Well, I invite you tonight to turn with me once again to Genesis chapter 48. Genesis chapter 48, we began to consider this chapter last week and consider the first point of the sermon, verses 1 through 7, and now tonight we conclude with verses 8 through 22. I must mention, though, that we're not going to be referencing the Catechism, Lord's Day 26. We have the blessing of computers, and they provide us with many good things, but sometimes the cut and the paste option gets in the way. So we're not going backwards in the Catechism. We considered Lord's Day 26 last week, Sunday evening. So tonight we consider again Genesis chapter 48. I'd like to read the whole chapter once again. Remember again that we considered verses 1 through 7. With the point that Jacob faithfully prepared for death by recalling God's blessing. That was verses 1 through 7. And now we consider verses 8 through the rest of the chapter by passing on God's blessing. Hear now the word of God. Chapter 48, beginning at verse 1. Sometime later, Joseph was told, Your father is ill. So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, along with him. When Jacob was told, your son Joseph has come to you, Israel rallied his strength and sat up on the bed. Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, I am going to make you fruitful and will increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you. Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. Any children born to you after them will be yours. In the territory they inherit, they will be reckoned under the names of their brothers. As I was returning from Paddan to my sorrow, Rachel died in the land of Canaan, while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephraim, that is Bethlehem. When Israel saw the sons of Joseph, he asked, Who are these? They are the sons God has given me here, Joseph said to his father. Then Israel said, Bring them to me so I may bless them. Now Israel's eyes were failing because of old age and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to him and his father kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face again. and now God has allowed me to see your children too. Then Joseph removed them from Israel's knees and bowed down with his face to the ground, and Joseph took both of them, Ephraim on his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh on his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them close to him. But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim's head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh's head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn. Then he blessed Joseph. and said, May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has delivered me from all harm, may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly upon the earth. When Joseph saw his father placing his right hand on Ephraim's head, he was displeased. So he took hold of his father's hand and move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. Joseph said to him, No, my father, this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know. He too will become a people. And he too will become great. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he. And his descendants will become a group of nations. He blessed them that day and said, in your name will Israel pronounce this blessing, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. Then Israel said to Joseph, I am about to die, but God will be with you and take you back to the land of your fathers. And to you as one who is over your brothers, I give the ridge of land I took from the Amorites with my sword and my bow. Beloved in Christ the Lord, Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 or 7 says, We live by faith and not by sight. We hear those words and we know how difficult that is because faith deals, we know, with that which is unseen often. But sight is right before us. That reality is right before our face and sometimes it's difficult to live by faith and not by sight. But Paul's words there definitely describe Jacob here, as we read. In the literal sense, because we know, as the text says, his eyes were failing and he could hardly see, but that's not what Paul is talking about. More than that, it's talking about Jacob in the spiritual sense, as he demonstrates confident faith in God. Again, we sometimes struggle. Often our faith is weak. It's not always easy to walk by faith. and not by sight. Because faith and human reason oftentimes to us seem to contradict. We know that God is in control. We know that nothing happens by chance. We know that He makes no mistakes. Yet, that's hard to see when we are faced with troubles. Difficulties. When we see injustice going on all around us. And the result can be that as we have sung, we are prone to wander at times. We are prone to leave the God that we profess to love at least for a season. But not Jacob here. Not Jacob as he is at the end of his life as he faithfully prepared for death. He was confident that God was with him. And as he reflects on and as he recalls God's blessing in the past, again, which we considered last week, that blessing from the past which was crystal clear to him, because of that, he sees the future clearly as well. so clearly that with confident faith, he also prepares for death by passing on God's blessing. And he does so through the coming generations. Now notice we have here a confident confession. And that confident confession, first of all, is of the sovereignty of God. Joseph participates in this confident confession, I believe, when he's asked about who these are. He says, these are the sons that God has