Wrestling with God

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsek and is a part of the series Beginning With God, Walking Through the

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Book of Genesis. If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.

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Here's Pastor Don. A close -up story of a man that's caught between a rock and a hard place.

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He's in a sense in the foxhole. Our man Jacob in the book of Genesis might not be the guy many of us would choose to be an example of faith.

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And I love it that God chooses the man who you and I wouldn't choose to be an example of faith as an example of faith.

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A cheater, a swindler, a deceiver, a conniver. His name means grasper.

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His name literally means cheater. But he is indeed the guy that God chose to use to set up his chosen people.

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And in our text this morning, we're going to find Jacob, the man chosen by God, the man who

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God promised to be with him always, and he's afraid. And I think some of us in this room can relate.

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When I say the word afraid, you go, I get that. I'm living that right now. Afraid for my family,

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I'm afraid for my job, I'm afraid for my marriage, I'm afraid for my children. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands.

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But I know some of you here relate to the word fear in your life right now. And in the midst of Jacob's fears, he plans.

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He makes some plans. And he prays. And he plans some more.

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And then in the end, he ultimately comes to a place of wrestling with God. In his fear, he humbles himself, he acknowledges

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God, and he begs God for deliverance. And so I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 32.

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You can use a Bible app, you can use your own Bible if you brought one. There are Bibles on the table over here. If you don't own a

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Bible, you can grab one of those and just take it home with you. If you already own one but you need to borrow one this morning, you can just return it back over there.

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But it is helpful for you to have a Bible open in front of you. I'm going to read a pretty decent chunk of scripture here. I think it's valuable for us to read it and see it for ourselves.

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So I'm going to read the entirety of Genesis chapter 32 as you follow along. Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

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And when Jacob saw them, he said, this is God's camp. So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.

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And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother, in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, thus you shall say to my lord

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Esau, thus says your servant Jacob, I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.

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I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants and female servants I have sent to tell my lord in order that I may find favor in your sight.

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And the messengers returned to Jacob saying, we came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are 400 men with him.

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Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him and the flocks and herds and camels into two camp, thinking if Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.

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And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O lord who said to me, return to your country and to your kindred that I may do you good,

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I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant.

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For with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.

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But you said I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

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So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau, 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 lambs, 30 milking camels and their calves, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.

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These he handed over to his servants. Every drove by itself and said to his servants, pass ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.

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He instructed the first, when Esau, my brother, meets you and asks you to whom do you belong?

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Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you? Then you shall say, they belong to your servant

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Jacob. They are a present sent to my Lord Esau, and moreover, he is behind us. He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the drove, followed the droves.

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You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him. And you shall say moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us, for he thought

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I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me. And afterwards I shall see his face, perhaps he will accept me.

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So the present passed on ahead of him and he himself stayed that night in the camp. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants and his 11 children and crossed the fort of the

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Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else he had and Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

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When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

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Then he said, let me go for the day is broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

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And he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.

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Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him.

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So Jacob called the name of that place, Peniel, saying, for I have seen

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God face to face and yet my life has been delivered. The sun rose upon him as he passed

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Peniel, limping because of his hip. Therefore, to this day, the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket as he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we come to your word and I, I've worked and I've studied.

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I have spent time this week trying to figure out this text and try to dig into it to provide something for these people that have gathered here.

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And yet in the end, it's ultimately your spirit that I'm trusting to communicate this.

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Father, if in the end, all we do is receive some education here, that's well and good.

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And we've, we've, we've learned something and we walk away. But Father, I pray that what happens here this morning is not educational, but is transformational.

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Father, that something in our heart is touched in a way that we go out and we recognize that these things about you are revealed for life change and for us to take on more faith and more understanding and particularly in this text to understand prayer more.

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And that you are indeed there, guiding, directing, and giving comfort and peace.

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And Father, I pray for those that are going through difficult times now. I know that some here, it's as if you have prepared this message for them in the sense of fear.

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They are, they, they fear, they fear because they, they, they can't see any way to go backwards and they can't see any way to go forwards.

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And so Father, I pray that you would speak peace to their hearts and their lives, those who are going through very desperate situations right now.

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Fathers, we have an opportunity to praise and lift you high in song. I pray that you would make this much more than an exercise of our vocal cords, that you would make this an exercise of our hearts in praise to you, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Thanks a lot to the band for leading us and incorporating an awesome tambourine as well.

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Thanks Josh, teaching me a lesson. Last week, for those of you that weren't here, last week

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I made a comment about being grateful that nobody has brought their own tambourine. So Josh brought a tambourine this week.

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Although it is a little bit different when the professional musician up here brings their tambourine.

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So, oh, there we go. Thanks Josh. No, I do want to remind you to make yourself comfortable at any time during the message if you need to get up and get more coffee or donuts or juice.

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Remember out the hall clear down to the end is the restrooms, men's upstairs, women's downstairs if you need those.

