[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to talk a little bit about limping today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, my wife and I were on a trip, and I had hurt my foot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were traveling, and we stopped at rest stops or restaurants, and I had a limp because of this injury to my foot and went away quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But during that, I noticed that everyone notices when you're limping, and they look.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what happened, what's the problem?
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you may have that short term, long term.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people have long-term limps.
[SPEAKER_00]: County Reeves has made it,
[SPEAKER_00]: Career focusing on his limp that he has and he keeps it in his movies and in his shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the main character in the Bible we're going to talk about today has a limp and we're going to talk about limping.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about why we limp, what the deep causes are.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in a paradox,
[SPEAKER_00]: The injury and limp that this character has becomes a doorway for meaning in life and a doorway for God to use him, mildly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that paradox is going to work in our lives too.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man I'm talking about is Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week we left him in Genesis chapter 28 to open your Bibles in Genesis 2829.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in 28, Jacob had a dream, and God in this dream came to him and showed him, remember the stairway, and God told him that the land that he was on was going to be his, his descendants were going to be more numerous than you can count, and that God's presence was always going to be with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those promises are very important as we pick up in chapter 29, and we move through the section of the story that we're going to look at today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So open your Bibles chapter 29 and I'm gonna tell a lot of this story from time to time I'll read a few verses, but just track with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a story and a narrative, so we're just gonna do some storytelling today.
[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter 29, Jacob arrives in Pat and Aram to find a wife and he meets Laban's daughter Rachel as she's out watering her flock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I started to say, I even put him, I know it's really, he fell in love with her, but that's probably a little bit too strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that culture, we'll get at a little bit later.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have dating and romance like we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just he wanted her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was something actually, a little bit colonel and a little bit self-serving about even that desire that we'll get to later.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he wanted Rachel for his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he talks to Laban, and he agrees,
[SPEAKER_00]: He makes an agreement with Leiband to work seven years to have Rachel, Leiband's eldest or youngest daughter, as his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Jacob is encountering somewhere here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember Jacob's name from all the way back when he was born.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called
[SPEAKER_00]: It means a planter or deceiver or trickster.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he was holding the heel of his brother when he was born as twins.
[SPEAKER_00]: All along, Jacob has been cutting corners, getting his brothers the birthright for some stew, stealing a blessing from his father that was meant for his brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now Jacob runs headlong into someone who's just as treacherous as he is in labor, is soon to be wife, not soon to be 14 years from now, or seven years from now, wife, her father.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob, after seven years, goes to a wedding ceremony where he is gonna receive Rachel, he thinks as his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you know this narrative, it's this incredible story that seems bizarre to us
[SPEAKER_00]: Goes to get married to Rachel, but he wakes up the next morning and realizes that it's Leah, the other sister, the older sister, not the one he wanted to marry, and Leiband says, well, I had to get my older daughter first, I can't give Rachel, and so maybe seven more years, and you can go ahead and marry Rachel, but you'll send me seven more years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we look at that story like, for real?
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't know who was in the room with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to understand it's a very different culture, and it's not uncommon in that culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even in some cultures today, where there are arranged marriages, where Jacob may have had very little if any interaction with Rachel during those seven years.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a dating and romance, and we're going to grow to know each other together.
[SPEAKER_00]: They very well may not have had much contact at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob just knew he wanted her, and he wanted her so much that from afar he might see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also you tie the wedding ceremony with the drinking that probably went on, and with the veiled clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not out of the realm of possibility that Jacob would have woken up later and realize this isn't Rachel who I thought I was going to marry.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, Tim Keller and one of his sermons many years ago before he died.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the story of all of us in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have something that we really want, and we think this is going to give us meaning, this is going to give us purpose, whether it's a person, relationship, a job, status, physical health, a trophy, whatever it is, and we give our lives for it, and then when we get it, we think we get it, we wake up and it's something totally different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what happened to Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was searching for something that would give him meaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in chapter 30,
[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel is, so Jacob, obviously loved Rachel more.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the sister he wanted to marry most, but he had two wives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leah was able to bear him four sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is still back in 29.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Rachel was unable to bear children.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in chapter 30,
[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel sought to remedy the situation of her not being able to bear children for her husband by giving her servant, Bill Ha, to her husband, to have children with him on her behalf that would be her children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the matter of fact, the way that this is described leads us to believe this was a common practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't have children.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had someone who went and had children with your husband and they became your children.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a good time to remember the Bible does not endorse everything it reports.
