Well, let's go to our sermon text now. So let's go back to Genesis. And tonight we're gonna go to Genesis 45 in verse 16. Genesis 45, 16, we have a bit of a longer passage tonight and next Sunday night, so I'm gonna try to read through the text maybe a little bit more quickly than I typically do, but I hope that you'll still be able to track with me. So we'll start here at Genesis 45, 16, and then we're gonna go to chapter 46, verse 27. And just by way of reminder, you'll remember from last Sunday evening that Joseph finally revealed his identity to his brothers and was reconciled to them. And now here in our passage tonight, we'll see that Joseph's father, Jacob, and the rest of the family and the rest of the brothers and all of them, they come down to Joseph in Egypt and meet him there. So let's read God's word now. We'll start here at Genesis 45, verse 16. Now the report of it was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brothers have come. So it pleased Pharaoh and his servants well. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, say to your brothers, do this. Load your animals and depart. Go to the land of Canaan. Bring your father and your households, and come to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land. Now you are commanded, do this, take carts out of the land of Egypt for your little ones and your wives. Bring your father and come. Also do not be concerned about your goods for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours. Then the sons of Israel did so, and Joseph gave them carts according to the command of Pharaoh, and he gave them provisions for the journey. He gave to all of them, to each man, changes of garments, but to Benjamin he gave 300 pieces of silver and five changes of garments. And he sent to his father these things, 10 donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and 10 female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and food for his father for the journey. So he sent his brothers away, and they departed. And he said to them, see that you do not become troubled along the way. Then they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to Jacob their father. And they told him, saying, Joseph is still alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart stood still, because he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words which Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob, their father, revived. Then Israel said, it is enough. Joseph, my son, is still alive. I will go and see him before I die. So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here I am. So he said, I am God, the God of your father. Do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again. And Joseph will put his hand on your eyes. Then Jacob arose from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob, their little ones, and their wives in the carts which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. So they took their livestock and their goods, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him, his sons and his sons' sons, his daughters and his sons' daughters, and all his descendants he brought with him to Egypt. Now these were the names of the children of Israel, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt. Reuben was Jacob's firstborn. The sons of Reuben were Hanak, Pelu, Hezron, and Carmi. The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The sons of Judah were Ur, Onan, Shela, Perez, and Zerah. But Ur and Onan died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul. The sons of Issachar were Tola, Puva, Job, and Shimron. The sons of Zebulun were Sered, Elan, and Jaleel. These were the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-Aram with his daughter Dinah. All the persons, his sons and his daughters, were thirty-three. The sons of Gad were Ziphion, Hagi, Shuni, Esben, Eri, Erodi, and Ereli. The sons of Asher were Jimna, Ishuah, Isui, Beriah, and Sarah, their sister. And the sons of Beriah were Heber and Malkiel. These were the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter. And these she bore to Jacob, 16 persons. The sons of Rachel, Jacob's wife, were Joseph and Benjamin, and to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, priest of On, bore to him. The sons of Benjamin were Bela, Besher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Mupim, Hupim, and Ard. These were the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob, 14 persons in all. The son of Dan was Hushim. The sons of Naphtali were Jazeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shelem. These were the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and she bore these to Jacob, seven persons in all. All the persons who went with Jacob to Egypt, who came from his body, besides Jacob's sons' wives, were sixty-six persons in all. And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two persons. All the persons of the house of Jacob, who went to Egypt, were seventy." And that brings us to the end of our reading of this evening. May God bless His word to each and every one of us as we look at it together tonight. Well, a few years ago, Chapman University came out with a study that revealed the top 10 things Americans most fear in their lives. And it's an interesting list. On the list were things like some things you would expect, such as becoming ill, identity theft, financial collapse. Losing loved ones, terrorist attacks was on the list, and corruption of government officials was on the list as well. In fact, that was the thing that the study found Americans fear more than anything else in