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Some of you might just need to stand up and stretch in the back if you, if you get a little bit sore in these chairs or whatever, take advantage of that.

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And let's jump in. Last week, we remember that Jacob fled from his father -in -law Laban and he was being chased.

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And he faced a military pursuit. His father -in -law came out, he had left, left his father -in -law in the lurch and so God had told him to leave but the way he didn't tell him how to leave and Jacob just kind of like up and leaving your employer without any notice,

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Jacob just took off. So Laban chased him down. And Laban was threatening but in the end,

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God appeared to Laban in a dream and told Laban to chill. He said, take it easy, don't get violent with Jacob, Jacob's my chosen man, so chill out and don't, don't cause any ruckus.

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So Laban and Jacob made a covenant of non -aggression but in this covenant, a border was set up between the two of them.

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Remember they set up a heap of stones, each called it a name, they made a covenant together, you don't pass over to that side,

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I don't pass over to this side and may God be the judge between the two of us and so there is no turning back for Jacob now.

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This is a case in scripture where somebody burned a bridge. Now some of us maybe have had bridges burned behind us, maybe it was our choice, maybe it wasn't but you know how that feels to not be able to go backwards anymore?

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And that's the way that Jacob is, forward is the only direction for him, backwards is a breach of covenant with his father -in -law and they have separated ways and so what we see in our text this morning is a classic out of the frying pan into the fire.

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He has left the frying pan of Laban and now what's in front of him? His twin brother

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Esau is in front of him, the one that he fled from a while ago. But immediately as Jacob turns away from Laban to continue this journey back home to his people where his twin brother was seeking his life and seeking to kill him last we knew twenty years prior to the events that we're reading, he runs into some angels from God.

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Now this is obscure and unclear on multiple levels, you read it and it's probably as obscure to you as it is to me.

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It says he ran into some angels so he named the place Mahanaim. A couple of different levels, we don't really know what the angels said, what purpose did they serve in approaching him, what did they look like, why were they there?

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The only thing that the author tells us is that angels came to Jacob and so keeping strictly with the text

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I'd like to suggest to you that angels came to Jacob. He knew they were angels, he named that place

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Mahanaim which means two camps. I think that there might be a little bit more to it than this but not much.

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Jacob's view I believe was once more open to the reality at this crucial point in his life that there's more going on in life than just what you see.

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There's more than what meets the eye. What he perceives in his mind as one encampment of his people, his flocks, his family is revealed to be two camps.

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His camp and the camp of God, the angelic camp that is all around him. God once again reveals to Jacob that there's more that's going on like the blinders from his eyes are peeled back from that which is only visible and he sees what's going on behind the scenes in the invisible realm.

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And just like the encounter at Bethel when he encountered the stairway to heaven, that ladder,

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Jacob's ladder, Jacob is surprised to find that God is there watching over him. God is still involved in his life and he's there.

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Now if you were Jacob and you were on your way back home knowing what you know about the book of Genesis, knowing what we studied and some of you have been here and some of you haven't so you're not going to necessarily have a quick answer to the question but how would you be feeling heading back to see

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Esau, your brother? Any of you a little bit scared? Would it be reasonable that there would be some anxiety on your part if you were in Jacob's shoes heading back to see your brother?

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Who had threatened to kill you? The whole reason you've been gone from home for 20 years is because your twin wanted you dead and the only consolation, the only comfort he had, the only reason he could lay his head on the pillow at night and fall asleep peacefully is the thoughts of you dead, okay?

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That's what the text told us earlier. He took comfort and solace in the thought of killing his brother Jacob. Sound like a good family reunion?

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Okay, anybody signing up to head back for that? Probably not super excited about that.

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Remember that Jacob stole his twin brother Esau's inheritance and then he stole his blessing and so that's why

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Esau threatened to kill him and that makes this meeting that we see in our text all the more stressful as 20 years have passed.

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So Jacob in his anxiety decided something wise, he says, I'm going to send out some messengers ahead of me to find out how

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Esau's doing. Good idea to not just be the first to meet him but send out some messengers and let him know you're on the way, prepare him so that you don't just show up and he runs you through with a spear and that's the end of the story, right?

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So he sends some messengers along. He wants to be over the top in his kindness to Esau.

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So you see that in the text, you see the way that he interacts through his messenger. So he calls

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Esau his lord, a term of a superior to, I mean an inferior to a superior.

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He refers to himself as Esau's servant. He directly asks for his favor.

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He puts Esau in the driver's seat here. He says, you can run this meeting, okay?

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You can run this. I'm your servant. I am just, I'm just here as, and he calls him lord, lowercase l but a term of inferior to superior.

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Jacob also informs Esau that he's become very wealthy. This is kind of crucial in one way. It's showing that he hasn't returned to steal anything from Esau.