[SPEAKER_00]: and there are things that are reported that this is what happened then, not that God is endorsing this, because it gets even more bizarre.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Bill Habor, two boys, and they were considered Rachel's to the extent that she used their birth, as she even used their birth, as vindication of her meaning and purpose, and as a way to gain victory over her sister, there was this incredible rivalry between these two sisters, they were very antagonistic toward one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leah then sends her servant Zilpa to Jacob when she stopped having children and Zilpa board two sons who were attributed to Leah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this brought Leah much happiness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm the favored wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the one who's giving Jacob children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Starting a verse 14, we read the account of Leah's oldest son, Ruben, coming in from the field after a day of work and as if this story
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was carrying these to give to his mother, and Rachel saw that Leah's oldest son Ruben had these Mandrake plants, and asked Leah to give her some of the Mandrake plants.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Leah snapped at Rachel saying, you've already taken my husband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you want my son's Mandrake plants?
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: There must be something, and there is.
[SPEAKER_00]: offering to let Leah spend the night with Jacob and exchange for getting some of these Mandrake plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now once again, you have to understand in that culture, husbands and wives didn't hang out a lot together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not uncommon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Women were, and in some culture still are, almost considered children, more like children, than we would consider husbands and wives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So women and children, wives and children were over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Husbands may not interact with their wives much at all in the normal course of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: barger for the Mandrake plants, and exchange for letting Leah spend the night with Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we'll pause the story there because you have to know what the Mandrake plant was.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of a potato, nightshade kind of a plant.
[SPEAKER_00]: In ancient cultures it was called the Devil's Apple or the Love Apple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because legendary reputation as an Afro-desiac, that's why Rachel wanted it, because she, again, wanted to have this upper hand and being able to bear children and maybe this would help.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here are two women vying for their husbands of approval through childbearing fighting for over this plant that supposedly enhances the chance of a romantic encounter with their husband, Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel gets the man drakes when Jacob comes home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's informed of what's happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leah explains the term sleeps with him that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has another son versus 19 and 20 go on to tell us that Leah had another son and daughter with Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 22, we read that God opened Rachel's womb and she gave birth to a son named Joseph.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this story as incredibly bizarre and unusual as it is is really critical in understanding how God's unfolding plan of redemption works throughout the rest of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because these sons, along with one additional son born in chapter 35, are the sons of Jacob, or becoming the tribes of Jacob, who will later be known as Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is where we find the inception of the 12 tribes of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see it on this graph a little bit in more of a visual way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Leah had Ruben, Simian, Levi, Judah, as a car, and Zebulen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill Ha, Dan and Nepali, Zilpa, Gatton, Asher, and Rachel Joseph and Benjamin, those are the 12 tribes of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I put Dina at the bottom of the column for Leah, and she does not get in number, because women didn't matter much in that culture, which is cool as an aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's neat that that's remedied.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the gospel, and that culture women were, again, more children or property, the inheritance went to the men, but if we look in the New Testament, isn't it a little bit encouraging?
