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679 | Wrestling With God · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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Where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the
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well in John chapter four.
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Our highest priority is making God real in your life. Whether you are listening
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in our app, in your favorite podcasting app, or on our website at watwm.org,
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we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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There are nights in our lives that change us forever.
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There are moments when we come face to face with our fears, our failures,
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our past, and our need for God.
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In Genesis 32, we are given insight to such a night for Jacob.
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Jacob had spent much of his life trying to get ahead by following his own plans and efforts.
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He had schemed, deceived, and struggled to obtain what he wanted,
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but now he was facing a situation he could not control.
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Scripture tells us that Jacob was left alone and wrestled with a man until the breaking of day.
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This was more than a physical struggle. It was a spiritual turning point.
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Join us in this podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries as Kim takes us on a
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journey through the Scriptures, revealing that there are times when God allows
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us to reach the end of our own strength so we can discover the greatness of His strength.
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Hello, and thank you for joining us in this podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries. Let's pray.
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Our kind and most gracious to Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the scriptures.
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We thank you, Lord, for the accounts that teach us how we should live,
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that inspire us and motivate us, that give us hope, Lord.
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And Lord, for your direction and guidance through the Holy Spirit,
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that we would take these scriptures and we would apply them to our lives,
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Lord, and that we would live the abundant life that you came that we might have
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and you have promised every believer.
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Lord, I pray that you would remove me from this message as far as the East is
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from the West, that you would prepare the hearts and minds for all of us as
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we walk through this scripture.
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Lord, I pray that you would help me to deliver what you've given me in the manner
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in which you've given it to me.
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And Lord, I thank you that the scriptures come alive and they open our minds
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and our hearts to the presence of you, Lord. And it teaches us who you are and
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how you behave, what your character is, Lord.
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And we see your strength and your power just revealed with every word.
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Lord, be with us in this message, we pray in Jesus name.
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Amen. We're coming out of Genesis chapter 32, verses 22 through 33.
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And it's a familiar account with Jacob wrestling with God.
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But too often we read these things almost like they are just stories.
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And though they are real events and stories of Jacob's life,
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they are also pertinent to our lives.
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And they teach us the things that we need to know so that we would be able to
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understand who God is and exactly how God deals personally with each of us.
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This story that we see in Genesis 32, 22 through 33 is one that we've heard since we were a kid.
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So often we've looked at it as just a wrestling match and just Jacob hanging
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on to God and wouldn't let go. And all of that is true.
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But today, as God reveals through his word,
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what we really see going on isn't just a physical wrestling match where Jacob
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is just too stubborn to let go.
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No, it's a spiritual turning point.
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It's a spiritual battle, and it's one in which we all face many times in our lives.
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But unlike Jacob, we give up and we give in.
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We don't exercise our faith. We don't have a steadfastness.
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We just throw our hands up in the white flag and say, devil, let us.
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Just have your way on us. No, Jacob wasn't going to do that.
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And after this message, as God reveals to each of us how we are to respond in those darkest nights,
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in those places of our lives where we are afraid and our failures and our fears
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and our past are all colliding together in our heart and our mind.
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Sometimes we just say we don't know what to do. But after we walk out of Genesis
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32, 22-33, we're going to know what to do.
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Because Jacob has modeled the perfect example for weathering the storm,
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enduring the night, and knowing the victory that comes through Christ Jesus.
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The backstory in Genesis 32 is Jacob is facing a major crisis.
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He's preparing to meet his brother Esau.
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And in case you've forgotten, Esau was the one who was supposed to have Isaac's,
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blessing of the birthright.
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But Esau didn't get that. It was given to Jacob because Jacob had deceived and
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schemed and made a plan and he tricked Isaac.
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So what happens now is many years later, it's coming back.
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Is coming back to haunt him.
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Because now, Jacob is ready to meet Esau.
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And Esau's coming with 400 men. And Esau's.
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Who knows how he's feeling, but I know Jacob's knowing how he would feel if
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Esau had done that to him.
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So he's fearing that Esau is going to attack him and his family.