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He hasn't returned to subjugate him or to bring him under his control or to conquer him as Esau might naturally think.

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He wants to let him know that he is self -sufficient and he's doing okay. He's trying to win

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Esau over, isn't he? Some things have changed in Jacob. He wants a cordial meeting with his brother, but he has every reason to assume that this is going to be anything but a cordial meeting.

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Would you agree with me on that? Does he have the right to assume the worst in this situation? That upon meeting

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Esau, Esau in his wrath is going to try to take him out. Now how many of you know that it's just better to treat people kind in the first place?

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That way you don't worry about these kind of meetings? Now some of us in reality, you go back in your past and you're like, I hope

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I don't run into them again, right? Or worse yet, you know, the kind of, you know, digitary communication that happens on the highway might turn out to be your next door neighbor.

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They might be the ones moving in next door. So, I mean, if you think about the way that you treat people, what kind of kindness you're expressing to people around, and what

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I'm suggesting is that the kind person has fewer conflicts. Duh. Right?

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Is that pretty commonsensical? Yeah. But they also have fewer causes for anxiety.

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There is a way to live your life that's going to produce ongoing anxiety for you.

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There's a way of living your life that is constantly contradictory, is constantly critiquing others, is constantly serving yourself, that is going to result in a significant level of anxiety in your life.

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Are you getting what I'm saying in this? If I live my life with kindness, treating others as I would like to be treated, then I will find fewer circumstances that I'm uptight about.

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The chances of running into someone that's angry because I flipped them off is slim to none if I don't flip people off.

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Is that right? I'm just not worried about that. If you don't do that, you're good to go, on that front at least.

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Is there a reality in which Jacob's fear and anxiety is his own fault? Absolutely.

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He cannot very well shake his fist to the heavens and say, God, why is my brother seeking my life?

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Why is he trying to kill me? Why do I have this anxiety? Why am I pressed against this horrible situation in my life right now?

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Why have you done this, God? Does he have any justification for responding that way?

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Jacob doesn't because he knows the answer. He knows that he has brought this on himself, and he certainly is assuming the worst, right?

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Do you see that throughout the text? We're going to see that he assumes the worst -case scenario. And now in verse 6, the messengers return from meeting with Esau, and they have more fuel, as if Jacob wasn't already anxious enough, more fuel for Jacob's fear.

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Now we see him spiraling into fear here. Esau has told the messengers for Jacob come back, and they say, while we were there,

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Esau told his regulators to mount up all 400 of them, and they are on their way.

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They're coming. Now Jacob's assumption, imminent death. Esau has mounted up his regulators.

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They are riding out, and they are going to put a bullet in my head, and it's going to be over. And not only that, his fear is going to be shown here in just a moment, that he's fearful for his wives and children as well.

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Jacob has fear and not faith in his heart. Do you see that? Fear and not faith.

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Not only has God promised to be, think about what God has told Jacob, and then how he's responding. God has already said that he will be with Jacob.

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He has promised to bring him safely back to the land. He has promised to give the land to him.

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And he pledged that his older brother would be his servant. He need not fear

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Esau according to the word of God. But from a human perspective, does

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Jacob have anything to fear? From a human perspective, he has a lot to fear. It just goes to show that God could meet us.

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Sometimes I think we have this perspective that if God met me face to face, then everything would just go fine in my life and I'd be okay if he could just tell me what to do.

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And I'm suggesting to you that if God were to appear to you today and tell you the future, you would still struggle to trust him.

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Because you're a human, a fallen, broken human, who faith does not come natural to.

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Faith is a supernatural work of God in your life and in mine. And so were

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God to appear to you right now and you were able to just verify somehow that this is indeed God and he told you how everything was going to go down, you'd still find a few minutes later struggles to believe, struggles to trust.

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That's what we see in Jacob as an example of you and me. A model of what it's like to be a human in relationship with God.

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And it's a struggle. It's a wrestling match, if you will. We'll see it here literally in a moment.

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Well, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed and he's on his way to meet with Esau, his brother.

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And I forgot to mention this earlier, but Esau has already got some territory named after him.

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Seir and Edom were mentioned earlier in the text and both are plays on words of Esau's physical appearance.

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Edom meaning red, Seir meaning hairy. And it's funny, as soon as Esau comes back in the picture, we start talking about hair.

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This dude was like imminently hairy, uber hairy, okay?

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He's like, and maybe like Chewbacca, I don't know. But some of you know who

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Chewbacca is. Good job. You guys are so proud of you. That's awesome. I'm glad. But yeah, so he's on his way and it says in the text,

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Jacob is moved to a couple of emotions. He is greatly afraid, the text says, and distressed.

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Okay, a couple together. Greatly afraid and distressed. He is beside himself with fear is what we're looking at here.

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Technically, if you use these two words combined in Hebrew, they basically mean that he needed a moment to go clean himself up afterwards.

