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22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,[c] and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe)
I was going to mess up for Alexander and put a name tag on it and say Mark this morning, but I thought that wouldn’t be fair to him, so I left that off. But I was thinking during the, as we were kind of going through worship and the sound was cutting out and different things, I was reminded of a time I was down in Nicaragua on a worship, on a mission trip, and we were at this place in the evening and it was storming and the power went out. So when you’re down in the middle of nowhere and the lights go out, the lights go out, like everything was out.
It was complete darkness, there was no light coming anywhere, no microphone, no nothing. And so I did what any good preacher would do. I just started to breathe from the diaphragm and just projected even more and I continued to preach even in the darkness.
And it was to my amazement when the lights came back on, everybody was in tears. So obviously it was in that moment that God just wanted me out of the way for a little while so he could do what he wanted to do and it was just a tremendous experience. So regardless of technology, regardless of everything that’s going on, we will get the message out.
We will continue on. And so this morning I want to travel around a little bit. We’re going to check in on somebody on a road to Damascus.
We’re going to check on someone at the edge of a river, forcing all his family to flee and get away. But I wanted to start with sharing a story that just happened to me recently. Just a couple weeks ago, I secured a contract with a company and got a deposit from them and took it and put it in as I usually do.
Just put in the ATM and put the money in there and didn’t think anything of it, right? There’s no restrictions on my account for the amounts I put in and move around and all that stuff. So I didn’t think anything of it until the next day when I went to take those funds and get some materials and project stuff to get going on it. I didn’t have access to the money.
And I thought, well, that’s odd. So this was Friday, of course, so I couldn’t get a hold of the bank. So I let it go for the weekend, figured I’ll touch base with them Monday or Tuesday and see what’s going on.
I figured, you know, a human just needs to get the piece of paper out of the machine and process it. So I checked a couple days later and still no. I was told by the manager, as I was explaining my situation, that Jim with the bank, not just our bank, but the banks in general are moving away from paper checks.
They want to go to e-transfers. They want everything electronically now. So it’s not like they’re punishing you, but they’re taking and holding any cash or checks.
They’re holding it for five days and clearing. Even it could be cleared tomorrow, but they’re going to hold it for five days. I said, well, if I come down and take the check and get it certified, would that help speed up the process? Doesn’t matter.
It could be a certified check or check written on a paper towel. It has the same weight with the banks now. And I thought, well, isn’t that interesting? You know, I’ve got all of this in my account, but I can’t access it.
I can’t get to it. And I got thinking about how it is with our prayer lives, with our spiritual lives, right? We’ve got access to so much, but we don’t know how to get to it. Some of the stuff is on hold.
Some of the stuff is being held back on, it seems, right? How many have ever had this dialogue in your brain? You think, well, that’s good for someone else, but it’s not good enough for me. Other people are successful in the Christian church, but not me. Other people get healings and get blessings, but you know, that’s not for me, right? So we hear those different things, and we don’t think we have access.
But indeed, we do have access through Jesus. We have access to everything. But sometimes it just seems like everything is held back.
And oftentimes we’ll see that through stories, through scripture, where blessings were held back for a time and a season until the person got through a situation, came to repentance, did something. There was something in their life that God was teaching them and taking them through. So I wanted to look at a couple of stories.
One is Jacob. We’re going to read about him in Genesis 32. I don’t know, do we have screen now, or am I just reading it? Oh, we do have screen, right? That’s great.
So it said this. It said, that night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 sons and crossed the ford at Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, let me go for his daybreak.
But Jacob replied, I will not let you go until you bless me. The man asked him, what is your name? Jacob, he answered. Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have wrestled with God and with humans and have overcome.
Jacob said, please tell me your name. But he replied, why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called that place Peniel, saying, it was because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.
Then the sun rose above him, and he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched with it. So we’re not going there with the hip sockets and with the displacement and stuff like that.
But I wanted to go into the story of what brought Jacob there. You know, I think Jacob came to the end of his rope. Literally, I mean, it was the end of the land.
There was only a river behind him. He was running from his brother Esau, whom he had cheated and manipulated and done all kinds of crazy things. And Jacob had done that through his entire life.