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So because of his fears, Jacob does the following things.
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Again, Jacob at this stage in his life is just doing whatever he thinks is right.
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He's figuring out the plan he thinks is best.
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At this point in his life, he's
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still totally and fully dependent upon himself. And so he's scrambling.
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And so he divides his household and his possessions into two camps.
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And he sends his wife and all those people to one side, and he's on the other all alone.
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He sends gifts ahead to Esau in hopes of winning Esau's favor and in hopes of
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kind of tempering the situation.
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And maybe he can somehow appease Esau.
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He spends the night alone where he wrestles with the angel of God because he
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prays to God for protection.
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Because at this point, when he's at his lowest point, when he's without any
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other ideas, when his strength is completely drained.
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Jacob prays and remembers God's promises.
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And what you'll see in this entire situation is that he receives a new name
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called Israel because he refused to let go until he was blessed.
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See, Jacob is facing both internal chaos and external chaos and fears.
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He's facing the danger of what could be Esau's revenge, but he's also confronting his own memories.
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He's having to reconcile his own actions and behaviors things that he's put
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off for years are now coming to the surface and he's afraid of the consequences of his past.
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He's confronting his fear and his need to depend on God fully.
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Simply put, Genesis 32 is the story of a man who came to the end of himself and encountered God.
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Let me read in your hearing the account of Jacob spending the night with Jesus,
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and God and the Holy Spirit.
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This angel of the lord is representative of god's presence,
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in all of our chaos in all of our darkness in all of our pain in all of our hurt we are never alone,
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because he'll never leave us or forsake us according to hebrews 13 5.
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And he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants
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and his eleven sons and passed over the ford of Jabbok.
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And he took them and sent them over the brook and sent over that he had.
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And Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
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And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of
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his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him.
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And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee
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go, except thou bless me.
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And he said unto him, What is thy name?
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And he said, Jacob.
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And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.
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For as a prince thou hast power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
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Jacob asked him and said, Tell me, I pray thee thy name.
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And he said, Wherefore is it that thou doest ask after my name?
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And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel.
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For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
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And as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.
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Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank,
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which is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day, because he touched the
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hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.
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There are so many amazing things that God reveals to us in this passage.
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But one of the things I would like to point out before we dig very deeply over
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the next few minutes together is this.
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Jacob struggled in the darkness of his sin and his error of his ways and of the blackness of night.
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But the end of this account, Jacob is in the sun.
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The light has shone and broken through, and he went into this experience.
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A man who was sinful and wicked and self-dependent, and he walks out,
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having been transformed, to a man who fully trusted God.
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I would also like to point out that he was not the same at all when he encountered God.
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He was a changed man, and God left him with a limp that he might remember the event and who he now was.
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He once was Jacob, but now he's Israel.
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Let's look at the next few minutes over these lessons that God is giving us
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in Genesis 32, 22 through 33.
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And let's look what we can learn from Jacob's spiritual turning point.
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Because I'm sure that every one of us could grow closer to the Lord.
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And James tells us that if we draw close to him, he'll draw close to us.
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Some of us need a reflection point, a time where we just assess our life and
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say, how serious am I about my prayer life?
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How serious am I about my walk with Christ?
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It's time that we be honest with ourselves about are we putting our full trust
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in the Lord or are we just sprinkling a little faith here and a little faith there?
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Or do we only throw faith out when we don't have any other options?
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Proverbs 3, 5, 6, and 7 says, to trust in the Lord with all thine heart and
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lean not into thine own understanding.
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In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
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Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil.
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As we walk through Genesis 32, 22 through 33, I think that it is incredibly important that we...
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Come to where God is and just open up to him.
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Genesis 32, 22 through 32.
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The first thing I want to point out that God has put in my heart and soul is this.
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God sometimes brings us to a place of solitude.
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In Genesis 32, 24, it says, And Jacob was left alone.
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And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day.
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Jacob was all by himself. There weren't any distractions.
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There weren't any other voices speaking to him.
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He had sent his family and possessions across the brook of Jabbok.