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk in the church about being sons and daughters of God, God's adopted as into his family, so we're sons and daughters of men and women who are in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's something really amazing in the New Testament, in verses like Galatians, chapter
[SPEAKER_00]: You are all sons of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if we go to Romans chapter 8, all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a theological truth that we have to hold to that on this side of the cross, one of the benefits of the cross is you, men and women who are God's are sons, because only sons get the inheritance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's something a real gospel impact of being able to say that we are sons, all of us, are sons of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might say in the way that we would see a chart, everybody gets a number, we're all airs, men and women with the joint airs with Christ of all that God promises to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's just an aside that we notice because of dying of being on this chart.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now let's jump to Genesis 30 versus 25 through 30 through 43 where we see Jacob's wealth starting to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: His family is growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep in mind that a lot of Jacob's life he's resorted to trickery, to see, cunning, his own prowess, to get ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though he said God's promises and God's message to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Petta and Iran, God promised him to give him the blessing of the land that he was going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now probably two decades later, with all these children and with two wives, we've picked up in chapter 25 of chapter 30.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon after Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, please release me so I can go home to my country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me take my wives and children for I have earned them by serving you, and let me be on my way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You certainly know how hard I've worked for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please listen to me, Laban replied.
[SPEAKER_00]: I become wealthy for the Lord as blessed me because of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, tell me how much I owe you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is I'll pay, Jacob, replied, you know how hard I've worked for you and how your flocks and herds have grown under my care.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had little indeed before I came, but your wealth has increased enormously.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord has blessed you through everything I've done, but now what about me and when can I start providing for my own family?
[SPEAKER_00]: Labanass Jacob, how much can I pay you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jacob responded with a peculiar scheme that probably blended his astute observation of which of the animals in Laban's flocks were strongest and bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best, along with a little dose of superstition, that's kind of what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having tended to these flocks for so long, Jacob noticed that the speckled and spotted sheep along with a black sheep were preferable animals in Laban's flock.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he told Laban he wanted to take those animals as his wages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Laban didn't understand the terms of the deal, but he agreed, and Jacob began to take those animals out of Laban's flocks and took them a couple of days away where he was setting up his own homestead, where his, he was setting up his own flocks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now in verses 37 to 39,
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob comes up with a really, really unusual method of genetic modification.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took some popular almond and plain trees and peeled the barks off to make stripes on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when the animals would come, when the sheep would come, he would put those in the trough, and the thought was, when the animals drank out of that trough and then made it, they would produce more speckled sheep that would then he would claim as his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: It appears that God bless Jacob in spite of his own superstition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that there's a lot of scientific evidence of this method of helping sheep in their mating, but it's probably just, God just shook his head and it's like you couldn't just trust me to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And blessed him in spite of his own efforts there, which I think he does for all of us at times.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob's flocked to increase in chapter 31.
[SPEAKER_00]: We learned that Jacob's sons were not, or labor and sons, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not very happy because they saw all of the best flock going away from their father and them to Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, labor was beginning to rethink this whole deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it wasn't working out for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then God once again spoke to Jacob in verse 3 of chapter 31.
[SPEAKER_00]: and grandfather, and to your relatives there, and I will be with you."
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob explains the Rachel and Leah, how their father keeps trying to cheat him out of his wealth, and out of his position in the family, and how God directed him to go back to his homeland, and given him all these promises.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel and Leah support the plan, and Jacob accumulated all of his things and began to prepare to leave to go back home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loaded everything he had set off for Keenan, but then a somber note was struck in verses 19 to 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time they left, Laban was some distance away sharing his sheep, Rachel's skull, her father's household idols, and took them with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob outwitted Laban the Aramian for they secretly set out and never told Laban that they were leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob took all his possessions with him, crossed the Euphrates River, and headed for the Hill Country of Gillia.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel Robinger, father by stealing the idols, is a reminder to us of what we would call religious syncretism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob had just said, this is what God said we're going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to protect us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to guide us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's given us this land.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Rachel does what we do oftentimes when God promises and tells us this is what's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We trust you, God, I'm going to take this along just in case.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he steals the idols from her father's home and takes them along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently Jacob didn't know anything about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we also have to recognize in verse 20, in the New America's standard Bible, and in the new NLT, it says Jacob out with it, Laban.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually more accurate to say he deceived Laban.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lied to Laban.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob in a way wasn't any better than Rachel because God said he's going to give all of this to you and Jacob needed to sin in order to help God, basically, to accomplish his promises.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Jacob actually did.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when Laban discovered that Jacob had left his household and his household idols were missing, he pursued them.