given me here in Egypt. We know that Jacob always had a way of pointing others to God, that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift, that God is the sovereign one, that God is the one who is always in control, that God is the one that we are to look to. But Jacob makes a confident confession about the sovereignty of God as well in a couple different ways. For example, in verse 11, Israel said to Joseph, I never expected to see your face again, and now God has allowed me to see your children too. It's by the hand of God. And he also points to the fact that God was the sovereign God over his fathers. Abraham and Isaac also walked before this same sovereign God. He was the God of them way back when, and he is also the God of Jacob. He has been. And Jacob points to the sovereignty of God by talking about blessings. Blessings that depend on God for fulfillment. May God bless you, he says. May God make you, he says. He gives a confident confession about the sovereignty of God, but then he also gives a confident confession of the protection and the help of this sovereign God. Notice in verses 15 and the beginning of 16, Then he blessed Joseph and said, May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, The angel who has delivered me from all harm, may He bless these boys. Notice there, a beautiful three-fold reference to God and to His sovereignty again. He is the covenant God over Abraham and Isaac. He is the shepherd. He is the angel, redeemer, deliverer. That three-fold reference to God, no doubt, points forward to the Aaronic three-fold blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be grace unto you. the Lord will lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. We might even say it points even further down the road to the Trinitarian blessing of the New Testament. Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God the Father and Jesus Christ the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. But through this three-fold reference, Jacob points Joseph to God's covenant promises already fulfilled. Did you see that in there? As if to say, along with the psalmist in Psalm 66, Come and listen, all you who fear God, let me tell you what God has done for me. And that's exactly what Jacob does by pointing Joseph to God in this three-fold reference. Again, he's the covenant God. But also, he's the shepherd. Boys and girls, Jacob was a shepherd. And Jacob knew how difficult sheep and goats can be. He knew that sheep need constant and complete care and protection and provision, he knew that sheep can walk their way right into danger and not even see it. He knew that he was one of those difficult sheep in God's fold. Yet he could also say with confidence, with David, the Lord is my shepherd. God has shepherded me. He has provided for me throughout my life. He has protected me. He has preserved me. But also, He is the angel deliverer. The idea there being Redeemer. And the idea of a Redeemer there being one who rescues one in grave danger. Now, Jacob is not referring to an angel as in a created angel, a created being, but he's referencing there, no doubt, his wrestling with that stranger, the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ. And this angel had delivered Jacob from all of his fears. He rescued him throughout his life from Laban, from Esau, From real danger. But what we have here is a beautiful confession showing how Jacob's faith matured over the years. He didn't always walk by faith. We know that for much of his life, it seems that he walked by sight. But not now. He does not reflect back on the difficulties that he had endured, but he reflects on God with him in the past, in the present. But also he points to the future. The future protection that he had the confidence of having in God. In verse 21, he says, Then Israel said to Joseph, I am about to die, but God will be with you and take you back to the land of your fathers. Jacob had comfort in death that he would be with the Lord. Indeed, all of God's promises had not come to pass to him in his life, but he didn't worry about that. He also had confidence for the future of Joseph and his family, that his family one day would enjoy deliverance from Egypt. Jacob passes on the blessing to the coming generations with a confident confession, giving testimony of all that God had done for him. The same kind of testimony that we, as parents and grandparents, as I've said these past two weeks, are to give to our children. To teach them about the beauty of our God and what He has done for us. But Jacob also passes on the blessing by praying for a blessing on the coming generations. Remember, we said last week that we have an adoption going on here. Jacob had told Joseph that he's adopting, in essence, Ephraim and Manasseh. He's taking them as his own sons. Just as Reuben and Simeon are his, so Ephraim and Manasseh would be his. And he speaks those words. And now, as it were, we have the formalizing of that, the ratification of his words. Sealed in his kissing and embracing of them. Now, we need to understand, boys and girls, that although it sounds like these were two little boys who were sitting on Jacob's knees, they were not. They were 18, 20, maybe 22 years old. And the way it's worded, we are to understand that maybe Jacob and his weakness was embracing him. They were standing near and close to him, whatever it might be. But they weren't young boys. They were young men. But also, he ratifies this adoption by laying his hands on them. That pointed to the transfer of something. We remember when the priest would lay his hands on the scapegoat, transferring the sins of the people