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Everything that mattered to him seemed to be on the other side of the brook.
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He was left by himself and.
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Trying to face the uncertainty of tomorrow. And the truth of the matter is,
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there's a place that we come to in our lives where no one can walk with us.
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Those that love us the most still are helpless.
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And for some people, that might be a journey of health.
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And people are helping, they're assisting, they're doing whatever,
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but they're at a place where that person that loves them and they love cannot
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take them one step further.
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They can't provide the healing they might be able to assist with helping them
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out in in some of their physical needs but they can't do a thing about what's got them,
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at the valley of the shadow of death for some,
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it might be recompense for actions that you did decades ago that you've never
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dealt with you've never asked forgiveness for,
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before we go one moment further i want you to know that first john 1 9 says
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that if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
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to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,
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jacob had spent years of trying to manage his life he had worked for laban built
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a family accumulated possessions and made plans for the future,
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but now he was facing a problem.
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That he couldn't solve. He was facing a problem that all of his labor and all
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of his effort and all of his possessions.
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Could not create an answer or a path forward or a path through it.
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He couldn't buy his way out of this situation.
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He couldn't work his way out of this situation.
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And he couldn't scheme his way out of this situation.
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He was all alone and he had to face it.
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He was at the end of his rope, at the end of his strength. And Jacob needs God
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like he's never needed him before.
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And Jacob realizes this because he remembers the promises of God.
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In John chapter 14, we're told that he will bring to remembrance those things
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that we have need of when we have need of them.
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But you can't remember what you didn't know. So when 2 Timothy 2.15 says,
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to study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be
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ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, we need to take that seriously.
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We need to read his word. In Deuteronomy 6, he says, to tattoo it on the frontlets
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on your forehead, to put it in your house.
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There should be places where everywhere you look, you are sitting,
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you look left, right, front, backwards, there's God's Word somewhere.
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These are enclosed in the 66 books of the Bible that's laying around your home,
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or on the walls that you put it on, or on a table that you have, an index card.
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You should always have within your purview the Word of God.
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Because the Word was made flesh and dwell among us. When we see the word,
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when we hear the word, when we read the word, that's time in the presence of Jesus.
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It's time we got serious. Because God's going to get your attention.
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And it'd be much easier on all of us if we just submitted to him without him
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having to take us through these incredible lessons.
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Life would be so much easier if we just trusted and obeyed.
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But we're fleshly people and Jacob shows us what to do when we face our past,
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when we face our mistakes,
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when we are facing a problem that's beyond what we can even begin to imagine
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or manage see jacob needed god in his life all the time,
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but jacob couldn't see that jacob was not going to yield to the lord he had always figured a way out,
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so through the course of time jacob had not determined,
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that god was god and he was jacob he'd not leaned on god the way god requires
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his servants and his people and those he blesses to lean on him.
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So now Jacob has been brought to the valley of decision.
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And all the answers are coming from God.
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His only hope and his only ability to do anything is coming from God.
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See, sometimes the Lord allows us
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to come to a place where the things we normally depend on can't help us.
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He may bring us to a place where we must get along with him and recognize our need for his presence.
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There are things that God teaches us in private that we will never learn in public or in a crowd.
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Moses had his wilderness. David had his cave. Elijah had his place of discouragement.
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And Jacob has his night at Jabbok.
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Don't run from the Lord in your struggle. Run to him.
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Perhaps you are in a season where you feel alone.
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Maybe you're facing some problem that you just can't fix don't assume that your lonely quiet,
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place of solitude is just wasting time.
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Don't assume that this space, when you feel alone, is some sort of punishment
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or just a blip on your radar.
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Because, my friend, your place of struggle can become your place of surrender.
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Your place of uncertainty can become your place of prayer.
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Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
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When you cannot lean on anyone else you can and lean,
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on the lord when no one else is around god is still there,
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when all things seem lost and hopeless the great hope the great i am is standing
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there with nail scarred hands open wide,
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imploring you to come to him,
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at your brook of Jabbok.
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Be still and know that he is God.