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Okay? Not technically, but kind of. It's extreme. It is extreme what the text is trying to communicate to us about how terrified, utterly, unreasonably terrified

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Jacob is in this situation. He is fearing for his life. Jacob was good at getting himself out of tough situations, though, and as fearful as the text wants us to understand he really is, he still has learned over his many years of cheating, conniving, and running to come up with a plan in a moment's notice.

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And so he doesn't let his emotion get in the way. He comes up with a plan instantly, proves himself to rise to the occasion, and he divides his camp into two so that if the first is attacked by Esau, the second camp can escape in the night and get away so he can save some.

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How do you think he divided that camp? How many of you would like to be one of those people that he put out in front?

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Like, wait, what am I doing out here? How did this happen? Did he tell everybody his strategy? Okay, you guys go up there in the front.

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We'll be back here kind of hanging out, and you guys let us know. I mean, if we hear anything, we'll come and help.

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Probably not. But joking aside, I'm joking with myself up here apparently, but joking aside, most of us turn to planning first, right?

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We turn to planning first when a crisis arises, when difficulty comes. When confronted with a problem, we plan our way out of it.

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When we are distressed or in trouble, the wheel starts spinning, and we try to think our way out.

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Isn't that the American way? Think our way out of the problem. We've been educated. We've got problem -solving skills.

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We can get through this. But the truth is there are times in life, and I'm sure everyone in this room has experienced it to some degree, when circumstances bring us face -to -face with our own inadequacy, our own inability, we come up against a wall, and we say,

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I am trying to plan here, but I don't even know if my plans will work.

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Most of us recognize that even some of our most surefire plans still backfire in our faces. Many of us have had that happen, where it just seems like this is locked tight.

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This plan is, I mean, how could that go wrong? It crumbles. It's done. Anybody have that?

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Anybody been there? It's just like, this just seems like, this is going to work. Nope. Jacob, in a moment like that, amazingly,

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Jacob turns to his God.

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Did you hear what I just said? Jacob. If you've been following along in this series, if you've been listening to these messages,

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I just said something profound. Jacob turns to his

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God and says, I am your, what's the word?

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Servant. I am your servant. Has Jacob had a God? Eh? He's had a

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God call him out, a God who said, I will be with you, but has Jacob firmed that up and said, yeah, you're, he said, no, if you take me back to the land, if you give me blessings, if you give me a, just like a human, what would we expect a human to do when

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God comes to him and says, hey, come and be my person? Well, what's in it for me? Jacob does just what many of us would do.

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What's in it for me? Well, I've taken applications for God. You can be my God if you bless me and you bring me back to the land.

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But here, something has changed. He who considered Yahweh to be the God of his parents, the

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God of his grandparents, now we see him turn to prayer. And this, by the way, amazingly,

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Jacob, the swindler, the cheater, the liar, the deceiver, records the longest prayer in the book of Genesis, right here in our text.

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The longest recorded prayer in the book of Genesis. In his fear, in his moment of need, he acknowledges the

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God of Abraham. He acknowledges the guide of Isaac and the God who approached him and told him to return home.

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And he calls himself this God's servant. And the comment that we see here at the end of verse 9, the end of verse 9 says,

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And Jacob, O God of my father and Abraham, O Lord who said to me, Return to your country and to your kindred that I may do you good.

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He is ultimately reminding God, I'm trying to obey you here, God. The reason that I'm in this situation is because you told me to go home.

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I'm going home, but I'm up against Esau now because you told me to go home.

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There are times, I believe, when in life it's completely appropriate for us to let God know, We're trying to honor you.

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We're trying to obey you. We're trying to follow you. We're trying. And I just need you to open doors and I need you to shed some light because I am not figuring out what your plan is moving forward.

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I think I know and I think I've got it. And it seems like you've communicated clearly what you desire of me, but I tell you what, it looks like I'm going to lose my job if I obey you.

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It looks like I'm going to have to eat a huge piece of humble pie if I obey you.

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It looks like I'm going to lose a friend if I obey you in this. Are you getting what

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I'm saying? How we can come up against it and just kind of say, well, turn it back and say, God, I want to obey you. I want to follow you and I'm trying.

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But be sure that if you say it, it's true. And I know that we can get all kinds of mixed motives in ourselves for why we're doing what we're doing.

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Are you trying to obey him? Are you trying to walk with him? Jacob is returning to his homeland because God told him to.

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But probably the most jaw -dropping, striking, and glorious comment in this prayer comes in verse 10.

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I don't expect after having studied Jacob to hear these words from his mouth. Look at verse 10 with me.

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I am not worthy. I'm not worthy.

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I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to me, your servant.

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For with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. I am not worthy of the smallest of the kindness,

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God, that you have shown me. Is that our attitude? I'm not worthy of the blessings that you have shown to me,

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God. Jacob knew that he wasn't worthy of the love of God. I don't know if you've noticed this is a theme in the pages of Scripture.

