Gen 48:2, When it was told to Jacob, "Behold, your son Joseph has come to you," Israel collected his strength and sat up in the bed. 
This morning, we will conclude our consideration of this passage. We want to spend this last week with it because, as a fellowship, we have a significant number of beloved ones with great need for strengthening and encouragement in their physical, emotional, financial, and especially spiritual walk on this earth. I pray that you will all bear with me in terms of a most personal heart of delivery with the encouragement of the Word of God for the sake of each beloved saint in this room and in this fellowship. 
It is with great prayer and supplication to the Lord that we need to recognize the fact that this is a fellowship comprised of  those who have faced tremendous and singular challenges in terms of daily living in solitude and in illness and physical loneliness and in assorted adversities. Many are in the waning years of life, facing the same sense of mortality as expressed by Jacob to Pharaoh as we have recounted in Gen 47:9, So Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning." 
As such, there are a vast variety of needs that are being silently borne before the Lord in the hearts and minds and prayers of these beloved ones and for their sakes by many in this room. It is for those who could do with very specific encouragement that we want to spend some time with the very wonderful passages of scripture that will give all of us cause to collect our strength in the Lord. These tremendous encouragements should help us to rise up to meet each day’s challenges with the grace and the mercy and the endurance and the sustenance that God, Alone, supplies. As the Psalmist writes in Ps 73:26, My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 
	We can absolutely count on Him in our every situation and dilemma and need and time of testing and trial and weariness and disappointment and discouragement and heartache and illness and loneliness. God will never forsake us! He will always give us everything we need to face the day! In Him, we have the strength and the purpose and the ability to rise from our beds each morning as an offering of trust and praise unto Him. Isa 40:28-31, Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. 
	Despite the draining course of our walk on this earth, if we will keep our eyes on Him and wait on Him to be our source of guidance and the energy to face each day, He will prove Himself over and over and over again! This will cause us to give Him praise and thanksgiving for all that He accomplishes in the course of each day’s activities and needs. We know that we are unable of ourselves to do anything of eternal consequence or significance. But He is and He works daily to bring about the refreshment and the joy of His eternal life, if we will but look to Him and trust Him and obey Him.
	As the Prophet Isaiah encourages us so gloriously again in Isa 41:10-14, 'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' "Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; Those who contend with you will be as nothing, and will perish. "You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, Those who war with you will be as nothing, and non-existent. "For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, 'Do not fear, I will help you.' "Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I will help you," declares the Lord, "and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. 
    	What joy and refreshment and support it is to know that we truly do have nothing to fear in this life that God has given us in His Son, Jesus Christ. Fear is one of those elements of earthly life that so drains our energy and our abilities to function. It robs us of our sleep and our enjoyment of life. It haunts our every decision and clouds the course of being able to truly see and understand what God is doing in our lives. Fear oftentimes is at the core of our dysfunctional relationship with God and with others. It brings doubt and distrust and selfishness to the forefront, confusing our view of what is really happening. When we are driven by fear and anxiety, we are absolutely unable to accept that God truly loves us and has our best interest in His heart in terms of His graciousness and mercifully dealing with every aspect of our lives. 
	That is why Our Lord was so adamant in His direct command to us as recorded in Matt 6:31-33, "Do not be anxious then, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'With what shall we clothe ourselves?' "For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. 
All the earthly requirements after which we spend most of our time and energy and effort and financial resources are dealt with in this passage. As we seek to please the Lord in the life that we live, as we have our hearts set on all that will honor and glorify Him in our lives, as we hunger for a deeper relationship with Him and, as we spend our time and our energy and our resources in obedience after that which He has ordained for us, so will we understand the full measure of what it means to count on Him to supply our every need. We rob ourselves of the joy of the fullness of having a living relationship with God when all that we focus upon, in our hearts and minds, is what it takes to make us happy and comfortable and satisfied in terms of earthly goods and concerns. 
The Apostle Paul dealt with this in Phil 4:11-13, Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.  …I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. What a truly remarkable statement to take to heart. 
The Apostle Paul had learned to be content in whatever situation presented itself. We know, through the scriptures, that the Apostle suffered greatly in his service to the Lord. Through all his missionary journeys and beatings and imprisonments and shipwreck, he was tortuously abused in his physical body as well as being criticized and abandoned by all those for whom he endured such torment. If anyone could be forgiven for being thoroughly exhausted and wiped out, it was the Apostle Paul. However, what we hear from him is the fact that …I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. 
What a testimony to those of us who are daily facing the physical rigors and frustrations of our advancing years and our declining health and our daily endurance of the tremendous stress and strain of this age! We truly have nothing that compares to the torments and the anguish and the pain of the one who so daily faced life in the truth …I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
It is the Apostle Paul who heartens us with the sustaining grace of God declared in Eph 3:14-21. Please turn to it as we want to read it together. Eph 3:14-21, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. 
It is by the power of Christ at work in us that we are enabled to see and to comprehend the love of God which surpasses all the things that we understand as important and vital in this age’s estimation. As God works and provides and manifests Himself, in all His glory in our lives, through His own sustaining power and energy of love and life-giving grace and mercy, so do we begin to understand that all the things that come into our lives do so because God holds us close to His heart. He is working, through His mighty love, to supply all that we will ever need. It becomes daily more evident that our lives are no longer our own but, since they belong to Him, He will make the every provision for the meeting of each day’s necessities. 
Again, later in this letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul once more declares the reason that we are called into this living, life-sustaining relationship of utter dependence upon God to supply our every need. Please turn to Chapter 6, verses 10-20. Eph 6:10-20, Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. 
Please note that there is no stipulation of age or gender or condition of health in this declaration of what the heart of the members of the Body of Christ entails within the plan and purpose of God. There are no conditional criteria nor is there any opt out feature in place. We are all called upon to trust in God to be our strength and our source of stamina and our wisdom and our courage and our energy to stand boldly. He puts us into the armor with which He equips us to be enabled to stand firmly planted in Him. This stand is before all the onslaughts of the powers of this age against the truth of the Lordship and the salvation of Jesus Christ. We stand firmly rooted in Him against every attack that harangues and harasses our thoughts and bodies and spirits. 
We are engaged in a battle royale in terms of all that would try to discredit and defeat the truth that God has already vanquished the enemy through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! In His glorious victory, by His sustaining life and Word and the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we stand firm and strong and sure now and forever!
Let us draw this together as we read together from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians Chapter 5, verses 9-18, 1 Thess 5:9-18, For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing. But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. And we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 
	We are called upon to be an encouragement to one another and to supply all that we can in order to be of aid and assistance and help and support and comfort to those in need. Please take this as a direct command for obedience as the Lord places those in our fellowship upon our hearts and minds. It is for the purpose of manifesting the love of God unto them. It is necessary and proper that we give every encouragement and assistance to the widows and the needy of spirit and heart and those in the direst of circumstances. 
The prayers of the saints can accomplish much in the heart of God and in the hearts of those in distress. When the Lord prompts us to take others upon our hearts, let our help come forth in the joy and the celebration that God has so enabled us to thus honor Him. He is to be glorified in the manner in which we serve and strengthen those who are weak and alone. In that heart, let us always stand firm in Christ with thanksgiving unto God for all that He supplies in our lives and in the lives of all His people. So be it!
When it was told to Jacob, "Behold, your son Joseph has come to you," Israel collected his strength and sat up in the bed. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Ps 67:3+4. Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise Thee. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; For Thou wilt judge the peoples with uprightness, And guide the nations on the earth. Selah. Amen.