life, is the corruption of government officials. And we could discuss each of these fears. We could even wonder why some of these fears made the list. But if you think about even just the things that I just listed off for us, they all have one thing in common. And that is they're all essentially the fear of something happening that is outside of your control. And whether or not you share some of those same fears, I think it's safe to say we all at one time or another, and perhaps at sometimes more than at other times, struggle with fear. And in particular, we fear things happening that we know are outside of our control. whatever that is. So that could be financial loss. That could be health problems. That could be fear of the future, losing relationships. You could go on and on. And of course, right now, in the midst of this pandemic, this is something that's on the minds of many. You could watch the news. The news is constantly inducing fear within us, right or wrong. This is often what's going on. We live in a fearful society, and we can be, and may be right now, even tonight, a fearful people. And so the question, of course, then is, how are we to live in light of the fears we experience or the fears that we're tempted to buy into? And that really is what our passage addresses tonight in a few different ways. Are we to hide when we experience fear? Are we to panic? when we experience fear? Are we to become control freaks who try to grab and gain control of everything when we experience fear? Well, here we'll see tonight that Jacob also experienced fear. And thankfully, through his experience, the Lord is teaching us through it how we should respond. And it's very simple. If you look at the outline, it's a very simple main point I want you to see tonight. And that is the way we're to respond is to trust the Lord. And this is no surprise to you or to any of us tonight. This is how the Lord wants us to respond. When we are in a fearful situation, When we are tempted to fear, or we feel fearful, what are we to do but trust our God, but trust our Lord, and but trust our Savior? And that's because no matter what is going on, and no matter where we are, regardless of any of those things, we learn tonight that God always provides for the needs of His people. God always keeps His promises to His people. And God is always with his people. That includes you and me, even tonight, as those who trust in his son. So that's the main point I want you to see. Again, it's a very simple main point, though very hard to apply, and we need God's grace for that. But the main point is, instead of being fearful, always live by faith in the Lord. That's what God is calling us to do tonight from our passage here in Genesis 45 and 46. Well, if you have the outline, the first thing I want us to consider here tonight is that God always provides for the needs of his people. And this is what we see here. So last week, we saw that Joseph, after testing his brothers to see if they had changed, finally revealed his identity to them. We had been waiting for that to happen for quite some time. And as he revealed his identity to them, he also then took action to be reconciled to them and to grant forgiveness to them so that their relationship could be restored with one another. And so we saw how Joseph drew them close to him and how Joseph encouraged them in their fear and explained to them how it was ultimately God who brought him to Egypt and how they shouldn't beat themselves up because of this and so forth. And most of all, if you remember from the end of our passage last week, Joseph and the brothers were all hugging and kissing one another. It was a joyful, joyful celebration that they were experiencing. And it was also a surprising one, if you remember, because the brothers undoubtedly thought that Joseph was going to punish them. But as we see here in our passage tonight, it actually only got better for Joseph's brothers as time went on, because when word started to spread that Joseph's brothers had come to Egypt, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, got word of it and rejoiced as well. So look again here at the first verse in our passage, chapter 45 and verse 16. Now the report of it was heard in Pharaoh's house saying Joseph's brothers have come so it pleased Pharaoh and his servants well. Remember, Pharaoh and his men loved Joseph. They respected Joseph greatly because they were so thankful for how he had prepared the country for the seven years of famine. And so when they got word that Joseph's brothers were there, they were rejoicing with Joseph. And in fact, if you look at the verses that follow, Pharaoh not only rejoiced with Joseph that his brothers had come to town, but Pharaoh even said that he wanted Joseph's family to come down and live with Joseph in Egypt. So look here with me at verses 17 and 18. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, say to your brothers, do this, load your animals and depart, go to the land of Canaan. Bring your father and your households and come to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you will eat the fat of the land. Now remember, they're in the midst of a severe famine. And yet Joseph's family is now being invited to live in Egypt by the very king of Egypt himself. And not only that, as we just read, the king said that they would then live in the best place available and eat the best food available in the midst of a famine. And as we see in the following verse, Pharaoh also said that Joseph's brothers could take carts from Egypt. This would make the journey easier. These would have been like little wagons, for instance, that they could use to carry their belongings, to carry their children, and to carry Jacob, his elderly father, back down here. But you see, Joseph's family is treated incredibly well by the king of Egypt. He was going to take care of them. He was going to bless them richly in the land. He even said, if you look down at verse 20, that they wouldn't need to bring any of their belongings with them because he would give them everything they need when they arrived. But if you look again at the text, that's not all that was given to Joseph's family, because before the brothers left to go back to Canaan, Joseph himself had gifts to give them. If you look at verse 22, we're told that he gave all the brothers a change of clothing. Remember when The silver cup was found in Benjamin's sack of grain. The brothers all tore their clothing. So Joseph replaces that for them. He then gives Benjamin 300 pieces of silver and five changes of clothing, and then loads 20 donkeys with gifts for their father. So you have to get the picture here, as Joseph's family, both his brothers with him in Egypt and his extended family back home in Canaan, suffered from the famine. As they suffered from the famine, they were provided for richly by Pharaoh and by Joseph. They're given provisions for the journey and they're given provisions to live in Egypt. And as I said earlier, Pharaoh provided these things out of great respect for Joseph. And to be sure, Joseph provided these things because of his great love for his family. But what we have to understand in all of this is that ultimately it was God who provided these things because they were his covenant people. As we saw last week in chapter 45 verses 5 to 8, it was ultimately God who brought Joseph down to Egypt so that he could preserve the lives of his family members, so that they could have food in the famine and so that they could live. Why? Because they were the special people of God and God had a special purpose for them. This was the family that God was going to use to bring his salvation into the world. And of course, brothers and sisters, it's for the exact same reason that God provides for your needs and my needs today as well, both physically and spiritually. It's because we're his covenant people, and as his covenant people, he has a special work for us to do in this world. When I was in college, I worked at a Christian family camp in upstate New York. And when I arrived, they provided everything that I needed. So they gave me a place to live. They gave me all of my meals. They gave me a day off. They gave me a paycheck. They basically gave me everything I could possibly need so that I could do the job that I was there to accomplish. And they wanted me to be able to do that. And in a similar way, we don't always remember this, but that's why God gives you and me what we need in this life. It's because we have a job to do for his kingdom in this world. or sort of evangelize the lost, or to make disciples, or to worship him, or to live in obedience to him. And his provision is what enables us to do that in the ways that he wants and as long as he wants us to do it. And so for instance, this is why Paul says in Philippians 4.19, and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. So that's what we see here. And so as we live in dire times, perhaps, as maybe people are losing jobs and dealing with unemployment and worried about whether or not they're going to have the money they need to live. Here we're reminded again of the great promise that if we are in Jesus Christ, we may not have everything we want, but we will have everything we need to serve Him as He calls us to do here. That's the first thing I want you to see. God promises to meet all of the needs of His people. And then in addition to that, as we come to our second point on the outline, God always keeps His promises to His people. And so look with me now at verses 24 and 25 here in chapter 45. So he sent his brothers away and they departed. And he said to them, see that you do not become troubled along the way. Then they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to Jacob their father. And they told him saying, Joseph is still alive and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. So Joseph doesn't want them to fight as they are heading back home over who was really at fault for selling him into slavery, because again, this is a time of reconciliation. This is a time of joy. And he wants them, as they go back to Canaan, as they relay the news to their father in Canaan, to be joyful, to be communicating good news that Joseph is alive, they have been reconciled, and Jacob and the others are now to come and meet Joseph. And as we see in verse 26, this appears to be the case. This appears to be what Joseph's brothers did when they got back to Canaan. But Jacob wouldn't believe them. Jacob, he's been around these guys long enough. He knows, he's experienced their lies plenty of times, and he's not about to trust them. At least he's not about to believe that Joseph, whom he thought had been dead for years and years now, was alive. But if you look in verse 27, eventually, Jacob became convinced of this. And we don't know if it's because Joseph's brothers confessed to what they had done, or if they merely had communicated what Joseph told them about how he was the ruler. And then also, as Jacob saw the carts being brought up for Egypt, all of these things then came together to convince Jacob of this. And so if you look at verse 28 of chapter 45, We read, then Israel, that's Jacob, said, it is