[SPEAKER_00]: After seven days, he catches up with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But verse 24, God confronts Laban and says, I know what you're up to, be careful, don't do anything to Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's warned about how he should treat Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Laban, he's that warning, tempered his manner a little bit, explains to Jacob when he gets there, how disappointed he is, that he just ran off with their daughters and with his daughters and grandchildren, and that someone stole his household idols and Jacob not knowing that Rachel had stole those explains how, well, he scolded Laban for it and says, you find that idol will kill whoever took it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Laban begins to search throughout the camp to see who stole his idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he came to Rachel's tent, she was found sitting on her camel saddle, which the idols were tucked under the saddle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she explained that she couldn't get up.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said she was on her period.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Laban didn't look under the saddle and didn't find the idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Jacob claimed vindication because he couldn't find the idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of odd, but we don't know anything more about that story.
[SPEAKER_00]: It ends there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know if eventually she was exposed for having the idols if she felt guilty for, the story just ends there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Jacob and Laban set up the terms of separation and make a covenant together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Laban goes his way and Jacob agrees to go his way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Laban kisses his daughters and grandchildren, and they set off for their home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in chapter 32, Jacob has to face his past.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's clearly spoken on two occasions saying, I want you to go back home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got blessings for you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got wealth for you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your family's gonna grow there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna be protected there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jacob remembers the main reason he left in the first place was because his brother wanted to kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now he wondered if he still wanted him dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jacob sends messengers ahead to E-Saw to check this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since these messengers to go find E-Saw and tell him that Jacob is coming home and hoping to reassure him that their past hostilities have diminished.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these messengers come back after talking to E-Saw and it's almost comical how they respond.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come back and they said, we went to your brother E-Saw and he's coming to meet you
[SPEAKER_00]: and in verse 7 of chapter 32, Jacob was terrified of this news.
[SPEAKER_00]: He divided his household along with the flocks and herds and camels into groups.
[SPEAKER_00]: He thought if he saw me, it's one of them and attacks it, perhaps the others can escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's totally catastrophizing here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 9, Jacob prayed, God,
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, oh God, of my grandfather, Abraham, and my father Isaac, O Lord, you told me, returned to your own land into your relatives and you promised me, I will treat you kindly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you've shown me your servant when I left home across the Jordan River, I own nothing except the walking stick, and now my household fills two camps.
[SPEAKER_00]: O Lord, please rescue me from the hand of my brother, Esau.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm afraid he's coming to attack me along with my wives and children.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you promised me, I will surely treat you kindly, and I will multiply your descendants until they become as numerous as the fans on the seashore too many to count.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it assembles groups of his possessions and his family and his animals and camels sends them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Timing them so that if Eastaw does come in attack, which by the way later, we learn Eastaw wasn't going to come in attack, but if he attacks, then there's some safety there.
[SPEAKER_00]: so filled with fear that he let his own fears get in the way and prevent him from fully promising the trust of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would God call him back to his homeland?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would God give him the promises that he had in that dream at Bethel?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would God tell him you're going to have descendants more numerous than the dust of the earth?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would God say you're going to be a great nation?
