explains in Romans 12 how we should bless fellow believers. In Romans 12, 9 and 10, he wrote, Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil.

Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. So this is another way of saying you're blessing someone. You're blessing fellow believers. So does this describe you?

How you treat fellow believers in this church? Does this describe how you treat other Christians you know outside of this church? This is what the Lord has called us to. And in a similar way, you'll be blessed by treating the offspring of Abraham well.

You'll be blessed by treating fellow brothers and sisters in this church well and outside of this church well. This is what the Lord calls his people to be, to be a people who bless one another and then therefore experience his blessing.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, it is sinful to treat God's people poorly. But Jesus paid for those sins. So as believers, you will not experience the wrath of God even if you treat someone poorly. Jesus faced that for you.

But I want to say here today is that if you're an unbeliever and you do not know the Lord and you are here today, God's curse is upon you. And I say that with all seriousness, realizing that you will experience the wrath of God if Jesus did not face it for you already.

And so the offer is there. Sins were placed on Jesus Christ. So if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, your sins will be paid. And so will you in him today. The offer is there for you to believe so that you would not have to experience the curse of God, but you will only experience the blessing of God.

But for every believer in this room today to treat God's people well, you will not only avoid the curse, but you will be rewarded. The Lord will be pleased with you in this life and you will receive a reward later on.

You won't experience discipline because when we disobey the Lord, that's when we experience discipline from him. We want to experience the reward from the Lord. Second Corinthians 510 says we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

So not all of our obedience will be rewarded in the age to come at the judgment. But specifically here, blessing God's people will be rewarded. If you don't bless God's people, whether it's his ancient people or the church, you are missing out on a reward.

And Jesus said, store up for yourself self treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy him or robbers do not break in and steal. We've been we've been motivated to do that. So may this motivate you to bless God's people so that in you will experience God's blessing.

So as Jacob settles in Egypt, we receive wise instruction from his conversation with Pharaoh. The second truth for God's people in this text is that we are rewarded for blessing God's people. So to summarize here, as Jacob settles in Egypt, we receive wise instruction from this conversation.

We've seen two truths. The first is that life is a brief sojourn filled with trials. And the second truth is we are rewarded for blessing God's people. We need to make the most of our time while we are here.

Life is short and there is pain, just like Jacob experienced that. But while we are here, we need to prepare for our heavenly home. And we do that by living like we are sojourners here and by receiving God's blessing, by blessing his people and therefore storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven.

Now, next Sunday, we are going to be looking at the remainder of chapter 47. We will see how Joseph remarkably handles the famine and what he swore to his father as Jacob neared the very end of his life.

So with that, let's close in prayer. And I look forward to opening that with you next Sunday. Let's pray. Father in heaven, your mercies are new every day. I thank you for your grace in helping the word of God be proclaimed.

I pray that you would give people grace here today, Lord, to live out what this text says. I pray that this text would fill people with hope. Jacob was once living and he was able to reflect on his life and now he's with you.

And one day, Lord, anyone here who knows Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior and treasure, that they will be with you also. And so give us perseverance during this time. If anyone here today, Lord, does not know Jesus Christ, I pray that, Father, that you would draw that person to your son.

Jesus said, no one comes to me unless he is first drawn by the Father. And so, Father, I pray that you would draw anyone here who does not know Jesus Christ to you and that they would be filled with the only hope there is.

There is only one hope for this world. I pray, Lord, that they would be filled with that today. So, Lord, would you do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine in our midst here today. In Jesus' name,.

Amen.