enough. Joseph, my son, is still alive. I will go and see him before I die. And so Jacob starts to take the journey all the way down to Egypt. But there's something wrong. Jacob's afraid. And we see this rather down in chapter 46, verse 3, when Jacob stopped in Beersheba to worship the Lord. It's brought out in verse 3, where God says, do not be afraid. Jacob is afraid here. And you might wonder, why is Jacob afraid of going down to Egypt? Well, remember all of the things we've seen in the past. So Jacob, we know he's excited to go see his son Joseph. But as far as we can tell in the inscriptural record, Jacob had never been to Egypt before. He had never been down there, and so would he be able to make the journey? This is a decently long journey. Jacob's an old man at the time. Would anything happen to him along the way? Traveling was not always the safest thing to do at that time. What's more, when Jacob's grandfather went to Egypt in the past, it only led to negative consequences. You'll remember in Genesis chapter 12, when Abraham went to Egypt in a previous time of famine, Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife, and Sarah got taken, and that ended up getting Abraham in a lot of trouble. In fact, that almost jeopardized the redemptive plan of God. Then in chapter 26, when there was another famine, you're seeing the connection here, God specifically told Jacob's father Isaac not to go down to Egypt, but to stay in Canaan. So if you're Jacob, and you know that that happened with your father, and that happened with your grandfather before, then I think it's understandable. Jacob's wondering, should I go to Egypt? Should I not? Am I going to be violating the will of God? And then I think to add to that, Jacob was afraid of forsaking the promised land. Because Canaan was not just his home, but Canaan was the land that God promised. Egypt was not the land that God promised to give to Jacob and to his family members. And so, what would happen then if Jacob left the land to go to Egypt? Would he also be forfeiting God's promise if he left? And so these are the things that Jacob is afraid of as he starts making the journey down to Egypt. And that's why he stopped in Beersheba to worship the Lord, because he wants confirmation. He wants reassurance from God that this is the right thing to do. And if you look with me here at chapter 46, verses two and three, we see that that's exactly what the Lord gave to Jacob. Verse two, then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, here I am. So he said, I am God, the God of your father. Do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. So God makes it clear, Jacob, I want you to go to Egypt. This is what you should do. And the reason being, if you look here again at verse three, is that even in Egypt, God would still keep his promises to Jacob. Even in Egypt, God would keep the promise to make Jacob's family into a great nation. And he would do so exactly as he said he would, even in a different place. Even in Egypt, there he would be given innumerable descendants. And if you recall back from chapter 15, verses 13 to 16, this is how God said it was going to happen all along. It would happen in a land that was not their own. So according to the Lord on the night in Beersheba, it's not wrong for Jacob and his family to go to Egypt, nor would it make the promise of Canaan null and void, because God would keep the promise even in Egypt. And brothers and sisters, the same is true for you and for me today as well. We may experience circumstances that make it seem as if God's promises will not come to pass. Circumstances like Jacob's that test our faith. Circumstances that seem to be out of the will of God or that appear to go against God's purposes. And yet, we learn here tonight that those circumstances will not affect God's faithfulness in any way. God will still keep his promise even in Egypt. I was reminded lately or learned lately of Lyndon B. Johnson. I wasn't alive at this time but some of you will remember this back in 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson's running for president and like many men when they're running for president or for any office tend to make these grand promises. You'll recall when conflict was going on in Vietnam, what Lyndon B. Johnson said famously, he said, we are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves. And speaking of the conflict in Vietnam and saying, look, you elect me as president, I'm not going to send our boys over there. And yet you'll remember that it was just a year later that he bombed North Vietnam, and that then led to the deployment of our troops and to the death of many of our young men. Now, maybe that was the right thing to do given the changing circumstances, but one thing is for sure, he disappointed many, many people. And not only that, he lost credibility with many, many people. And yet what we see tonight is that we may go through circumstances where it seems as if God is going to disappoint us, and yet we learn God will never disappoint us. If God has said something, no matter what our circumstances may be saying, God's word will never fail. They remain the same today, tomorrow, and forever. I'm sure you know the familiar words in Numbers 23, 19. If so, let them be an encouraging reminder to you tonight. God is not a man that he should lie, we read, nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said and will he not do? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good? So tonight we learned God, not only does he provide for his people, and we don't need to fear because of that, but he also keeps his promises to people. And that is designed to be a comfort to us. Well then thirdly, I also want us to see tonight that God is always with his people. And so let's look now at chapter 46 and verse four. Here God is speaking to Jacob and he says, I will go down with you to Egypt and I will also surely bring you up again. And so God is saying, not only am I going to keep my promises to you when you're in Egypt, but I will be with you when you're in Egypt. I will be with you as you go down there. I will be with you as you live there. And I will be with you when you come back up from there. And of course, this was not the first time that God had promised to be with Jacob. You'll remember back in chapter 28, verse 15, when Jacob was leaving Canaan to go to Haran to find a wife from his mother's family, the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and what did he say? Genesis 28, 15. Behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you. And then in Genesis 31, when it's time for Jacob to leave Haran and go back to Canaan, the Lord said the same thing to him one more time. Chapter 31, verse 3. Then the Lord said to Jacob, return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you. So these words Jacob had heard before from God, I will be with you. And in each of these instances, Jacob was afraid. You can go back and look at him. Jacob was afraid just as he was here. And so what God is saying to him then is that his presence with him was to be a comfort and blessing to him. And of course, that's because God is not talking here about his omnipresence, his universal presence with all people in all places, but God here, as we've seen in the past, is talking about his special covenantal presence with his people, that only his people get to enjoy. If you look here at chapter 46, verse one, we're told that Jacob offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac, at Beersheba. And as God said to him in verse 3, he was the God of Jacob's father. And we tend to read right over those things, but that's actually significant. Because it connects the activity of God here with Jacob to the activity of God with his father Isaac in the past. And you see the connection is made because they're the covenant family. They are God's special people. And so when God said that he would be with Jacob, he's speaking of a special presence and he's reminding Jacob, Jacob, I'm with you to bless you, to protect you, to help you, to strengthen you, to fulfill my promises to you, to keep you and to care for you in the midst of your fears. And therefore, even though Jacob was a bit afraid, he didn't need to be afraid anymore. because of that knowledge, the knowledge of God's presence, special presence with him. And when you're afraid, even if you're afraid tonight of something happening, such as contracting the virus, here God is telling you that if you know Jesus Christ, he is with you to do what is best for you and to care for you. There are many verses we could look at tonight. I just wanna read a few of them for us. Isaiah 41 verse 10, God says, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Jeremiah 119, they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you. For I am with you, says the Lord to deliver you. Haggai 2, 4, yet now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. And of course, you can remember in Matthew 28, the Great Commission, where Jesus sends us out to make disciples for him, and he gives us the promise that he is with us always, even to the end of the age. Again, it's to be a comfort. In other words, what God is saying is that his presence with us is the antidote to fear. It is the antidote to fear. This is how we can serve God in the midst of an uncertain situation that's out of our control. by knowing that in Jesus Christ, we have God's kind and gracious special presence to be with us and to bless us. When my boys were younger, we took the three boys on pony rides, and they each got to ride on their own pony. And the older two boys, they hopped right onto the pony. They were ready to go. The youngest of the three boys, he was not about ready to jump on that pony by any means. In fact, he was scared out of his mind to get on that pony. But as I got him up on the pony, and as I stood next to him by the pony and held on to him, it made all the difference in the world. And then he could ride that pony all day long. It's still a scary situation, but he knew he was safe. And that's the picture we're given here in our passage as well. We may be in a scary situation. There's no guarantee we'll ever come out of the scary situation sometimes. And yet God is with us. His arms are around us, so to speak, protecting us, keeping us safe. Maybe not always from physical harm. But certainly from spiritual harm, he's ensuring that he's always doing, that everything happening to us is always what's best. And so we need to remember God's special presence, just as we also need to remember God, his faithfulness to his promises, and then also how he provides for our needs. But briefly, before we move on to our fourth and final point here, I want us to remember also that we don't deserve any of this. We can often take these things for granted, but the only reason we're given any of the things we've talked about tonight is because of Jesus Christ and his work on our behalf. If you remember from the first point tonight, we saw that Joseph's family was blessed by Pharaoh because of Pharaoh's respect for Joseph. That's what made the difference. You see, if Pharaoh didn't have respect for Joseph, Joseph's brothers and