The Power Of The Presence Of God – Genesis 46 Series

An article came through my newsfeed this week that grabbed my attention. It was about how people are living now and how now is different than it has been in the past, especially during COVID times. So here's what it says. “Now, for many, daily life lacks the structure, status, and meaning that it once had, as the Princeton University economist Anne Case and Angus Deaton have explained. Many people feel less of a connection to an employer, a labor union, a church, or a community group. They are less likely to be married. They are more likely to endure chronic pain and to report being unhappy. These trends have led to a surge of deaths of despair, a phrase that Case and Deaton coined from drugs, alcohol, and suicide.”

You want to read those words, those words obviously written from people who aren't believers, I look at that I go, “Oh man.” My heart just goes out to those people. You know some of those people. They're negative, they're complaining, they're just despairing about life. And you go, “Oh man.” My heart just grieves for them, because I know the truth that they need. I don't just want to say, “Well they need Jesus,” because if you say they need Jesus, it sounds trivial and doesn't maximize the pain that they're experiencing in their own heart that. But I think that it's more than just I need Jesus, it’s more than just coming to a church, it's more than just praying a prayer, it's more than just reading a Bible verse during the day. It's all of those things. But it's embracing a biblical worldview. The way to look at life, the way to think about life. It's just a whole different way to approach life. And people need that. They need to understand the key that we're going to look at today in Genesis 46.

God's going to do something in Genesis 46. Just the first few verses we're going to look at today. He's going to do something in Jacob's life that we all need. I need it. You need it. It is a powerful truth that is going to be…it sets the rivets in our lives so that we can move forward in a positive way.

You see in the story, Joseph has already told his brothers go back and tell Jacob to come on back. So we're going to leave the idea of Joseph in Egypt for now. Now we're going to go back to Canaan where Jacob is, and Jacob heard the words my son is alive. He was overwhelmed. The Bible says he was numb when he heard it. Just the news surprised him so much.

Now he's going to have to make a move from Canaan, where I'm sure he thought he was going to die. He's an old guy. He's an old man. He can't even walk anymore. They're going to have to put him on a wagon to take him to Egypt. That's how old he is. He's older than me. He's really old. So he's going to go back. But he's got to make a change in his life. How is he going to be able to adapt to that? How's he going to be able to make the adjustments necessary to go where he needs to be? There's one key idea that takes place in these verses that's going to grab him. I think it's the same idea you and I need to experience life in a chaotic world. How can we go on every day? How can we experience God? How can we experience life in a powerful way? It's this one idea that we find in Genesis 46.

Now, you know he's just heard about this. And now he's going to get ready to go. He's getting ready for the trip to go down to Egypt. Here's how Genesis 46 opens up. Look at it in your Bible with me. It says – So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.

So notice they call his name Israel. He's going down to Beersheba. Now Beersheba is the southernmost part of Israel. We describe Israel geographically from Dan to Beersheba. Now he gets down to that place where he sees the exit sign. You are now leaving Israel. You are now entering wilderness territory before he gets to Egypt. He sees the sign there and he says “Okay, we've got to stop here. I need to spend some time with the Lord.” And he says he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. Interesting that he references his father, because we're going to see that his father passes his faith on to him in a very powerful way. Something that is a treasure that we want to see in these verses. I'll show you more about that in a moment.