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But God delights in our humility. That is why Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners.

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They were humble and they knew their unworthiness in his presence. But Jesus reserved the most scathing comments for religious types who thought they had it all together.

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You ever notice that? In the way that he interacted with people while he was here on the earth?

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But in prayer, Jacob identifies himself as a servant of God and tells him he has been unworthy of the blessings he has received.

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I don't deserve this, God. I don't deserve anything that you've given me. He says, I crossed the river with only the shirt on my back, so to speak.

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It's a figure of speech. It says, only my staff. I really believe he was wearing clothes. He wasn't crossing the river naked, so just with a staff in his hand.

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I think he literally had a staff and some other stuff with him. But it's a figure of speech.

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Like, I crossed this river with just a shirt on my back. Now you've made me two huge camps. And he is bringing a huge camp divided into two with people and flocks.

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In verse 11, he makes his request clear. He's still praying, and he pleads for deliverance by God from the hand of his brother.

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He has right to fear retribution in this situation. He has right to think that he has what he deserves coming.

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He assumes Esau is coming out with murderous intent, and I love it that Jacob even admits his fear in his prayer, showing a willingness to open up and be vulnerable to God in his emotions.

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I find something powerful about using the words of my emotions in prayer to God.

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Have any of you ever experienced that? To actually tell God how you feel. There's something that's powerful about that.

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My question is, does God know how you feel? Does he know how you feel? Yes, he knows how you feel.

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But there's something powerful about admitting that in the presence of the Almighty, to say, I feel angry,

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I feel hurt, I feel burdened, I feel joyful. Think about it in these terms.

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When I confess to God what is going on in my heart, it brings things into perspective for me.

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To bring my fear to the one who controls everything kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

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To bring my fear to him who can actually do something about it. To bring my anger to the one who has shown me so much kindness.

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Have a little bit of a softening effect on your anger? To come to the one who has given you so many blessings?

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To bring my loneliness to the one who is always with me? Kind of obviously helpful, right?

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And in the end, the end of verse 11, we find that Jacob is not merely concerned for his own self in this prayer.

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God save me, God deliver me, God protect me. That's the prayer we would expect from Jacob. But the swindler is being transformed into somebody who cares for others, not just himself.

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And he is praying for his wives and his children, fearful that Esau is going to come and attack them.

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And the final movement of this prayer is to remind God of his promises. That's something I would suggest that we do regularly in prayer.

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Remind him of that which he has promised to us in Scripture. And reminding God of his promises is most often an exercise in not reminding him, reminding ourselves, right?

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In prayer, talking to God about the promises that he has made. As we pray in a biblically informed way, we will find two -way communication in prayer develops.

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Often in prayer, I'm reminded of what God has already given to me. Often I'm reminded of what he has promised to me.

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Jacob says to God in prayer, Didn't you say you would be with me? Didn't you say you would bless me with good?

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Didn't you say that you would give me a multitude of offspring and preserve my kids? And here they're up against it and Esau might kill them.

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And in his prayer, he has his answer. Didn't you say, didn't you promise me protection?

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And do you think that maybe he heard his own words and actually began to say, Hey, maybe, maybe you are protecting me.

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All he has to do is turn that around and realize that God is indeed keeping his promises. Even in his prayer, his answers are right there under his nose.

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And God has indeed promised these things, but Jacob is wrestling with trust. And how many of us think that if we were in our shoes and his cheated brother was bearing down on us, that we would struggle with trust?

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Would you be struggling? I think a lot of us would. A bit fearful. So he comes up with a further plan.

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He's divided the camps, that was plan one. Then he goes to prayer and now he comes up with a secondary plan. And he takes 550 animals showing some substance of his flock.

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He has a huge flock. 550 animals divided into seven waves, seven droves.

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He divides them this way. He has 200 female goats go out with a leader. He has 20 male goats go out with a shepherd.

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200 ewes go out. 20 rams go out. 30 camels with their calves go out.

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Huge gift. 40 cows with 10 bulls. And 20 female donkeys with 10 male donkeys.

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He divides them so that he can maximize the gift so that in each wave, it's progressively slowing down his brother and progressively blessing his brother.

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And he gets the benefit of each individual messenger uttering the same repeated statement.

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My servant Jacob wants to bless you,

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Esau. And so he keeps hearing that. He's strategic in this gift and obviously wise.

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Some see in this, by the way, a return of the blessing that Jacob stole from Esau.

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And I think there's something interesting about that. I wouldn't make too much about that being his intention because we're going to see here in just a moment that he has ulterior motives in this to actually appease his brother and satisfy his wrath and anger.

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But I think there's some reality to this. I do find it interesting that Jacob gives

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Esau an abundant gift amounting to a significant inheritance. If a father during this time left this many animals to a son, that would be significant.