He had manipulated and controlled and done all kinds of different things to accumulate his wealth, to accumulate the things that he had. And here he was at the edge with his brother in pursuit, with a few hundred men in pursuit of him, and he’s passing everything over the river to get them to safety. But he stayed there.
Then it says that he wrestled with a man all night long. Now, tradition says that it could have been Esau’s guardian angel that was holding him back and wrestling with him throughout the night. Regardless of what it was, he was wrestling all night long.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I did a little bit of wrestling in high school. And doing a five-minute match, that was enough. Like, I mean, you’ve got two opponents locked in, 100% energy, trying to hold them from going anywhere.
So you’re trying to hold them and not allow them to get any position on you. They’re holding you and not trying to let you get any position, but you’re still trying to get a position and go on for a few minutes. That’s exhausting.
After I’m done for five minutes, I’m quite happy to sit and watch someone else go through a match because it just takes so much energy. So here’s these guys that have wrestled through the entire evening. Now, it’s interesting that as daybreak was coming, the angel just touched his hip and it was over.
He could have done that five minutes into it, but he let it wrestle through the entire situation. And how many times have we gone through things in life where we’re wrestling with things? We’re struggling with things. We got challenged.
You know, there’s challenges coming left and right, and we don’t understand it. We continue to go through these different things, and it’s almost like we’re wrestling with God to stand our position, to make clear what we want to do or what we’re trying to do. And I really believe that what Jacob had to do was God was wrestling everything out of Jacob.
He was wrestling Jacob out of Jacob. And sometimes we come to that place where you and I, we come to that end where we just have to sit and just say, I can’t fight God anymore. I’m tired of just trying to defend my position.
I’m exhausted trying to keep up this prasad and trying to keep up this righteous attitude, these righteous positions. And sometimes God has to take us to the end of us before he can step in and do what he wants to do. Imagine what our lives would be like if we could access all that we could access, all that we have access to in the kingdom.
Imagine what the kingdom would look like if God could wrestle out of us our stubbornness. I mean, I’m all for sticking to it, right? We all want to stick to it. We always want to see things through to the end, right? They say that failure is just a success that ran out of time.
I mean, think about the diets we start, right? We start a diet. We’re doing really good. Time is going on.
We’re resisting those potato chips. We’re just carrying on. And all of a sudden, somebody in the family opens up that bag of chips.
We get a waft of that salty, greasy goodness. And we just say, oh, just this one time, I’ll take a couple of chips. And so that success becomes a failure because we’ve given in to the time.
And we can think of that with financial goals. I’m going to put this away and I’m going to save up to buy this new Mercedes Benz. And we’re saving and saving and saving and we go, well, the Chevette will be okay because I’d really like to have that in-ground pool in the backyard.
So we compromise and we end time. So failure is just a success that’s run out of time. But if we continue in time, we’ll continue to grow in successes.
And Jacob was running out of time. His brother was closing in and he was running out of real estate. But he stayed there to defend his ground.
And it was during that wrestling that he actually received the blessing of God. Because I think during that moment, he had that opportunity to reflect on the journey, reflect on his life. Anybody been in a room like that or been in a position like that where all of a sudden you’re reflecting going, well, yeah, I did this and that really caused this to happen.
I made this choice and made this decision and that really caused this to happen. And then we reflect and all of a sudden now we’re not blaming God. We’re taking responsibility for it.
Now God can move us forward into something brand new. Let’s have a look at Paul. In second Corinthians, we read this.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations. Remember that line. There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about the weaknesses so that Christ, Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I made strong. I love that, that first line where he says he kept me conceited from these surpassingly great revelations.
I mean, just think about it. The Bible that we read and we study and we get sermons from, that we hear teachings on, that scholars have studied for centuries. Paul was writing that stuff.
He was getting those revelations from God in that moment and, and scribing all those things down so that we would have it for future tense. So, so he was getting these amazing revelations. I remember in another mission trip, Oregon, I went down and my wife and I, we had taken about 15 or 16 trips into Central America over the years, always taking high school students, building teams, all kinds of stuff going on.
One year we decided we just wanted to visit the missionaries and visit the area by ourselves. So, just the two of us went through the airport and it was, it was terrible withdrawals because as we were going through, we kept looking around waiting for everybody else to catch up with us because we had never gone through an airport without having a team following us. So, we went down there and I had a sign with my wife.