to the scapegoat. There's a transfer taking place here, only it's not of sins, it's of a name. Israel's name being transferred to the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. And as he does so, he prays for the blessing of God upon them, God's blessing upon them in this life. He prays for them for a covenant identity, that they would be identified with that covenant relationship. After that threefold reference to God, the second part of verse 16, may they be called by My name and the names of My fathers Abraham and Isaac. And may they increase greatly upon the earth. He's praying for covenant blessing upon them. He prays for that blessing to be passed on to and through Ephraim and Manasseh. He prays that they might walk before the covenant God, that they would be shepherded by Him, that they would be protected by the angel of the Lord. And also he prays the same thing that God promised to Abraham already. He prays for that promise of seed. That that promised seed would be fulfilled through them. Jacob prayed for growth of the church. He prays for them for covenant identity, but he also prays for them for family recognition, to be recognized in their family. Verse 20, He blessed them that day and said, In your name will Israel pronounce this blessing, This is the blessing. May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. And what he is saying there is may God's blessing be so real and so evident upon Ephraim and Manasseh that the whole nation of Israel would recognize that without a doubt that blessing alone could only come from God. It's the blessing of God. And therefore that Ephraim and Manasseh were to become an example of God's blessing by which good wishes would be given. In the future when one offered good wishes to someone else that they might say, may you be blessed like Ephraim and Manasseh. And that would be a sincere blessing, a sincere wish for blessing upon whomever the blessing was given. Jacob prays for God's blessing upon them in this life, but he also prays for God's blessing leading to the Messiah. We need to understand that Jacob's blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh here is nothing less than passing on the messianic blessing, the seed of the woman. You see, we know that through Abraham and Abraham's family, all the nations of the earth would be blessed and that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are considered to be Abraham's spiritual children. See, Jacob was about to die, but not God's covenant promise. That wouldn't die out. God's promise does not, did not depend on the life of man. Abraham died and there was Isaac. Isaac died, and there was Jacob. Jacob would die, and there's Joseph. Joseph would die, and there's Ephraim and Manasseh. On, down the line, until the fulfillment, Jesus Christ Himself, would come. Jacob is so confident of God's blessing, he says, God will be with you. And beloved, we know that's true for us today. Emmanuel, God with us, has come. And He is with us today, even to the end of the age, as He has promised. And as we see Jacob passing on the blessing through the coming generations, we cannot miss that there is a responsibility for us. God's promise, we know, is to believers and their seed as we consider this morning with Acts 9, verse 39. God builds His church largely, not exclusively, but largely through Christian families. We know that there are many whom He brings to faith in the adult years of life who did not grow up in Christian families, but then through them He establishes Christian families. But God builds His church largely, not exclusively through Christian families, through those families in whom the Gospel is taught to the children. And as we said this morning, to those children who are expected to embrace it and believe it. But of course, there's an implication of God's promise. Again, a little repeat of this morning, a responsibility. In 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14, as we said this morning, the children are holy. They are set apart because of their believing parents. And therefore, they are to be taught. As Proverbs 22, verse 6 says, train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not turn from it. And as Paul says in Ephesians 6, verse 4, fathers, do not exasperate your children. instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. And that means, beloved, that we are not to withhold the blessing of godly instruction and God's promise of salvation from our children. We are not to withhold that from them. You see, we work hard, sometimes even taking on a second or a third job, to see to the physical needs of our children, of our families, and how much more are we to work hard to work our fingers to the bone as it were to see to their spiritual needs to their greater needs to teach them as Jacob was doing we are called to pray to pray earnestly for the children God has given to us to pray for God's blessing of salvation upon them as Jacob did knowing that only God can give the increase may God bless you Jacob says You can read about Augustine, the early church father, whose mother Monica prayed for him fervently. Augustine was not a believer his whole life. He was a heathen for a portion of his life. And his mother Monica prayed for him fervently. And he writes of her that she planted the precepts of God in his mind with her words. She taught him. She watered them with her tears. Prayer tears. And she nourished them with her example. May that be true of us as we seek to pass on the blessing of God that we have known our whole life long so far and to pass it on to the coming generations as Jacob did also through