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And here he leaves what amounts to basically an inheritance to Esau. All that I want to say by that is not necessarily that he intentionally paid back his brother what he stole, but that the blessed

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Jacob has encountered God. And regardless of motivation, he has in turn blessed the one that he has wronged.

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Do you see that? He's blessing him one way or the other. His motivation, of course, is appeasement and acceptance.

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When he finally sees the face of Esau, he wants him to be happy, not angry. He wants a happy Esau.

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Unfortunately, the translations into English miss a significant play on words that remains throughout the remainder of this text.

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Jacob fears seeing the face of Esau. It states that. He fears seeing the face of Esau.

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And the word translated appease into English is literally in Hebrew, to wipe the anger from the face.

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In the Hebrew text, the word face occurs in that phrase. Further, the word translated at the end of verse 20, if you look down at the text, that is the word accept, means to lift up my face.

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The word face in Hebrew literally appears in that phrase.

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So when Jacob says this in his heart, what he says is that he wants to wipe the anger from Esau's face so that when they stand face to face,

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Esau might lift up his face. Jacob's face.

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So, sound kind of cool? Like a little nugget of Hebrew poetry in the middle of the prose?

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That's kind of cool. Why do I bring that up? Just to show that I can do that kind of research or whatever? No, because there's something really cool that comes down the pipeline here.

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It just sounds like, okay, well, why so many mentions of face in this? Until we get down to Jacob coming face to face with God and naming a place here in just a moment,

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Peniel, which means the face of God. Jacob is concerned, throughout this text,

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Jacob is concerned with Esau's face. But were he to keep his focus on God's face, all other concerns would melt away.

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So he goes into the evening with his scheme underway. The president is moving out towards Esau, slowing his advance, hopefully melting away the anger of Esau, but Jacob is restless.

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Can you imagine that, the night before he meets with his brother? A little bit restless, not sleeping real well. So he's so restless that he moves his family in the middle of the night across the fords of the

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Jabbok River. Now, we know where that is in modern -day Israel. It's a really, really steep ravine where the fords are, and it's assumed that, of course, he probably crossed where the natural fords are.

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And so to move his family in the night, remember, they couldn't use the flashlight app or anything.

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So, I mean, in the dark, he moves his entire family across the river. And there in the middle of the night, it's curious whether he actually wanders across the river or whether he stays on the same side and wanders off alone.

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But he does, and in the darkness, near dawn, he encounters a man who wants to throw down with him.

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It's going to be WWF. They enter the octagon together, and it is like a no -holds -barred wrestling match going on here.

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Some of you know what I'm talking about. Others of you are like, what? They're going to wrestle. They're going to wrestle. I mean, I don't know.

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How does that happen? Like, you're in the darkness. I mean, can you imagine how amped up and on edge

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Jacob is? I mean, he's wandered off alone, and he's beside himself with fear, right?

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He's scared, and then he's accosted by somebody. How many of you think he probably fights for his life in this situation? You think he's got a little bit of adrenaline in the midst of the darkness.

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He's out there alone, and then suddenly someone attacks him, and he is a fierce warrior.

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He is strong. We mentioned earlier in the text that he was able to move a stone off the mouth of a well, that it took a few shepherds to move.

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He is a strong individual, according to the text. And the mystery man cannot seem to get the better of Jacob in a physical sense.

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He's wrestling with him, and he can't get the upper hand. And so because he can't get the better of Jacob, he dislocates

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Jacob's hip, which sounds a lot to me like getting the better of Jacob. Anybody ever think that in the text? It says he can't get the better of him, so he dislocates his hip.

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Well, if you can dislocate someone's hip at will, you've got the upper hand. Would you agree with me on that? And the text is intended to imply that, that this individual...

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And by the way, have you ever noticed how obscure this text is? At the beginning of this text, does anybody know who in the world this man is?

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It's written in an awesome way. The author drawing us in in the same way that we feel the text, like Jacob would have felt the experience.

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He has no clue who he's wrestling with at the start. But over the course of this wrestling match, he comes to a conclusion that we're meant to come to, too.

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Because the word that's used for touching his hip to dislocate it is not a violent word.

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It's touch. He touches his hip, and it is torn out of socket.

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How many of you think that would be... You'd be up against it. If somebody you were wrestling physically could just touch your hip and dislocate it, it'd be like,

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I'm out. I'm out. You got the upper hand. I'm good.

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I'm good. I'm good watching. I'll watch. We'll let somebody who knows wrestling, like Greg Nitzel or something, we'll let somebody who can wrestle.

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You give him a shot. So he dislocates

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Jacob's hip. But we find out that he does it just by touching. It's not a violent word. And Jacob shows his perseverance.

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Listen to this. Jacob, even with a dislocated hip, will not let him go.

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Anybody think that Jacob has a bit of a control issue and is kind of just a scrapper?