Joseph's family would not have been cared for in any of these ways. as they were here in the text. And that's the same thing with us in regards to God. We're loved, we're cared for by God in all of these ways as a result of his great love for Jesus Christ, our Savior, the one we are united to by faith. And apart from Christ, none of these things would be true for us. And so as we think of these things, we need to remember that these are all gifts to us. These are gifts to us through the blood of Christ for us. And that brings us then, finally, to our fourth point here on the outline. And that is the main point, again, which is instead of being fearful, we need to always live by faith in the Lord, and live by faith in light of the things we've already discussed. So if you go back to our passage here in chapter 46, you'll see that our passage ends with this long list of names, all of these people who went with Jacob down to Egypt. And it names each of the sons of Jacob and then gives the names of their respective sons as well. And the list is arranged not in birth order, but you may have noticed that the list was arranged according to their mothers. And so the sons that Jacob had with Leah, Zilpah, Rachel, and Bilhah in that order. And if you go down to verse 27, we're finally told that all the persons of the house of Jacob who went to Egypt were 70. Now, some of you may know there is a bit of discrepancy over this number and some difficulties with it. For instance, if you look at Acts chapter 7, Stephen says that 75 people went with Jacob to Egypt. I'm not gonna take the time this evening to go into all of that and what the issues are and how we can resolve the issues. If you would like to talk about that further, let me know and we can set up a time to do that. And the reason I don't wanna spend the time on it is because that's not the point of the listing of the names. It's not for us to spend the next 10 minutes trying to understand all of it. And that's not to say that God's word contains errors at all. But what it is to say is that there's something much bigger going on here than 70 people or 75 people. Something much bigger. And that's what I want us to focus on. And the much bigger thing that's going on here is that all of Jacob's family, regardless of the number, went with him to Egypt. In Scripture, the number 70 is often symbolic of completion. And that seems to be the idea here. No one was left behind. But every single person, every son, every daughter, every grandchild, all the wives that were still living, of course, all the daughters-in-law, everybody, they all went with Jacob down on this journey to Egypt. And why that's significant is because that shows us that this was a great act of faith on the part of Jacob. Because remember, Jacob's fearful. He was fearful about going to Egypt. And he had reasons to be fearful about going to Egypt. And yet, despite all of those reasons, Jacob brought with him everyone who was near and dear to him because he trusted the Lord. He trusted the Lord to provide for him and his family in Egypt. He trusted the Lord to keep and fulfill his promises as he said he would, even in Egypt. And he trusted that the Lord would be with him and his family. down in Egypt. Now he hadn't experienced any of those things yet. And I want you to see that. He hadn't experienced any of these things. But knowing them to be true, he set his faith on them and he took action in light of them. And brothers and sisters, that needs to be how we respond to what God has taught us this evening as we experience times of fear. And again, we're living in a whole culture of fear right now with this pandemic. How are we to live as the people of God? We're to live by faith. We may not be able to see everything. We may not be able to control anything or know what is going to happen in the future. But what do we know? God will provide for us. God's word is still true down to the very T. And God is with us. to care for us and to bless us and to be good to us. So as the Chapman Report revealed, people are most fearful of what they cannot control. And again, there are many things in our lives right now and always that we cannot and will never be able to control. But if what we have seen tonight in Genesis 45 and 46 is true, then we can live in light of those things without fear. And again, that's what God is calling us to do. Through the good work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, he has given us reasons to trust him. And by his grace, he also gives us his power to trust him as well. And so let us seek and strive and even pray now that we would live by faith in him in the days ahead. Let's pray together. Our gracious God in heaven, we pray tonight that we would not just hear these words and think of the story and imagine Jacob's family going to Egypt, but we would also, Lord, have in our minds and in our hearts, what is the point of all of this? But why are you telling us about this journey that this old man and his family members took a long time ago to a different country, to a country that's far from where we live today? Lord, as we've seen tonight, there is a reason. Lord, help us to believe and to truly understand that reason so that it would be lived out in our lives even this week. Lord, would you strengthen our faith? Would you forgive us for all the times that we do not live by faith but try to live by sight and end up failing you as a result? We ask that you'd grow us in our faith, even tonight, and help us to show that in how we live in the days ahead. Give us your grace now, we pray, in Christ's name, amen.