June 14, 2020

Thought:
​“It Ain’t Over Till God Says It’s Over: So Why Are You Wrestling With God?”
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 32: 24 – 32 (Wrestling With God)
Introduction: Right now the world appears to be coming apart at the seams, in a time of unrest, summertime is rapidly approaching and in our heads we ought to be doing this and we ought to be doing that. Yes, even some of us Christians are struggling with the thought of experiencing this summer season in a new way with limitations. We are struggling along with the world with how God is bringing about change through a process of unrest that appears to be stretching beyond the norms. We are in an unruffled state, a state of ugliness, a state of brokenness! But in spite of it all, I believe that God is doing something great, working a miracle yet fulfilling his promises to us. God is bringing about change and when change comes there is a shifting and a breaking process one must go through in this case all of us must go through. In life we can sometimes feel as if we are walking through valley of the shadow of death and with each step we are coming closer to our own personal demise but I want you to know that when your footsteps are ordered by God , “It Ain’t Over Till God Says It’s Over: So Why Are You Wrestling With God?”


Background: In our scripture lesson, we see that there is a struggle going on between Jacob and a man who appears to him while on his way to make reconciliation with his brother Esau. Most of us remember Jacob as the 2nd son born to Isaac and Rebekah and the twin brother of Esau who wrestled with his brother in Rebekah’s womb during her pregnancy. Throughout Scripture, he appears to be a well packed, put together man, a hard worker, a man who knew the Lord and one who did whatever it took to reach his own personal goals (even cheating). But he had a serious flaw and that  flaw was self–centeredness. He was a person who did everything his own way, who sought to benefit only himself and that was the very thing that God was preparing to break in Jacob. This event  was going to be life changing for Jacob for the rest of his life.
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Point 1) Alone with God. Jacob was preparing to meet his brother, Esau and based on his history with him ,he knew that things could have the potential to be bad. He was prepared for the worst, sending his family forward for one purpose that he had in mind but God had a greater plan in mind for Jacob! Scripture says, ”And he rose up that night and passed over the ford Jabbok..." (Gen. 32:22-23). At the very point of Jacob being alone with God is when he heard God loud and clear. Jacob got rid of all distractions. This place called Jabbok where Jacob found himself to be alone was going to be a significant setting in relationship to the events about to take place! Jabbok which means "a place of passing over” also stands for struggle; to empty and to pour out.  Jabbok was the place where Jacob was about to wrestle with the Lord. It is the place  where his total surrender to God was about to take place. It is where he was going to get his new character, and his new name - Israel. It was the place where he would cast down his last idol, and win his greatest victory.The truth about himself was going to be revealed to Jacob at Jabbok. He was about to be poured out and emptied out of self. 
It has everything to do with us today. For Jacob, this would represent his place of a life and death crisis - one that would lead him to absolute surrender. There can be no glorious victory over self and sin until you go to Jabbok. There comes a time we must "have it out with God". We must face ourselves and be emptied of all self desires and selfish ambitions, self evils and self sins! We are in a place of Jabbok! having to let everything go and just be alone with God. How has your time alone with God been? What has He done for you lately in this pandemic? I want you to marinate on it for just a moment. I want you to look back from when it all began in March. Did you have to wrestle with some things? Did you have to surrender some things? Did you have to look at some things in hindsight? All while being alone with God! This is quite often the best place to be and the best condition to find ourselves in. There are times when a personal, private reckoning need to  take place. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about, but he didn’t realize that at the time. We have nothing to worry about. God is going to get the Victory in all of this! (Read Jeremiah 17:9-10; Psalm 44:20-21; Psalm 90:7-8; Romans 2:16; 1Corinthians 14:25 and Psalm 91:1-2)
******************************************************************************Point 2) Wrestled with God in prayer. (VV 24-28)  Jacob was left alone, where he could more fully spread his cares and fears before God in prayer. Note, We ought to continue constantly in prayer, always to pray and not to faint: frequency and persistence in prayer prepares us for God’s mercy. While Jacob was earnest in prayer, seeking God, an angel referred to as an angel of his presence. The highest order of angels stand in the presence of God known as “Angels of His Presence.” These are the angelic messengers that behold the face of God. So now  Jacob and this angel are engaged in a single combat, hand to hand. Jacob was now full of fear about the interview he expected to have the next day, with his brother, and, to aggravate the trial, God himself seemed to come forth against him as an enemy, to oppose his entrance into the land of promise, and to dispute the pass with him, not suffering him to follow his wives and children whom he had sent before. Note, Strong believers must expect divers temptations, and strong ones.
Jacob wrestled: he wept, and made supplication; prayers and tears were his weapons. It was not only a corporal, but a spiritual, wrestling, by the vigorous actings of faith and holy desire; and thus all the spiritual seed of Jacob, that pray in praying, still wrestle with God. While God is breaking you he will keep you in the process! Jacob was anxious but he desperately wanted to receive from God what God had for him and in order to receive it God had to break him and change him. Jacob needed to come to the point of deciding once and for all who was going to be the authority in his life. Jacob was getting real with God. Nobody was around to see it. All the false pretenses were gone. God wasn’t looking to destroy Jacob’s personality or break his spirit. He was reminding Jacob that much more could be accomplished in God’s strength. For Jacob, the battle was long and lasted through the night. But, the length of the battle is not the issue. The issue is how we come out on the other side. The angel put out Jacob’s thigh, to show him what he could do, and that it was God he was wrestling with, for no man could disjoint his thigh with a touch. Some think that Jacob felt little or no pain from this hurt; it is probable. GOD KNOWS WHERE WE OUGHT TO BE BROKEN AND WHEN!!  (Read Hosea 12:2-4; Philippians 4:6-7; Job 23:6; and Romans 8:26-27)
******************************************************************************Point 3) Victorious end result. Jacob had a night of change. He was restless and unsettled. It is not a coincidence that Jacob’s encounter took place during the night. Quite often will we find our biggest victories come in the darkest of times. Our response determines our destiny. How we respond in the darkness often determines how much we see the light.This was going to be Jacob’s new beginning at the end of the battle and he would never be the same: a) Jacob’s thigh was disjointed as the wrestling went on. This represented strength and ability; b) Jacob would never walk the same again; c) But the issue is that Jacob didn’t give up. He asked for a blessing. He realized, yes God could break him, but He could also bless him. How often do we just think that God is looking to break us down and mess us up and forget that He wants to bless us even more?; d) The blessing that God gave to Jacob far surpassed the breaking that he had to endure to get there; e) Jacob came out of this encounter much differently than he entered it; f) Name change from “Jacob” which implies a crafty deceiver, to “Israel” meaning he struggles with God. Being the people of God is not a passive thing.
When we received Jesus Christ as our personal savior, he brought us out of the dark into the marvelous light, he gives us a new walk, a new talk , a new way of thinking. You see we are not what we used to be because of the blood of the sacrificial lamb and the washing away of our sins, because of the word of God we belief and receive by faith our minds are transformed and renewed. Jesus changed us. The best change comes under the weight of adversity. (Read Luke 12:48; Psalm 119: 105; John 8:12)