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Psalms 46.10 is never better employed than in those moments when you are just
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alone and you're at your wit's end and you can't figure out anything that you can do.
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What you can do, what you should do, and what you must do is come to God.
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See, sometimes we must become still enough to hear what God is saying to our hearts.
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We get busy. We get distracted by all the busyness of the world.
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That's a tremendous effective tool of the devil.
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We're running here. We're running there. We're doing this. We're doing that.
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And the next thing you know, we're not reading his word. The next thing you
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know, we're not praying.
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And suddenly your warm, tender heart towards God becomes deaf and cold.
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Jacob teaches us that by the brook of Jabbok, there's a time to learn.
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It's a place to draw close to the Lord.
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The second thing that we learn in this passage of scripture is that God sometimes,
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has to break our self-reliance.
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It's much better, as I said earlier, if we do it on our own.
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But Genesis 32, 25 said, And when he saw that he had prevailed not against him,
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he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out
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of joint as he wrestled with him.
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Jacob wrestled throughout the night, but when the Lord touched the hollow of
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his thigh, Jesus had just changed Jacob's strength in one moment.
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God had changed Jacob forever in one moment.
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His strength had been taken from him. He would never even be able to stand on
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his own without having a noticeable difference than before.
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The man who had spent his life relying on his own ability was suddenly unable
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to stand like he had stood before.
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His hip was out of joint, and I'm telling you, that had to hurt.
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What we see in this account of Genesis 32 and verse 25, as Jacob is wrestling
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with this man, with this angel of the Lord, we see that Jacob instantaneously with one touch
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from the master's hand comes from self-reliance to dependence of God.
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He can no longer rely on his own ability to struggle or control events.
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He went from striving to surrender he had to cling to god for blessing rather
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than obtain it through deception or manipulation he went from weakness.
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To spiritual strength though physically weakened jacob was spiritually changed,
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see i think sometimes it's what we all need,
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because as long as we're strong in our own might, it seems to be hard for our
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fleshly mind and heart to fully rely upon God.
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He was physically weakened, Jacob was spiritually changed and he received God's
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blessing and he got the new name Israel.
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God didn't need to destroy Jacob. He needed to bring Jacob to the end of his self-sufficiency.
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What's it going to take for you to stop relying on yourself?
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What's it going to take for you to see the scriptures,
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unfold from Genesis to Revelations in this beautiful account of God's love for you,
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this beautiful account of God's power and his majesty, the immense amount of
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grace and mercy and love that he dispenses to each of us.
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What's it going to take for you to understand. He is God.
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For Jacob, it took losing all of his strength.
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It took coming to a problem he couldn't handle. Jacob's greatest problem wasn't,
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Esau waiting on the other side of the river.
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Jacob also had to confront the man he was and who he had been.
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It wasn't the fear of what Jacob was going to do to him that kept him in the game.
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I think that's what brought him to his knees to pray to begin with.
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But it was that realization that his game plan for life had been wrong all along.
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Realization that he was mortal. He wasn't invincible. He wasn't all-knowing.
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He wasn't all-powerful.
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And he couldn't be everywhere at once. He was on one side of the brook of Jabbok.
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His family and possessions were on the other side of the brook of Jabbok.
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He was alone and in solitude.
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It was just him, alone with himself, in the presence of God.
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Spent years trusting his own schemes, his own plans.
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Now he was learning that God's blessing could not be obtained through manipulation
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or human strength or effort.
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See, we often want God to change everyone else.
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We want God to change everyone around us while leaving us exactly as we are
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because we're all that in a bag of chips.
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But the truth is, sometimes the Lord begins his work by changing our own hearts.
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I grew up with this mantra in my home, prayer changes things and prayer changes me.
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Jacob shows us that.
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As God begins to deal with our pride, our bitterness, our need to control everything,
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our unwillingness to forgive,
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how he deals with where we place our trust in ourselves more than we trust in him.
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God is changing us exactly as we are.
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Our prideful selves, our bitterness, our need for control, the control freak in all of us,
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and our unwillingness to give grace when grace is needed.