unexpected circumstances. Now we know that that's how God often works, through unexpected circumstances. And this is where it gets difficult. This is where we really struggle with that faith and that sight thing because it doesn't always make sense to us. But notice the reverse order here. Jacob asked the question, which is interesting, in verse 8, when Israel saw the sons of Joseph, he asked, who are these? Now that seems strange because of all that he had just said, that he was going to adopt these sons as his own. Did he not see these two with Joseph? Or if he saw that there was a couple of extra people with Joseph, was it just that his eyesight was so poor it was failing, as it says, he could hardly see that he simply didn't know who they were? Could be. Seems to me it's a little bit reminiscent of Isaac. When Jacob went into Isaac dressed up, interesting, isn't it? That he had to dress up as Esau when Isaac couldn't see anyway. We know that Isaac had to touch him and so forth. But it's reminiscent of Jacob going in disguise to deceive Isaac and Isaac says, Who are you? Who are you? No doubt Jacob remembered his deception of his father and he now would not be deceived. But also, I believe there was a verification going on here which was common in adoption, verifying the identity of those being adopted, verifying the identity of the one to receive the blessing, as Isaac had tried to do. And now Jacob, too, makes sure that he does it. But notice the setup. Joseph knows the custom. He knows that the greater blessing was to go to the firstborn, and therefore he arranges Ephraim and Manasseh so that Manasseh is by the right hand of Jacob, and Manasseh is the older, and Ephraim the younger is by the left hand of Jacob and that right hand, of course, that Manasseh was placed by symbolized the greater blessing and symbolized the greater importance. We can't miss here the conscious reversal. Verse 14, But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim's head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh's head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn. Just like that. This was a conscious reversal Also, Jacob knowingly, as verse 19 makes clear, crossed his arms and deliberately blesses the younger. And we also have a hint of this already in verse 5. Notice that when he speaks of Ephraim and Manasseh in that order. He speaks of the younger. First, I'm going to adopt as my own your sons Ephraim and Manasseh. He knew what he was doing. But this, of course, met with an unhappy reaction on Joseph's part. Verses 17 and 18, when Joseph saw his father placing his right hand on Ephraim's head, he was displeased. So he took hold of his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. Joseph said to him, No, my father, this one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head. He was displeased. And we are to understand that that was to the point of anger. It angered him. It was a controlled anger. But he was angry about this. To him, it wasn't right. Joseph thought that he knew best the way that things should go and therefore he intervenes. He tries to physically shift Jacob's hands. We can see a little bit of a power struggle there. No, Father. You're not doing it right. He wants to shift his hands to bless the way that he thought was best. Certainly because Jacob's eyesight was so bad, he didn't mean to do what he was doing. It was all mixed up. But Jacob makes it clear that there's no mistake. I know, my son, what I am doing. As if to teach Joseph that man's way is not always, if ever, God's way. Remember Isaac. He was told the older would serve the younger. Yet, Isaac planned to go against God's revealed will. But here we meet with obedience to God. Jacob is led by the Holy Spirit. How do we know? Just look at the fulfillment. Oh, indeed, everything he says, only God can make a blessing come to pass, but He does. Ephraim and Manasseh become great, but Ephraim becomes greater. Ephraim increases in power and in people. Ephraim became the leader of the ten northern tribes and there was a time when the name Ephraim became synonymous with the name Israel so that when Ephraim was spoken, Israel as a whole was thought of. But look even further down the road to the New Testament again. In Hebrews 12, verse 21, By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff. This was an act of faith. God's hand was laid on Ephraim and Manasseh in Jacob's hand as the will of God was being done. And beloved, we have here then a powerful lesson of God's way. A powerful lesson for Joseph. A powerful lesson for you and me. of God's way. God's way, first of all, is necessary. It's necessary. May we never forget that, beloved. Because God's way alone is perfect. It flows from God's sovereignty. From His sovereign control over all things. Only He can truly bless and only He can bring that blessing to pass. He alone is the one who elects. He chooses whom to bless and how to fulfill that blessing. His election is not determined by man's expectation or man's natural descent. It's not determined by man's worthiness or popularity or who you are or who people think you are. It's not determined by your place in the family. It's not determined by your race or your nation. But God's election is only determined by God's sovereign good pleasure. But God's way is necessary for you and for me. But also God's way is contrary to sight, oftentimes. For Joseph, again, the older deserved and was more qualified to lead the family. Which is interesting because Joseph was not even close to being the oldest, yet he had just received a double portion. He was just elevated to the status of