If we were at a service, I would look at her and I would just kind of give her the nod and she would know to take out her notepad and start taking notes. This was before, you know, smartphones. And I did that because oftentimes we would get down into Nicaragua, we get down in these areas, we thought we were just going for a visit.
We thought we were just going to hang out with the missionary couples and, you know, have coffee in the morning and sit around and relax. Oh no, they put us to work. So, I was preaching and teaching and then to put these, you know, these conferences together at the last minute where we had 30 or 40 pastors and now I’m teaching a and I had nothing prepared, I had nothing with me.
So, everything was fresh and new and so that’s why I had to look at Mary and go and, you know, write that down because that’s a new one and that’s probably, you know, very similar to what Paul was experiencing. It was all these fresh revelations were coming in and he was capturing and writing them all down. But to keep him from getting conceited, to keep him from getting too puffed up, God gave him this thorn in the flesh.
And there’s all kinds of stories of what it was and how it was and all that. That doesn’t matter. The point is that he had something that God reminded him that he was just human and it kept him humble.
When I was younger, I got hired by the safari park just outside of town here and I went through the process through the training, the zoological keeper training. So, I went through that for the summer, got hired on and I stayed there for the season and the next year I was called back and then I was appointed a supervisor of the lion, tiger, cheetah section. And it was really quite an appointment.
It was a real anointing time. We were gathered around a particular thing, the supervisor and a couple of other workers. The main head game warden came in and he looked at the supervisor and said, you’re out.
And he looked at me and said, you’re in. And that was my appointment. That was my appointment as supervisor.
He’s out, you’re in. And I became supervisor in that moment. And then the next year I was appointed the assistant head game warden.
So, when my boss was off for his two days, I took his responsibility for the entire park. With that came this really nice truck, the coveted truck of the park. And I was just so proud of myself driving that truck around.
It roared, it soared, it looked so cool. And I remember parking it and there was something broken at the side of one of the pathways. So, I got out of the truck and went over and I picked it up and I looked back at that truck and I went, oh, that truck is so cool.
It’s so amazing. It’s so coveted. Everybody wants to be in this truck.
And as I went to step into the truck, I stepped up a little bit too high, cracked my head across the roof of the truck as I was going in. I remember sitting there seeing stars and I was wise enough in my young, early Christian walk to go, I better pay attention to that, not get too conceited, not get too puffed up. God was just knocking some sense into me as it were.
And I’ve needed that from time to time. I don’t know if anybody else here, I’m sure none of you have needed that be hit over the head with a two by four anytime at all in your journey. But, you know, occasionally I need to be knocked over the head.
And that’s what was happening with Paul here. That was what’s happening with Jacob. He was at the end of his rope.
He came to the end of himself. And Paul, as much as he pleaded with God to take this thorn from him, he said, no, my grace is sufficient. I need to keep you under control.
I need to keep something in line so that you don’t get too puffed up and too crazy because what you’re handling is so big and it’s so amazing. It’s so powerful. It’s going to affect generations and centuries to come.
So what you’re writing is too valuable for me to let you go along with your conceited attitude. And he kept it in check. Sometimes we go through experiences and we just say, I can get through this.
I can handle this. You dig in a little bit deeper. It could be stubborn nature, could be pride.
I think there’s a difference between being proud and being prideful, right? Being proud of our achievements or accomplishments and things that we’ve done. I think that is a good thing. Being proud of our children, our grandchildren, being proud of our partners.
I think that’s a good thing. But the prideful thing, that becomes an arrogance thing, doesn’t it? That becomes a look at me, like me hopping into that truck, getting cracked on the head. That becomes a look at me.
And what God is wanting is the attention, the glory, the honour. And how often do we try to rob that in our Christian life, saying, look at me, or rob them in our professional lives, going, look at me, or rob them in our personal lives, going, look at me, rather than giving him the glory in all the situations. So oftentimes we hit the end of those roads.
And I think it’s God wanting to wrestle us out of us so that we come to a new place of humility, a new place of just honouring him for who he is. I’m reading a good book right now. The guy’s name is Jeff Henderson, I think.
Sorry, I wrote his name down. I always forget his name. And I wrote it down here somewhere, and now I can’t find it.