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Jacob shines a light on something pretty impressive.
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Have you ever been in a situation where you felt weaker after the struggle instead of stronger?
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Where you just felt you were less able to do.
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Perhaps we're in a situation like Jacob, where our strength has to be challenged,
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and defeated, because our strength is really just a statement of our lack of faith and trust.
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We're trying to exercise our strength. We're definitely not living in his.
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It's very important as we look at this passage of scripture that we understand
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that every hardship is not punishment.
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But you can ask God to use every hardship to teach us, shape us,
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and draw us closer to him.
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2 Corinthians 12, 9 says, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is
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made perfect in weakness.
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The apostle Paul is speaking here of this thorn in his side that he has prayed
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three times for the Lord to remove.
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But God never removed it as far as scripture ever reveals.
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See, God's purpose isn't always to make us feel strong about ourselves.
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Sometimes his purpose is to teach us that his strength is not only enough,
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but it's more than enough.
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Jacob walked away from the encounter with a limp. He was never going to walk the same way again.
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God had left an imprint on him.
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Sometimes the greatest evidence of an encounter with God is not that we leave
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unchanged circumstances, but that we leave with a changed heart.
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And perhaps you're thinking, well, how does that length serve Jacob?
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First of all, we serve God, so our bodies should be a living testimony.
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Our reasonable service is to just give it back to him.
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But I promise you, that limp will have him always remember that night.
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He's like, well, he could never forget that night.
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He could forget pieces of it.
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In his darkest hours, he might not remember the grace God gave him because he
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changed him, both physically and spiritually. I know.
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Those of you who know me and see me know that I have a limp.
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Not Jacob. I'm Kimmy Miller. But like all of you, I'm human.
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And God has great plans for our lives, but sometimes there's things that creep
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into our lives that make us feel like we're self-sufficient.
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And I was young. I was 17.
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But I had accomplished with my tennis things that made me think that I was just incredibly special.
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And it seemed like it came so easily to me, and it seemed like I just couldn't lose.
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And I could hit the shots, and I could understand the game far beyond what my
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experience at that time should have given me.
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And it wasn't long until that's all I cared about.
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Still read the Bible, still prayed, still went to church, still memorized my verses.
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But in my heart and in my mind, all that really mattered was just that.
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And he spoke to my heart multiple times. And I just sort of brushed it off.
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And no one knew I was in solitude with these thoughts.
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I was looking good, both in the church, out of the church, and especially on the court.
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But one day, one day, at my brook of Jabbok,
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in the middle of the night, Jesus didn't just meet me there because he'd been
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holding me all along, but I had a life-changing encounter with him.
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Instead of it happening at the time, because I had refused to listen that very
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day before, I got hurt terribly.
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I wasn't life-threatening. It was game-changing, literally.
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And through that whole time, he held me, and he spoke to me,
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and he taught me, and the scripture became alive even more.
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And his word was uber important to me because he had removed my distraction.
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That day to today, I limp.
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I just saw it yesterday in a ring camera coming up the stairs,
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and I never forget the grace,
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the love, and the mercy that Jesus bestowed upon me at my brook of Jabbok so that I would know him,
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that I would have a relationship with him that was personal and strong,
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that I would understand his character, that I would have an insatiable appetite for his scriptures.
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Perhaps of the whole thing that happens, the limp that Jacob has was the most
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gracious gift God had given him.
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He was never going to be the same again.
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And when the devil would creep in and make me want this or want that,
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or I got really better and could do this or could do that, there'd be that drive
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inside of me to say, oh, I can do this.
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And then I would remember, I'm not who I was.
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I've been bought with a price, and now I know it. I've been changed forever
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for his glory and my good.
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And I just can't be like Lot's wife. I can't look back.
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And Jesus is amazing. I finished a whole career in college. It paid for my education.
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And I could float across the court.
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But I still limped when I walked off. So I truly believe that the greatest evidence,
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of an encounter with God is not that we leave unchanged circumstances,
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but that we leave with a changed heart.
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Where in your life?
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To do everything on your own strength, building your own self up,
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relying upon yourself instead of surrendering it to God.