[SPEAKER_00]: only to be thwarted by ESA.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the double-mindedness that was gonna be dealt with.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the double-mindedness that needs to be dealt with in our hearts sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same kind of double-mindedness remember in the gospels where Jesus told his disciples to get in the boat and they were gonna go to the other side and then he lays down to take an app in the front of the boat and the storm comes and the disciples wake him up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we're gonna die, Jesus, we're gonna die and he calms the storm and didn't I tell you at the beginning of this, we were gonna get to the other side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And way too often in our spiritual journey, we look at the promises of God in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: We trust the promises of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until the storms come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when the storms come, we lose sight of what God has said he will do and what he wants to do in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happened in Jacob's life here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in verse 22, we read that Jacob's in his wives, his servants, and his sons across the Jebac River, along with all of his possessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in verse 24, I believe, for me, it's one of the most bone-chilling verses in all of the Bible, and Jacob was left alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was all alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up to this time, his life has been a blend of the promises of God and his own self-reliance, scheming, manipulating, making sure he's okay, in spite of what God has promised him.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it culminates at this time the most significant step of faith is also his greatest desire to control it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those two things, his greatest step of faith is colliding with his strong desire to control and make this happen for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stew that he stole from his brother didn't satisfy him, the blessing that he took from his father that was due to his brother didn't satisfy him, having Rachel as a wife didn't ultimately satisfy his soul, having all the children, all the wealth, none of those things sat inside him, none of those things gave him the ultimate security and identity that he was looking for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now he is alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the man said, let me go for the dawn is breaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your name the man asked?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, fight Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him.
[SPEAKER_00]: From now on, you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we often speak of time alone with God our quiet time in the morning as time of great peace and comfort guidance, we pause, we have our coffee and sit on our porches or whatever and we open the Bible and we look forward to God comforting us and encouraging us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm glad that those happen, those times happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as Jacob discovered in this passage and I know I've discovered in my life, there are times when my time with God
[SPEAKER_00]: There are times when me being alone with God are some of the most horrible times because that's where our motivations are exposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where the intense experience of what we want more than we want God is exposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we become vulnerable at the very, very heart motivation of who we are and where we're trusting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we encounter God this way, it leaves a tangible, observable reminder for the rest of our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob's wrestling match with God, leaves a principle, speaks to a principle that we have to get today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this principle is throughout the Bible, that God will break deeply the people he wants to use greatly.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will break deeply.
[SPEAKER_00]: the people that he wants to use greatly.
[SPEAKER_00]: McShane wrote that his time alone with God was often a time of great temptation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think temptation to sin or lie, but temptation of who is in control right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it gonna be me or is it gonna be you God?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the kind of wrestling match that Jacob was entering into.
[SPEAKER_00]: The opponent in this match is described as a man, but as the narrative unfolds, the reader becomes clear that this is an angelic messenger of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this is a divine messenger of God who Jacob is wrestling with, and he's fully aware of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ozeyah chapter 12 verse four confirms this and Ozeyah 12 four, we read, yes, he wrestled with the angel in one, he wept.
[SPEAKER_00]: and pleaded for a blessing from him, they're at Bethel, he met God face to face and God spoke to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Jacob wasn't an incredibly strong man, incredibly strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrestled with this divine messenger and gave him the match of his life all night long.
[SPEAKER_00]: He held his own against God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob wasn't one to back down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was born grasping the heel of his brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm going to be the one winning here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all through life, he's done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's tried to reach for something that would protect himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this night, he wouldn't give up easily.
[SPEAKER_00]: All night, they wrestled until daybreak when the divine opponent struck his hip, dislocating the joint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even wounded, Jacob wasn't going to give up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He asks God's messenger to bless him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because he had stolen his father's blessing through deceit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He received God's blessing and promise at Bethel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had heard another time for God, but he's still yearning for something more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants certainty.
[SPEAKER_00]: certainty that this is going to happen and he's going to make sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he replied, he asked the man his name,
[SPEAKER_00]: The man asked his name, he said Jacob, names are really important in the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're more significant and meaningful than oftentimes the labels that we just use as names.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's deep meeting and implication in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one reason why names are changed sometimes when you have a spiritual transformation, and name changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 28, the man said his name would no longer be Jacob, which if you remember means supplanter, deceiver, the trickster, the one who's holding the heel,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to be your name anymore, Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your name is going to be Israel, because you've wrestled with God and with men and you've come out victorious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that coming out victorious or one, that doesn't mean he beat God, like God submitted to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Quite the contrary.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it means is you've wrestled with God and you've won, because now you finally know and get who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: You finally know and understand who you need to be relying upon.