firstborn himself. And he would be given, as verse 22 says, he would be given the ridge of land that Jacob says he took from the Amorites with his sword and bow, no doubt pointing forward, of course, to the conquest of Canaan later on. That's where Joseph would be buried. It's called Shechem. And that's where our Lord Jesus Christ would meet the Samaritan woman by the well of Jacob many, many years later. But for Joseph, the older deserved and was more qualified to lead the family. And for us as believers, too, often God's way is contrary to sight. We see, for example, those in leadership, hopefully not in the church, but those in leadership, for example, in world powers in our nation. And at any given time, many of them are godless. And many of them promote godless laws, and we can't help but to ask, how can God let that happen? And there are some who even want to take the law into their own hands because of that. Or we see suffering and hardship and loneliness and pain of God's people. And that seems to contradict His love and His mercy. But also when we come to truly understand our sin, brothers and sisters, we cannot help but to ask, well, how can God possibly save one like me? At the end of the day, when we examine our day and we confess our sin and we recognize the sin we committed in that day alone, but yet we have the confidence that we're still saved. Such a contradiction. God's way is also foolishness. Paul says that God has chosen through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. And he says later on, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before Him. So much of God's way is foolishness. It's contrary to reason. It simply doesn't make sense to man. And that's even seen in redemptive history, isn't it? as God often exalted the younger over the older. Abel, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, Moses, Gideon, David, to mention a few. And we also see what seem to be foolish things in the events of redemptive history. Gideon's 300 versus 135,000. That's 400 to 1 if you do the math. It doesn't make sense. Or David versus Goliath. Or Abraham and Sarah having a child, a baby in old age? Or what about the humble birth of the King of kings and the Lord of lords? The Messiah who had been long expected and long waited for. But the ultimate foolishness of God in the eyes of the world is demonstrated on the cross. You see, for the world, there's no hope in a dead Savior. Because for the world, the victor is the one who is still standing. but they are blinded to the fact that Jesus Christ lives and reigns today on the throne of the universe. And by the grace of God, we know that our only hope is in God's way of salvation through the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way to be saved from the curse of our sin and from the wrath of God. God's way is necessary. It's often contrary to sight. It's foolishness in the eyes of the world. but it is in time revealed as the most excellent. We must confess that at times we're a little bit like Joseph, aren't we? At times we try to intervene. There are times when we try to help God out because obviously He doesn't see the whole picture. He's missing something in my life. He's not paying attention. And again, that's also seen throughout redemptive history. Joseph here, Abraham and Sarah trying to help God out fulfill His promise by giving Hagar to Abraham and maybe God will fulfill His promise through Ishmael. The same thing, in a sense, Leah and Rachel giving their maids to Jacob to have more sons. Or what about Peter? That shall never happen to you, Lord. You shall never die. To which Jesus responds, get thee behind me, Satan. In a sense, we might also think of the Jews as they put Jesus to death. It didn't fit. It didn't fit with their system of religion with their God of Abraham. And also Paul, Saul, before he became Paul on the road to Damascus, he too, Christianity just didn't seem to fit with what they knew was God's plan from the Old Testament. But we too, beloved, at times in various circumstances and situations of life, sometimes we think we need to intervene and we think we need to help God because there are times when we become impatient that God does not answer our prayers the way we want. Or God doesn't answer our prayers as quickly as we want. And therefore, we think we need to help Him out a little bit and we make decisions, we try to mold and shape God's will to fit in with our will. For example, we might take a job. The time reveals was the very wrong decision. Or there may be times when we make certain decisions of life that are forced, and the fruit of those decisions is only trouble and difficulty. And there are a host of things, and we know that there are some who take this to the extreme, that there are those who murder doctors who perform abortions or blow up abortion clinics. But even with ourselves, maybe some of you struggled with family planning in this sense. I know I did when my wife and I were first married. Do we buy a house first, or do we have children first? As if it's our choice, you see. But in so many ways, we try to intervene when God is not acting as we think He ought to act. And what happens is we reject, in essence, His revealed will. We submit that to our own reason and make our own reason more important, but it's only later that we see that God's way is perfect. Have you ever had it when there's something that you were going to do, You were all set to do it and for whatever reason, you were stopped from doing it. And maybe a month, maybe a year later on, something else happened in your life and you look back and reflect that if you had done