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He'll get your attention, but I praise his name.
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He's gracious, and he loved me enough to come to me when he wasn't who I was
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devoted to, when he wasn't where I was running.
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I was running for fame. I was chasing glory for myself, but he chased after
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me, and I will never be the same.
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The third thing we learn in this lesson is that God blesses those who refuse to let go of him.
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In Genesis 32, 26, and he said, let me go, for the day breaketh,
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and he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.
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When's the last time you prayed with that kind of determination james 5 16 says
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that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much when's the
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last time that you were not going to stop,
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until god.
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Came into your presence in a way where you could hear him and see him and know
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that his word was what was being imparted to you.
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So often we throw up a few little prayers. Some of them, they're little memorized rhymes.
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So often we just kind of go through the list and you get tired after about a
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minute and a half and you say, and Lord, be with all those that are my duty to pray for.
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We pray without ceasing and there's exactly what we're told to. But my friend, Mm-hmm.
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To do business with the Lord. And when you've got yourself in a situation where
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you need his help and you need him, it is high time that you hang on and you
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pray with purpose and you pray with earnest
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and you pray believing and you just don't let him go.
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That's what we see the change in Jacob. Earlier in his life,
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Jacob was only going to do it by himself.
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He was striving to get what he wanted through his own efforts,
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through his own plans, through scheming, through deceit, whatever it took he
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was going to do it but now he was
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holding on to the Lord now he had been changed he needed God to help him.
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And when the man when the angel of the Lord told him to let go he said I'm not
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gonna let go until you bless me he wasn't gonna stop,
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nothing was going to detour him he was sitting there by the brook of Jabbok
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and he had been a changed man he wasn't relying on himself He wasn't relying on his skills.
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He wasn't going to rely on anything but the one true living God.
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And he wasn't going to let that one true living God get away from him without
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giving him what he needed and understood.
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And don't get on your high horse and think, who is he to demand?
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He's not demanding. He is holding on to Jeremiah 33, 3 that says,
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Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which
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thou knowest not. He's holding on to Matthew 7, 7.
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This is asking you shall receive seek and you shall find knocking it shall be opened unto you.
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He's holding on to Hebrews 4 14 through 16 and when in 16 God says right there
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to come boldly to the throne of grace that you may find your help in time of trouble.
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He was not going to let go on the promises of God and he was going to hold on
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until God gave him what he needed to know.
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That's what you call faith.
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Bonds of faith. That's the strength of love. That is the amazing mercy of God
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that he would invite you to his throne to tell you what he needs and he will
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show up and he will do what he tells you he will do.
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He will deliver you, but you got to lay yourself out flat in front of him.
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You've got to give up all of your strength.
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You got to give up all of your glory. You got to give up all of your fame.
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You got to let him dice and slice and remove every piece of pride you have.
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And you just let him have his way in your life. And then he will do what he promises to do.
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His mercy is that strong that he chases after you.
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Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
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But I got to lay down in front of him.
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I've got to strip myself of this world. I got to strip myself of this pride.
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I got to ask him to create in me a clean new heart, to search me and know me
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and try me and remove from me all that doesn't belong.
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And when I do that, I'll never be the same.
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Jacob had been transformed from a man that thought he could do it all to one that knew he needed God.
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There's a difference between struggling to get your own way and holding on to God in faith.
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You're not telling him what to do.
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You're begging him to do what he said he would.
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And the truth is, we don't have to beg him.
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But when we get to the place that we want him to do what he says he'll do,
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we are so desperate that we're always begging.
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Because we live so far below our privileges most of the time.
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Because we just handle it ourselves. That's like trying to live in this world,
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off your piggy bank instead of your wages you make. He's there.
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And Jacob wasn't asking for another scheme. He wasn't asking for another opportunity
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to outsmart somebody. He was just asking for the blessing of God.
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Friends, it's worth noting, you don't treat your prayers as a way to force God
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to do what you want. That's not prayer. That's stupidity.