[SPEAKER_00]: then the name was changed from Jacob to Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of this name changed something strikes me because if Jacob means supplanter, deceiver, the trickster, the one who's gonna cut corners, and in my book of fairness, wrestling with God ought to result in his name being changed to something very virtuous, like the truth teller now, or the one with all integrity, but it's not, his name is changed from Jacob,
[SPEAKER_00]: to the one who's just going to wrestle with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's almost as though God is saying, you're actually better off just staying in the match with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep wrestling with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God knew Jacob enough that if he gave him that other title, he would be self-sufficient again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he needs to make sure that Jacob is not going to be self-sufficient.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in order for that to happen, he rinches his hip.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's going to walk with his lamp and he's going to continue
[SPEAKER_00]: After blessing Jacob, Jacob named the place Piniel, which means the face of God, and he had a new identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrestled with God and won, but that victory came at a cost that would change him for the rest of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left that place with a limp, and in that way, Jacob's victory is actually God breaking
[SPEAKER_00]: so that he would fulfill the purpose that God wanted from.
[SPEAKER_00]: He changed his name from Jacob to Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the pivotal moment in the redemptive history of the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the first and only man in all of the Bible to be given this name Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this name is gonna resonate throughout the rest of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: through Israel's sons, the 12 tribes of Israel, and God working through them in the Old Testament, and even into the New Testament where we're referring and we're hearing about the tribes of Israel, we're hearing about Israel, and it all started right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the angelic messenger, wounded Jacob in his hip, causing him to walk with a limp, and this is what happens when God breaks us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He leaves a reminder for us of who we are and who he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that limp can take various forms in the New Testament after Peter denied Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Denied knowing Jesus, if you remember the story, after the Lord's supper, Jesus describing what's going to happen to him and Peter's like, oh, that's not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter, you're going to deny me three times tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you remember the
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember the signal that Jesus told Peter what was going to happen that's going to remind him and wake him up that he's denied him three times, you're going to hear a rooster crow?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Peter lived in an agrarian society.
[SPEAKER_00]: That man held a rooster crow every day for the rest of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I bet that was a limp.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day, he was reminded that he's not in control.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was reminded that there's a God who's in control who would ultimately restore him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be a physical malady, could be an injury, could be a broken relationship, could be sin in your life, could be being exposed for who you are, could be a financial crisis, it could be a mental health crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nature of the situation is not as important because what God is doing is not dealing with the situation,
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you're completely dependent upon your physical fitness and all of a sudden, you're struck with an injury or a malady that you can't do that anymore, the question is, who are you depending upon?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you thrive as being the man or woman that God's called you to be with the limits that you have in your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what being broken is before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later in the history of Israel's descendants, the prophet Isaiah explained this divine correction,
[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah 3-1, the Lord, the Lord of Heaven's armies will take away from Jerusalem and Judah everything they depend on.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how God breaks us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to take away everything you depend on so that you live into the promises and the identity that I've given to you many years ago, there have been many times, but God broke me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a time in my pastoral ministry, I was devoting all of my life and energy to being a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd want to be a pastor since I was young and a great church experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was, I was gleaning way more identity and worth and value from being in ministry than God actually wanted, and I somewhere along the line I lost sight of him in doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: My life got out of alignment and through sin in my life and brokenness and hurting people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I found myself not being a pastor, not knowing if I wanted to be a pastor, going to marriage counseling, working on family relationships, trying to restore her relationships with other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember one day I was out at Powder Valley Nature Center in Crestwood, taking a long walk, just arguing with God about everything in life and wrestling and wrestling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember praying and saying, God, I, you know, it's like I could lose everything