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Did Jacob just gain some respect in your eyes? Some of you guys are like, ugh. He's dislocated hip, and he is clinging.

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He is the grasper. That's his name. His name means grasper or swindler. But, I mean, that's the euphemism, the word, grasper.

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And he is not letting go. And so the strange man says, uncle.

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He says, let me go. The light is coming. Let me go. Because he doesn't want to be identified in the light of day.

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This individual doesn't want to be seen, doesn't want to be revealed. And so he says, uncle.

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But Jacob refuses to let him go until he receives a blessing. He says, no, I'm not going to let you go. I'm going to keep holding on.

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By this point, I think that Jacob has some clues as to who he's wrestling with and that he's at least wrestling with a messenger of God in order to actually ask him to bless him indicates something about that.

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The man was able to dislocate his hip with a mere touch, but what happens next removes any doubt from Jacob who he's wrestling with.

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Now, if you don't understand what's happening here, at first blush, the question, what is your name, to Jacob, sounds like it's not

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God that he's wrestling. Anybody with me on that? Like, wouldn't God already know his name? Like, what's going on here? There's something significant that you need to understand.

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Whenever God changes a person's name, he changes their name from something to something.

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So God wants to remind Jacob of something in asking him, who are you?

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What is your name? God wants to change his name from Jacob to something.

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And here he wants Jacob to confess. Jacob, whenever he said his name, was a confession of sorts.

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He has been Jacob, the grasper, the cheater, the heel. And ironically, here he is grasping as he must admit what he has been.

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A grasper, always trying to get more. If God were to meet with you and ask you what your name is, figuratively speaking, not the one that your parents gave you, but what word really defines you, what word really incorporates your

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MO, how you roll, what would you have to say to God in honesty? Every time

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Jacob said his name, he was confessing something about himself. What would we have to say?

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Petty whiner? Thief and deceiver? Pervert? Hostile?

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Gossip? Violent? What would we have to say if we were to reveal our true character?

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Jacob had to say, every time someone asked his name, a word that sounded just like his personal struggle with his sin.

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But no more. But no more. Did you hear me?

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No more. God, in his grace, changes his name.

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The stranger in the dark has the authority to take the pain and misery of a life lived for self and turn even the messy parts to good use.

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And the one who has cheated and swindled and grasped his way through life is now going to be known as the mighty wrestler of God and men.

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He will be known as one who has prevailed with the help of the Almighty. He has wrestled with God.

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He has wrestled with Esau. He has wrestled with Laban. And he is an overcomer.

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And in this encounter, Jacob receives his comfort in the turmoil of a wrestling match. I see that as ironic in his life.

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He receives his blessing. He receives also equally a rebuke for asking the man's name.

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But he does receive his blessing. So what's that about? What's the deal about him asking

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God his name and God refusing to answer? We'll get there here in just a second.

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But Jacob names the place Peniel or Penuel. Both translations mean the exact same thing because that's the place he encountered the face of God and lived to tell the tale.

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And the name Peniel or Penuel means face of God. Jacob leaves, by the way. Jacob leaves without a doubt that he has indeed wrestled with the

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Almighty in flesh. And I cannot help but wonder if this mystery man declined to share his name that night because were he to reveal his name, he would spoil the miraculous entry that he had planned and the name that he would be given by Joseph and Mary.

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To think of a human incarnation of God ought to make us think about Jesus Christ.

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And I wrestled with whether or not, I wrestled, get it? I actually wrestled this week with whether or not to actually incorporate that.

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Some commentaries really go heavy on this. Oh, this is Jesus Christ in flesh wrestling.

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And others are like, eh, whatever. I think when we hear about a physical manifestation of God in human flesh, should we not think about Jesus?

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Should our minds not go there in turn to Him? And he said, no,

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I don't want you to see my face in the light of day, and I don't want to tell you my name. The sun rises on a changed

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Jacob, and he limps off into the sunrise, tired, worn, with a limp, but no longer

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Jacob. But he hobbles back to his family as Israel, the overcomer.

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He has encountered God, and God has assured him he is with him.

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And our text concludes with a brief mention that Jews avoid a certain cut of meat to commemorate this event down through the days of Moses, at least.

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Moses being the author of this, at least up until their days, the words are just not, you know, they didn't really include a lot of graphs of how they would slice up meat in those days, and so we don't know exactly what cut of meat it was that they wouldn't eat, but it's clear in the text.

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Jacob was moved to prayer, though, in this text, in the midst of his fears, in the midst of difficulty.

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When he was pressed against it, he was finally moved to a place of talking to God. He confessed his fear.

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He admitted in humility how unworthy he was of God's blessings, and he pleaded with God for deliverance.

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A relationship with God doesn't mean that problems and fears and tough circumstances all go away, but it means that we process them in a different way.