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You come humbly and persistently and trustingly,
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seeking His will and depending upon His grace, in Luke 18.1,
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he tells us what it means to be persistent.
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He said, men ought always to pray and not faint. That means we should never
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be without God's strength.
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But so often we're living on our own strength that we're just weak and puny.
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When we can be like David was when he was against the Goliath.
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When he fought, the bear just ripped the jawbone right out of it.
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The difference was he was believing in God's strength, and he just yielded himself for God to use.
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Teaches us that when life becomes difficult, we must not turn away from the Lord.
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We must draw closer to Him. Hold on when the answer hasn't come.
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Hold on when you don't understand.
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Hold on when the road is difficult. Hold on when your heart is broken.
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Hold on when you've prayed and still have questions.
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See, our hope is not in the strength of our grip on God, but it is in the faithfulness
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of the God who holds us. It's not about us.
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Praise the Lord is about him. Don't give up on your prayer. Don't stop seeking the Lord.
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Continue to trust him. Even when the answer doesn't come in the way or the time
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that you want or wish it should, don't ever forget Jeremiah 33.
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Call unto him and expect an answer.
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You may not always understand God's timing, but you can always trust his character.
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He is who he says he is. We've spoken multiple times about the encounter with
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God changes who we are, but Genesis 32, 27 through 28 says this,
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And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
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And he said, Thy name shall be called Jacob no more.
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But Israel, for as a prince, hast thou power with God and with all men, and hast prevailed.
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The Lord asked Jacob a question like he didn't know.
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What's your name? You know he knew his name. It wasn't for God's information.
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It brought Jacob face to face with who he was. Jacob is associated with the
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biblical account of always grasping and striving, and.
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A history of deceit and scheming and manipulation and self-reliance.
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And when he answered Jacob, he was identifying who he was. For we've all sinned
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and come short of the glory of God.
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We have to admit who we are. And God was giving him a little nudge in that direction.
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But notice God didn't leave him there. God didn't leave him in his darkest hour of deception and
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and deceit and and feeling bad about who he was no he didn't he changed him
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he says that name shall be called jacob no more you're no longer this deceptive
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schemer manipulator self-reliant person no you're not that but you're israel,
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jacob had come to the river the brook of jabbok as one man named jacob,
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but when he crossed the river to get to where his people were that he loved.
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He was a new man. He was Israel. His circumstances were still the same.
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He still had to go see Esau.
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But something important had changed within him. He had encountered God.
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See, I believe God was teaching Jacob at that moment that his future would not
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be defined just by his past, but that the Lord had a purpose for him beyond his failures.
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This is one of the most beautiful truths in the gospels god can and will forgive
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us he will redeem us and he gives us a new beginning at the brook of jabbok,
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in the solitude.
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Forever changed. If you look at the Gospels, you see that the woman at the well
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had a past, but Jesus offered her living water.
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Peter denied the Lord not once, not twice, but three times, but Jesus restored him.
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Saul persecuted Christians, but God transformed him into Paul,
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the preacher of the Gospel, the writer of over 13 books of the Gospels.
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Your past may explain some of your struggles, but it does not have to determine your future.
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When you surrender your life to God, your past is just your past and your future,
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is a new beginning full of hope and mercy and grace and glory.
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If you come to the Lord in full repentance, seeking his forgiveness,
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Jesus Christ will absolutely do it.
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And your past will never be held against you anymore, and your past will have no power over you.
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Because in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, we see, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
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Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
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God doesn't promise that you'll never struggle again.
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That limp of mine that knee hurts sometimes but he does promise salvation to
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those who trust in christ,
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a man born of a woman and a few days full of trouble problems we got some but
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be of good cheer he said i've overcome the world greater is he that is in me
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than he that is in the world.
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Works in his people to transform them to be the glory he intended them to be,
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so don't allow yesterday's problems or failures,
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to keep you from obeying god today that's just stupid there's no,
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nothing to gain by dwelling in your past but the best is yet to come a life
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eternal with jesus Christ, where night never comes, where there's no tears, no sorrow, no pain,
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where there's joy forever, where there are pleasures in the presence of God.