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only thing I have left is you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the only time I think I've heard God speak audibly to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, now you get it, now you get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what God wants.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants us, he doesn't enjoy the pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants us to know his love.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants us to know who he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe some of you walk with a limp like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe some of you have a limp in your life that you walk with that reminds you of brokenness, reminds you of something you yearn for more than God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you can never say, I've never struggled with addiction or I've never been the father who didn't yell at and discipline my children out of anger.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never been, I've never
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been faithful to my spouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never drifted that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I've, whatever it is in your story, there's a limitation, and that's what a limp it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just limits us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't do everything I thought I might be able to do, and the question is, are you going to let God pour his Holy Spirit into your life so that you thrive even with the limits of your limp?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what God wants to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the gospel wants to detect.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would be more effective and more effective in the work of God when we're walking with the limp, than we were when we were self-reliant and thought we were in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the message of this passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: God wants us to depend on Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not capricious, you hear this kind of a story or narrative and it's like, well, what kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: how our hungry power-trip God is this who just wants to break people, and it's not just breaking people, it's because He loves us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He created us, and He actually knows what's best for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we're on a path or when we're self-reliant, He knows we're not going to be ultimately saved or fulfilled or experienced the fullness of what He wants to do through us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what breaking is about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wherever we find our safety and value and things of this world, financial stability, relationships, intelligence, influence, whatever it is, God wants to take that away so that we can know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean those things are bad in none of themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is when we trust them too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's think that the only pathway to effective discipleship is to have your life crashed in front of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a preferable method.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, any parent would tell your kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: You actually didn't have to learn that lesson as hard as you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were better ways to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's true in this case, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any doctor will tell you,
[SPEAKER_00]: that a disease or a malady diagnosed early probably leads to a less invasive intervention.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you let it go and we have to deal with it when it's really, really far along, that's what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So your daily time of scripture, are you letting God break you?
[SPEAKER_00]: When you pray, are you asking God to break yourself for alliance?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you inviting him to get into the core of your motivation and make sure that you're not fighting against him anywhere?
[SPEAKER_00]: In your small group, are you guys honest with each other enough to say, hey, how are we doing it, living this life, are we doing and living and walking out the motivation and the behavior that God wants for us as we serve him?
[SPEAKER_00]: in your worship and worship is not just singing wonderful praise songs like this worship is confessing our sin and being ultimately undone before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we doing that in our worship, both in our corporate worship and in our private worship?
[SPEAKER_00]: And like Jacob, we're better off in the struggle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the apostle Paul who prayed three times, God, would you take away this thorn in my flesh?
[SPEAKER_00]: And God said, nope, it's actually better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's better for you that you have that thorn, and you keep depending upon me and my grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's our response to this kind of intervention by God that we have a God who loves us enough to break us?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting and wonderful to know that ultimately the full measure of our brokenness, the full measure of the brokenness we deserve was taken by Christ on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we look at the cross, we see where all of that brokenness was taken care of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to share five questions with you right now that are questions to contemplate based on this section of scripture, section of Jacob's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm purposefully not putting them on the screen because I don't want you to write them down and I don't want you to take a picture of them and what do you think about them?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want them send me an email, send an email to my assistant, Jen Baker, Jay Baker at E3.org, I'll send you the whole list.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for right now, just listen to these questions and let the Holy Spirit kind of work in your own mind and heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first question, how will you respond to this story is, where are you still living in self-reliance, despite the promises of God free?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you still living in self-reliance, despite God's promises?
[SPEAKER_00]: The second question, do you believe in trust that God wants what is best for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Both today and in the life beyond this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe in trust that God wants what is best for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: The third question, where are you wrestling with God at the deepest levels of your motivation and desires?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you wrestling with God at the deepest level of your heart motivation and desires?