Yes, Jeff Henderson. And he’s written this book called Know What You’re For, F-O-R. And this guy’s had the opportunity to work with some amazing organisations over the years, like Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta Braves, and most notably, he’s worked with North Point Church in the U.S. And they’ve got about 50,000 members and about 150 locations, satellite locations, across the world.
So they’re doing okay as a church. How many would say a 50K membership, that’s not a bad deal, right? So he was able to work with them. But he’s challenged them with two questions.
And he challenges every organisation, every individual, every church, with two questions. What do you want to be known for? That’s the first question. And it’s something that we can ask ourselves.
What do we want to be known for? What do you want to be known for? What does Central want to be known for? The companies that we create, or maybe we operate, we founded, what do we want that company to be known for? And the second question is the opposite. It’s what are you known for? So one is your vision, your purpose, your mission, your goals. What is it you want to be known for? The other is what are other people saying about you? When you leave the room, what are they saying when you’ve left the room? Do they miss you? Are they glad you’re gone? What are they saying about your company? Would they deal with you again, or are they glad the contract’s done? What are they saying about your church? Are they glad to be here, or are they glad to leave? I jokingly said that when I first stepped out of leadership, Mary and I, we had to step out of the church that we served at, because every time we showed up, they tried to put us to work.
I mean, they forgot, they didn’t get the memo that we no longer served in leadership. And they every time we’d show up, we could show up four months later, and they would try to put us to work. It’s like, wait a second, I don’t work and serve here anymore.
So we ended up leaving, looking around, and we started going to a number of churches in the region. And I’m not going to name any names, and I drop any of those things, but we jokingly said we were going to start a secret church shopping network. We were going to start a company called Secret Church Shoppers.
We went to some horrendous churches. You think they’re all welcoming and goosebumpy like this place? No. There were some churches we were happy to leave.
I hate to say it, but we were just as excited to, we were more excited to leave than we were to go. So the questions are really important to look at. Because even as individuals, we have a brand.
A brand isn’t what you say about yourself. A brand is what others say about you. So what is your brand? What are people saying about you when you’re not in the room? When they’re on the telephone talking about you, what are they saying? And you say, well, Jim, it doesn’t matter to me.
I don’t care what other people think. Well, you should. Paul again encourages us to live such good lives among the pagans, among the non-believers, that on the day of judgement, they’ve got no excuse.
They can’t look and say, well, Nancy was just such a hypocrite. I was just never showing the truth. I was never exposed to the truth.
It’s all Nancy’s fault. No, you need to live such good lives among the pagans that when they stand before God, they can’t say it was Alexander’s fault. It was central church’s fault.
They’ve got no excuse. So I want to encourage us to look at the circumstances and the experiences that we’re going through right now and ask ourselves, is there too much of me that I’m carrying in this situation? Is there something in this situation that I need to let go of so that I can allow God to rise up? It’s all about the humbling, the submissive thing. And I know we don’t like that word, submissive.
We don’t like to use that word because it has such a negative feeling to it. If I’m submissive to somebody, it means I’m under their thumb. I’m under their control.
It’s actually the opposite. When we submit to someone, what we’re doing is we’re pushing them up. We’re elevating them up so that they become the very best version of who they are.
We respect and we honour them for who they are. And as they become their very best, guess what? We become our very best, because as we follow in them, we grow in greater successes. And as we honour God and lift him up, now we can begin to follow him.
And as scripture says, success will follow us all the days of our lives. As we begin to walk in what he has for us, rather than creating something and saying, God, I’m going to do this, this, and this, and I want you to bless me. That’s why I entitled today’s thing, titled today’s sermon, are we directing or are we praying? Because oftentimes we get in our prayer closets and we’re just directing God.
Well, God, you’re going to do this. God, you’re going to bless this. God, I need you to provide this.
I need you to give me this. Rather than coming to the end of ourselves and saying, God, what it is that you want? I would suggest as individuals, we need to come to that place. And certainly as a church, we need to come to that place.
As we look to hire on new leadership, we need to ask ourselves and be clear on what do we want to be known for? And we need to be honest and look around the neighbourhood and say, what are they saying about us? Because when we can align what we are for and align that with the person that we’re going to bring in and leadership, then the church will go to that next level. I had an experience in a church that we used to attend when I was younger. Mary and I, when we first got married, attended the church and we had a great pastor.