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Jesus loves me, this I know, in a simple moment at the Brook of Jabbok,
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wherever that is for you, where you just say, I surrender all.
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That changes you and transforms you forever.
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That limp, but at least you'll be walking with God. Genesis 32,
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31 says, as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him and he halted upon his thigh.
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I love Jacob was in his darkest night, but when scripture concludes that account,
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he's walking in sunshine.
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The morning came and Jacob was forever changed.
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But that limp wasn't evidence that God had abandoned him. It was a reminder
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of the encounter with the Lord.
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See, we often want a testimony without a trial. We want a victory without a
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battle and a blessing without a season of waiting.
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But sometimes that very struggle we wish we could get out of or forget becomes
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part of the testimony God uses to help someone else.
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Jacob's limp reminds us that a changed life doesn't always mean an easy life,
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you can love god and still experience pain you've heard me say that many times
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you can trust god and still have unanswered questions trust me i'm living that,
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hold on when you don't understand just keep praying,
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you can obey god and still face difficult circumstances but you do not have to face them alone.
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Jacob still had to meet Esau, and his family problems hadn't disappeared overnight.
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His future was still uncertain to him, and Jacob was no longer facing that future
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in exactly the same way. He had been humbled, he had been changed,
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and he had encountered God.
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So he was ready. He.
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Sometimes before God changes your circumstances, He has to change you.
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Because you gotta get rid of your past.
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You've gotta make room for the skill sets and the things that God has you in
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need of for your next step.
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If you're in a triathlon and you're riding your bike, you're not holding the
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things you need when you run or when you swim.
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You're certainly not holding on to the bike. When you're running,
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you're not holding on to the bike because you don't need them for that part.
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So my friend, there are things in our lives, there are people in our lives,
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there are habits in our lives that we have to rid ourselves of because they
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don't belong in the next step.
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There are new skills we have to acquire. There are new things we have to learn.
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There are new problems we need to know how to lay at his feet.
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And there are new pieces of information of who God is and his character.
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In order for us to do the next step.
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So maybe you carry something you've endured.
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And maybe you've got some stuff that helped you in the last step.
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But give it to him and let him repack you and prepare you for the next step.
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Your pain doesn't have to be the end of your story.
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It can be the beginning of his glory.
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God can bring comfort in sorrow, wisdom through difficulty, and renewed faith,
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in our seasons of weakness.
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Never forget Romans 8.28 that tells us that all things work together for the
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good to them that are the Lord, to them that are called according to His purpose.
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Doesn't mean everything is going to be good.
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It means God is able to work even through your pain to accomplish His purposes,
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for His kingdom and for you.
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The sun rose on Jacob.
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Don't ever forget that part of the story. My entire vacation Bible schools,
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all my Sunday schools, nobody ever talked to me that the sun rose on Jacob.
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And the sun's going to rise on you again too. The night may be long,
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but keep trusting in the Lord.
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Joy comes in the morning for the anger endureth, but a moment in his favor is life.
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Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
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Psalm 30, verse 5.
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In your life will happen at your brook of J-Buck.
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He went into the night depending on his own strength, but he came out leaning on God.
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He went in that night carrying the weight of his past, but he came out with
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a new name and he changed his walk.
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God forgives when we confess.
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What's God trying to teach you? Maybe you need to get along with God.
53:04
Maybe you need to surrender and stop trying to control everything.
53:07
Maybe we need to be more persistent in our prayers or maybe we need to just
53:12
understand that our past doesn't have to define our future.
53:17
Whatever you're facing, remember that the God who met Jacob at Jabbok is still
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able to meet you in the hour of your need.
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Don't let your weakness convince you that God can't use you.
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Let it remind you that his grace is sufficient.
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If you are weary from a struggle, don't give up.
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Return to the Lord in prayer and trust his faithful hand.
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The God who met Jacob in the darkness is waiting for you in your darkness too.
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Remember, you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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Joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for quotes from
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today's podcast and scripture references.
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54:20
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54:28
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54:36
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54:56
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Remember that God loves you. You are loved.