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We have access to the one who is in control of our lives. I want to challenge all of us to not wait until we find ourselves in dire straits before we turn to the

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Lord in prayer. Don't wait until you're pressed up against it to communicate with your

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Lord. Talk to him in the good times. Talk to him in the bad times.

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And pray to him in the in -between times. Be persistent in prayer.

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Wrestle with God and persevere in earnest desire. There's nothing wrong with that. It took fear of his circumstances to fuel this kind of connection with God for Jacob.

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And I don't want to suggest that that's completely bad. Some people have written against and spoken against the foxhole conversion kind of thing.

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You know, you're pressed up against it so you deal with God right then and there. I would suggest whatever it takes for God to move you closer to him is a good thing.

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I would suggest to you, boy, wouldn't it be awesome to just get to know him when things are going well. Draw near to him now.

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I think that's one of the biggest challenges in life, in honesty. One of the biggest challenges, one of the biggest struggles is when things are going well it's easy for our spiritual lives to just tank.

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We're self -sufficient, we can handle it ourselves. But like I said, God in his grace brings along challenges and difficulties that we might lean heavily upon him.

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Be persistent in prayer. Wrestle with God. And that highlights where I want to land finally in this message.

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God is calling all of us this morning into a deeper relationship with him. For some of you this might mean that he's calling you to come to him in humility, to acknowledge you are not worthy of his blessings.

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Some of us, that's where we're at right now. We are in our pride and we are sitting in our pride and we're like, I don't need any of this stuff,

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I don't need this religious stuff, I don't need God, I can do this just fine on my own. But maybe

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God would move in your heart to ask him to deliver you from the consequences of your sins.

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All of us, all of us sin. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, he will forgive you if you trust him enough to ask him to save you based on what

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Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. Where are you at on this journey of faith?

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Are you just starting to understand the promises of God? Then I'd encourage you to continue to look to him with faith and trust.

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Some of you are wrestling with God and in your fear you're clinging to him, pleading with him for a blessing.

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And you're in the thick of it, you're right now in the throes of the difficult circumstances. You have just got bad news this week, things have gone horribly wrong, things are not going well for you.

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And you are clinging to God saying, please deliver me. And some of us have gone through those waters and are at a better place right now.

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You've encountered a change. And you are no longer Jacob, but you are Israel.

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And in our wrestling with God, he has ceased to define us by our sins. And how he identifies us now are as victors through his son.

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Because you have put your life over into his hands. And we remember the sacrifice of Jesus each week by taking communion together.

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If you have come to the place in your faith journey where you are trusting in Jesus for forgiveness, and you are walking with him, if you have recognized your weakness and inability to save yourself, and have cried out to him to deliver you with humility, then in your weakness, in your weakness, and I tell you if you have a genuine faith and you understand grace and you have come to the cross, then it is nothing for me to say, in your weakness, you know exactly what

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I mean. If you're in Christ, you own that word, weakness. You know what it means.

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But in your weakness, and in your poverty of soul, feel free to limp to the table and remember his awesome love for us all.

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Let's pray. Father, I am so grateful.

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So grateful for these examples that we have in the Old Testament of people who are just like us.

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That it's not this perfect story where everybody lines up and we just could never achieve the level of faith that Jacob had.

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But we see him in his crud and in his mess and terrified. Wetting himself because he's terrified of his brother.

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And Father, there we encounter a man who at the end of himself comes to you and wrestles with you.

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And you bless him. And Father, I recognize that many of us are at the end of ourselves.

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And Father, some of us need to be taken there. Some of us are not yet at the end of ourselves. We are still trying to plan and plot and divide the camp.

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And we are still trying to come up with enough gifts to appease. And trying to send those 550 animals forward to make you like us better.

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And in the end, nothing is going to be accounted to our credit. The only thing is going to be what you have done for us.

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You are the one who promised Jacob. You are the one who approached him at Bethel. You are the one who came to him here in the night and wrestled with him.

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And Father, I pray that if there's anybody here who does not understand what you have done for them, has not bowed their knee before you and asked you to be their

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Lord and Savior, that they would come and talk with me afterwards. They would come and find somebody from the band.

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Father, that we would be able to have a discussion that makes clear how Jesus has indeed offered himself on the cross for sins.

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And we remember that in this thing that we do every week. It's not merely a ceremony.

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It's not merely some kind of a memorial. It's something so much more than that where we as a group can partake of a cup of juice to remember the blood of Jesus that was shed for us.

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And to take that cracker and remember his body was broken in our place. That we remember what we deserved.

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We are not worthy, but that he took the penalty for us. And so Father, I pray that you would meet us here in this moment.

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And that as we walk away from here limping, recognizing that in the encounter with you, we have been changed and we recognize our own limp.

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We recognize our own faults, our own failures, our own inability. But we lift you high as the one who deserves all glory and honor and majesty and power and authority because you are the one who has saved us.