Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 32. Genesis 32, those of you have been with us for a little while in the last several weeks, particularly, we've been kind of talking about the character of Jacob and how a man who was truly God's man didn't start out obviously with some of the greatest character traits and qualities, and yet God is working in his life to bring him to a place where the blessing can not only rest upon his life, but particularly that blessing can flow through his life towards others. We all know that until God changes us, we're going to have some real challenges in life. And until God begins to take some of our personalities and our kind of a nature within us and reshape it, we're probably not much good or usefulness to the things that God wants to accomplish.
Genesis 32 will begin by looking at verses 22 and read down through the end of the chapter. Genesis 32 will start with verse 22. Now that night, Jacob got up and he took his two wives and his two maid servants and his 11 sons and he crossed the forward of the Jabbuk. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
So Jacob went was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, let me go for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
The man asked him, what is your name? Jacob, he answered. Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome. Jacob said, please tell me your name.
But he replied, why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place penile saying, it is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared. The sun rose above him as he passed penile and he was limping because of his hip.
Therefore to this day, the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon. Let's pray. Father, we are humbled by the fact that you are a God who not only chooses to look upon our lives with a personal desire to accomplish your own plan and purpose in our lives, but Lord, you involve yourself in ways that that change is in some sense going to take place. And yet it's so much easier in life when we find ourselves wrestling with you for the right reasons.
We pray, O God, as we journey through life that we not only appreciate some of the ways in which you've accomplished your purposes in the past, but may we discover the beauty of the application on how we find and experience the kind of lifestyle or character transformation that you truly intend to accomplish in us. Lead us and direct us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, some of us are probably well familiar with this story.
Some of us may have heard this story many different times and also understood about some of the application to that. Maybe you're even here today and it's a whole new story to you. We need to recognize that this story is really about a kind of a unique kind of situation. Many times in the Old Testament, we know that God has revealed himself through dreams and visions and sending angels to minister to his people.
Sometimes God would raise up a prophet and send a prophet to speak into the minds and hearts of people. This one, God kind of rolls up his sleeves and enters into a wrestling match with a man by the name of Jacob. And so sometimes we kind of think in our mind, well, how could this be? Well, if we get stuck on the how to, we're going to be stuck.
What's important to understand is that each and every one of us, whether we are aware of it or not, we get a wrestling match now and then with God. Because some things we readily respond to and appreciate and value in life and other things we have this tendency to resist and to fight and to struggle against some of the things of God. In order to follow God or to walk humbly before God, you and I must wrestle with God at some point in our lives. It's one thing to have heard about God and what he might be like.
It's another to wrestle with God and discover what he really is like. The interchange in our lives doesn't happen simply because God wants to accomplish something in our life. That change that takes place is because through those wrestling moments in our life, we ultimately yield to God's purpose and plan alive. So far as we've examined the life of Jacob, we have discovered that he's a man who was born as a grabber.
He had a very strong-willed type of personality. He had nature which seemed to drive him and determine to use that to control his circumstances and people around him. He had the need to win every time he entered into a kind of wrestling match with other people. Last week we particularly realized when we look at the life of Rachel and Leah, he obviously had his hands full with the wrestling in his house and all that took place within that particular story.
Sometimes it's easy to understand and pinpoint that a man will reap what he says and other times we fight even against that. We don't always understand that some of the challenges we go through in life, we sort of have added to the complexity of that and God indeed wants to fulfill his purpose and plan. Most of us have at some point experienced various unique challenges when people have these strong-willed personalities. Every one of us knows that it's not always easy to live near beside or with a grabber.
When a person has a grabbing personality, they have a strong-willed personality, they have a nature to always win every argument or every kind of situation, that can make life extremely difficult. God is in the business of changing us even as we have a grabbing personality. Now some of us might say, well, I'm in the complete opposite. Well, sometimes we're grabbing a different kind of fight than entering into the fight.
Either way, we have a tendency to like to be in charge, we like to be in control. Jacob stands out as it's very clear. He's a grabber right from the womb. He's a grabber after his brother's blessings.