that, it would not have been the right thing. God knew best. God's way is perfect. We are short-sighted, but He has the whole picture in sight all along. The writer of Proverbs says, In his heart man plans his course, but the Lord determines. At the time, so often we don't see the wisdom of God's way. It's only later when He makes it plain to us do we see that our way leads to evil and to disaster and to death. That God's way leads to righteousness and good and life. The foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. You see, Jacob no doubt was brought to see all of this. Not at the time, but later on, as he looked back, he was brought to see this in his most severe trial. By now, no doubt, he couldn't help but to think God's way was perfect when he took Joseph from me and moved him to Egypt. And I thought he was dead. But he did that to preserve the whole family. As we know, to preserve the line leading to the Messiah. And Jacob's family was to remember this too. God's unexpected circumstances when they found themselves as slaves in Egypt. To not give up hope. God's way also is to be trusted. You see, beloved, whatever situation in life God sees fit to send our way, we are to face it in faith and we are to face it faithfully. Trusting that God has the big picture in view and He's working it all to fulfill His promised blessing for those who believe in Him. One commentator says, He will give you all the whole that Christ hath merited. In other words, everything that Christ has earned for you and me, God will give you and me every last bit of it. He will not keep even a little bit of it back from you and me. He'll give it all to us. But, the writer goes on, for the application and the distribution of that grace and blessing, you must be content to trust Him. Some of you recall, no doubt, what it's reported that Dr. James Boyce said to his congregation after he was diagnosed with the cancer that took his life, something to this effect, if God does something, would you really want to change it? And that's a question that you and I must consider too, beloved. Because if we truly believe, as we confess, that God's way is perfect, that He makes no mistakes, that His way is for our good, then we must say, no, I wouldn't want to change a thing. I wouldn't want to bring my loved one back from death. I wouldn't want to not have had to go through that diagnosis and treatment for cancer. I wouldn't want to go back on that difficult situation. Because indeed, God has blessed me through it. We have an elderly lady friend whom some of you know about and know. Her name is Martha. She has struggled with her health. She's about 83 years old. She has struggled with her health from the day she was born, starting out with polio as a one or two-year-old and having TB, tuberculosis, when she was in her 30s. And in between time and even until now, you can't imagine, she's kind of a walking medical mystery and has any number of doctors dealing with her at any given time. And those who get to know her, she's been asked many times, how can you be so happy? How can you be so positive given all that you have had to endure and continue to endure. And her answer is simply, why not? I'm in the Lord's hand. He will not give me more than I can handle. And beloved, through all of it, we know that God draws us closer to Himself. And through all of it, He confirms His promise that nothing shall separate us from His love in Christ Jesus in whom we are blessed forever. We too, like Jacob, are able to look back beyond the beginning of our life to what God has done in Christ Jesus on the cross and also what He has done for us in this life and we see such a blessing, we are to pass that blessing on to our children. Jacob prepared for death with confidence as he remembered God's blessing to him in the past and passed on the blessing of pointing his family to God and to that salvation found only in him. He taught them that their future depended on God alone, on God's work, on God's way, Only then would there be deliverance and rest. Jacob would soon be at home with the Lord, even while the Lord would be with his family in bondage and eventually as delivered in Canaan. And God has given to you and me an unmistakable proof of His power and majesty and His way and His salvation in His Word through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's for us and our children. We have been blessed eternally. And we are called to point our children and others to that God of all blessing. Because only in Him, beloved, is there true hope. Only in Him will you and I die one day in true peace. Amen. Let's bow together in prayer. Heavenly Father, indeed You are our fount of every blessing. Blessings too numerous for us to count. But indeed, O Lord, work in us by Your Holy Spirit that as the song goes, count Your blessings, name them one by one. May we strive to reflect and meditate on all that You have done for us in the past. And through that, give us confidence for the future, not only for us, but for the coming generations, O Lord. Until Jesus Christ comes again, we trust You that You will continue to be faithful to the generations of Your people, that You will continue to build Your church, that You will continue to prepare Your people for eternal glory. And Father, may we look forward to that day. Oh, many of us are not ready for it yet. We know that You have not made us ready. But we trust that You will make us ready for that day when that time comes. Bless us. Bless our faith. And indeed, O Lord, may our lives be lives of thanksgiving and praise and faith to you. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.