He was a wonderful man. And a couple of years into going to that church, he felt called to move off into some other place a little bit further north. And so he was moving away.
So the church started looking for a new pastor. And they thought, well, you know, this guy laid some good foundational stuff here. So we’re ready to go to that next level.
So we want a really scholarly person. We want someone with some real deep education that can take us in and teach us the deeper things of God. So they hired someone that could do that.
I built a relationship with this pastor over the years when he served there. And he was telling me that when he first served there, the first few weeks, he realised that what he was teaching was way up here. Their comprehension was way down here.
It was nowhere near what they thought it was. So he brought it down a level. Only to discover a few weeks later that that wasn’t far enough.
He had to bring it down a little bit further. So they thought they were ready for meat rather than milk, but they weren’t ready for the meat. And so he had to adjust it.
And there was great tension between that leadership because their visions didn’t align. What they were for didn’t align. And so I want to encourage us to to come to a place, and I’m hoping that, you know, as leadership is here or maybe watching this on recording afterwards, that they would consider to look at what you were for.
What do we want to be known for? Because then we can align with what it is that God is doing rather than trying to make up a wish list and saying, God, you fill this, you do this, you get this, and everything will be peachy. You know, Scripture tells us to pray without ceasing. How many of us could pray without ceasing? I know after 10-15 minutes, I’m running out of stuff.
I’m really stretching. You know, we start the same prayers. Oh, thank you for today.
Thank you for the food. Thank you for the blessings. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you for our church. Thank you for all these things. After a few minutes, like the wrestling of Jacob, we run out of things.
But as we go deeper and begin to rely on the Holy Spirit to feed us with ideas and feed us with things to pray, then we come in alignment with what God is wanting to do and is doing. And what a difference that would make as we come into that vision. In Proverbs 3, 5-6, it says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. Wouldn’t that be a great way to live? In all our ways submit to him. Does that mean that he doesn’t want us to go back to school and get that degree? Probably not.
Maybe not. Does it mean that he doesn’t want us to have this relationship with this particular person? Who knows? But as we submit things to God, as we surrender to him, we’re just saying now, okay, God, this is where I am. Where do you want me to go? And that’s a whole different trajectory.
Now we’re not being like Jacob, feeling that we’ve got people in hot pursuit because we’re always creating sticky messes everywhere we’re going. We’re not trying to push through something, maybe physical, maybe mental, maybe relational, that we need to just lay down and just look at honestly and just allow God’s truth to wash in there. So I want us to encourage us with that.
And I’m going to end a little bit earlier just because it’s so warm in here. I just want to be aware of that. So let’s pray.
Father, we come before you this morning and Lord, if there’s a little bit of a Jacob in us, we ask your forgiveness. We just want to confess. If there’s deals we’ve made, if there’s things that we’ve created, if there’s ways that we’ve pursued that aren’t of you, that aren’t of your highest, we ask that you would reveal them to us this morning.
Even now, Lord, as we pray, I ask that you would put your finger on one or two of those things that maybe we’re walking to. Maybe it’s a relationship thing. Maybe it’s a financial thing.
Maybe it’s a relationship thing with you. Maybe it’s a church thing. Whatever it is, Father, we just want to lay it down before you.
And we ask that you would speak into that. For those that are wrestling with physical challenges right now, we ask that you would speak into those. Sometimes physical things can be your way of getting our attention so that we will spend time with you.
Whatever it is, Father, we ask that you would bring your Holy Spirit, allow your Holy Spirit to just speak to those things in our hearts, in our lives. And we confess them to you. We ask your forgiveness for relying on our own strength, relying on our own knowledge, our own understanding, thinking that our way is far better than yours.
Father, we ask your forgiveness for being like a lump of clay, but laying in front of you, dictating what you’re going to create, what you’re going to mould, what you’re going to shape. We just want to give you permission today to mould us, to shape us, and to use us. And we surrender.
We choose to get out of the way and allow you to work. And for those of us here today that have never surrendered completely to you, Lord Jesus, we want to take a moment and just pray. We’re going to pray and confess our sin to you, confess that we have been trying to earn our way into your kingdom.
We ask your forgiveness. And we turn to you, Lord Jesus, and we accept you and receive you, and we choose to make you Lord of our lives. We ask that you would rule and reign in our hearts.