He's a grabber as he's dealing with Laban. He's a grabber for the right wife and somehow God in his humor and maybe in his unique way of bringing him to a place where he has to learn to fight the right kind of fights and to wrestle with the right kind of issues so that the grabbing can be that which is pleasing to God for spiritual things versus grabbing for things of this world. A grabber doesn't really see themselves as controlling any more than you and I would notice any of those unique elements in our life. We don't necessarily even know if we're really that strong willed until you meet someone who is also a grabber and also very strong willed.
And then we discover the kind of personality we really have. Typically we interpret life if we are a grabber by calling it something different than having a personality that's trying to grab more than our fair share. We would sometimes say I'm just taking care of myself. Other times I got to make the most of every opportunity or somehow it's survival of the fittest.
Well, if you're not sure when your grabber just get married to a grabber. The biggest challenge for a grabber, as we think in terms of life, is dealing not simply with the resistance or the opposition around them, but many times the hardest thing to deal with if we have a strong little personality is to deal with ourselves. Grabbers often have a tendency to want to win and they often become very frustrated or discouraged because they lose now in them. As we know that living beside or with a grabber can be quite interesting, but that's nothing compared to a grabber living with another grabber or a grabber living with someone who has no fights within them.
That really will frustrate a grabber because there's no fight, there's no tension, there's no conflict. Why do we need to say all this? I simply want us to realize unless we learn in a healthy balance how to grab for the things of God and wrestle with the things that matter, then whether we have a personality or being a grabber or we have a personality to be a peacemaker, you and I both, I revealed in case you didn't know I'm a grabber, we all need God to grab us as we're pursuing him. We all need a healthy wrestling match now and then in order for us to be shaped and transformed into his will and plan.
Last week as we considered the family drama of Rachel and Leah, and then Jacob had to deal with Laban for all those years as a grabber himself. For 20 years, Jacob has been wrestling with other people. God has now come and intervened in his life to teach him a lesson. Now many times we looked at these stories in the Bible.
We'd like to think, boy, if I could just wrestle with God one night and get this thing over with, then I could move on to my grabbing business in life. But we also realized that as we keep journey in life and we keep growing, that the grasping or the wrestling with the issues that God wants to do in our life are really an ongoing lifestyle. But to represent the leader of God being the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, God must work in Abraham's life in a unique way. He must work in Isaac's life in a unique way.
He's got to work in Jacob's life in a unique way. And regardless of the personalities, God wrestles with each and every one of them and he wrestles with you and I. Before God could actually use Jacob as a leader of that nation, he had to break him in some sense in a wrestling match. And that is important that you and I, we can try to fight the breaking process of God.
We could try to fight against the surrender life. We could try to fight against so many of these things. And all we do is postpone the 20 years outside of the promises and the land of promise. What is this grabbing really all about?
I simply want to jump ahead and try to get to the application because it's important to know that though we may not always feel we're wrestling with God, I think it's a lot more common than most of us are willing to admit. But there's a lot of issues that play into the mix of a life that finally yields to the will and the purpose of God. The first thing I want us to consider is a bound in 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4. One of the kinds of things that we find as God is beginning, especially to deal with us in life, is the kind of wrestling that ultimately we need to work through and come to terms with the fact that God is trying to grab us.
And yet we need to keep reaching for God in these particular areas. 2 Corinthians, chapter 4 and verse 2. The first one is the conscience. 2 Corinthians, chapter 4 and verse 2.
We find the apostle Paul is utilizing something that is common in humanity. And as he promotes the purpose of the land of God, as he's proclaiming the gospel throughout the world, he builds upon one fundamental factor that everybody has a conscience that is wrestling with God. 2 Corinthians, chapter 4 and verse 2. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways.
We do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God in the contrary. By saying forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Now, I realize I'm somewhat taking it out of context, but you and I need to realize and acknowledge, particularly if we have a grabbing strong willed personality, is that sometimes the most basic fundamental fight that you and I go through is dealing with our own conscience. Now, some of us have a conscience that's been conditioned more as a sensitive conscience.
Some of us are conscience. Well, it doesn't operate so well, because we have learned how to condition ourselves, do not listen to that quiet internal voice. I know that at a very young age, our conscience is somewhat shaped by experiences in life. Maybe it's shaped by some traumatic experiences in life.