[SPEAKER_00]: the next question to contemplate, what is the limp that you live with every day?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you accept God's blessing and grace and thrive as the man or woman that God has called you to be even with your limitations?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the last question, how are you inviting God and others into your life in a way that exposes and corrects your pride, your independence?
[SPEAKER_00]: in your self-reliance.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you inviting God and others into your life in a way that exposes and corrects your pride, your independence, and your self-reliance?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord's supper we're gonna have communion today is a visual representation of God's love for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: His remedy for our sin, His remedy for our self-reliance and pride.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's at this table where we're reminded of Jesus for given us and the hope that we all have to prepare for taking communion.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would, I want you to open your Bibles to Psalm chapter 32.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read Psalm 32.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Psalm of David, which in light of the passage of the Scripture we looked at is worth noting that David is a descendant of Judah, one of the children of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's of the tribe of Judah.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I read this Psalm, I'm gonna just give you a moment to spend in quiet reflection and confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want you to think about the message that we've heard today, Jacob's life, and this Psalm, and let this Psalm guide you in a few moments of quiet confession of sin before God, confessing yourself reliance to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to these words, and then let's spend a few moments in prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 32, O what joy for those who's disobedience is forgiven, who sin is put out of sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, what joy for those who's record the Lord is cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long, day in night, your hand of discipline was heavy upon me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, I confessed all my sins to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped trying to hide my guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord and you forgave me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All my guilt has gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there's still time that they might not drown in the flood waters of judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you are my hiding place, you protect me from trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: You surround me with songs of victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord says I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will advise you and watch over you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep an under control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many Charles has come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: So rejoice in the Lord and be glad, all you who obey Him, shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Use this Psalm to guide you in a moment of confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, thank you for breaking us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for breaking us, not because we enjoy the pain and we want to go through anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for breaking us because it shows your love.
[SPEAKER_00]: It shows the incredible love that you have for us that's demonstrated through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you that we can, as we have been doing in these moments of silence, confessing our sin to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's both the sin of our actions, the things we've done, that we shouldn't do, the things that we haven't done, that we should do, the words that we've spoken, that have not honored you, or the words that we should have spoken, that we haven't, words of encouragement to others, so forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we confess also our heart attitudes that sometimes we want to be in control, and we don't believe you love us, forgive us for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Confess these sins, the promises are God or real.
[SPEAKER_00]: You forgive us and you cleanse us of all unrighteousness and we can sit before you as sons of God with all the promises that you gave to Christ all that inheritance is ours so that we can come to this table having been cleansed by the work of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for doing that for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Communion here at first free is available to anyone who has followed Jesus Christ in salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know the Lord as your Savior, whether you attend our church or not, you welcome to join us in communion.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're wrestling with spiritual things and you have not experienced that brokenness by God where you're believing in
[SPEAKER_00]: in Jesus Christ for your salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're glad you're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just let the trace pass and we encourage you to think about the things that we've talked about.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to talk more about them, you should be able to find anyone in this building who has a land you're on and ask them and they will be able to talk to you more or help connect you with someone who can help you on that journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: The servers are going to pass the elements and we ask you to take a stack of cups.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a
[SPEAKER_00]: up with the juice and the bread if you need gluten-free wafer they're in the middle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please hold the elements until everyone has been served and we will take them together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've worshiped God together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've looked into his word.
[SPEAKER_00]: We spent time confessing our sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a meal to celebrate.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a meal to celebrate their forgiveness, to celebrate the life that we had.
[SPEAKER_00]: A cool thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: After Jacob was broken, the rest of his life was much different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reliance upon the Lord instead of reliance on ourselves that works together, worth like that for us too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus on the night He was betrayed, took the bread, and He broke it, and He gave it to His disciples, and He said, take and eat this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my body that's broken for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's eat together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that same meal, he took the cup.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, and he bruised it without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what it's all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, this is the cup.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my blood that's given for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's drink together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's all stand together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's sing about the amazing grace that Jesus has provided for us.