It might be shaped by the conditioning of how we saw it in operation among maybe our parents or friends or the people we hung around with. Certainly, when we get the teenage years, your conscience either has a means of somewhat keeping the boundaries. Or you and I, we are loose cannons in those particular years. It's important to understand that God doesn't just let you hang with your own conscience.
He works with the conscience, and he touches the conscience, and he moves the conscience to bring us to a place where you and I know he is God, and we don't even need proof. We know one thing. You can't get away and run away without your conscience. But you can cook it.
You can fry it. You can beat it up. You can turn up the volume in life. One thing that is universally important is everybody, at some point, has to wrestle.
Am I going to let my conscience continue or be my guide in life? Fortunately, God in His grace and His love and mercy is able to help us have these moments of clarity in life when the conscience says, where in the world do you think you have been for the last so years? It's the conscience. Some of us might still be wrestling with the conscience.
We're not quite sure whether we're going to let God win on this one. But you and I need to realize, part of the wrestling that Jacob had to go through is he had to look back on life and realize, what have I done to my brother? What have I done to Laban? I mean, all these things play in in the conscience.
Sometimes, we can condition ourselves to say, it was all simply business. We can go through life and justify and rationalize a lot of things. But one thing that's important is everybody has to wrestle with their conscience at some time. The hope of us or the hope of God continuing to work in our life is that somehow we have these times when we let the conscience do what the conscience is designed and intended to do because the conscience will not let you just stop, it will create a desire to move you and I ahead.
It's important to recognize and to consider the conscience. Now, how that works in everyday living, after you've come to faith and you've begun to move down the journey of life, maybe following God for quite a few years, is you and I need to realize the devil doesn't quit simply because that phase of life seemingly was settled. He will be back, he will come up with a new set of gimmicks and tricks in his book because he wants to work at the conscience. He's got your conscience beginning to think a little bit differently.
He can move in and pitch his tent and begin to do a lot more havoc. The conscience. What is that conscience ultimately intended to leave us? What is that purpose of that conscience thing?
It's not simply just a checks and balances. It's a lot deeper than that. Behind that conscience is what's found in Genesis chapter four. Turn there with me in Genesis chapter four.
We meet the first offspring that comes into the world. And many people have asked me when they talk about Cain and Abel and their intent to worship God. I'll simply jump ahead here in Genesis chapter four. They wonder where did they get the instruction that they're supposed to worship God and what was an acceptable offering and what was pleasing to God and which was not?
I am wholeheartedly convinced. That conscience is very clear. There's many times in life that you and I might need instruction or guidance in life, but there's some things in life that God is able to communicate to us all in the very beginning. The wrestling that we find ourselves maybe with Bob is not only in whether or not I will let the conscience be the predominating voice in my life or will I aim to please my friends and peers and pleasure kind of thing.
The second one that the conscience is intended to lead us to the door of and that is worship. Genesis chapter four. Adam lay with his wife in verse one and she became pregnant, gave birth to Cain. She said, with the help of the Lord, I have brought forth him and later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil and in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fact portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast.
Who just stopped right there? I think most of us are welcome. I know you with the story you and I need to realize that the conscience is supposed to bring you to the doorstep of worship. Now ultimately worship, there are many different styles and preferences in life.
And that's a question I often get asked as a pastor is your church is a little different than the next church and the next church and the next church and the next church. How do you know what kind of worship really is that which is pleasing except the little to God? I think the conscience kind of gives you a check in your spirit if you're listening to a God who says what is right and wrong, you ultimately are able to begin to develop a little discernment on which worship is pleasing and which is not pleasing. And there are times that we need to understand about worship.
It's really a sacred thing that we gotta wrestle through is worship about me or is about God. And so you could be in the perfect church with all the perfect worship styles and the perfect worship preferences and everything about worship can be truly pleasing, but we as worshipers, we may not be. It's fundamentally where you've got one brother and the argument is is which sacrifice was actually better or more pleasing to God. I don't think the sacrifice itself was so much what's important.
I think what's important is Cain definitely had a different attitude and approach to God in worship. And so however we want to understand it, I think it's important to know that worship is a wrestling moment in our lives. We either allow worship to be a very important place in our lives or it becomes less important. We either build our lives as worshipers or we simply worship as something we do.
It's either defines who we are or it will begin to dictate simply what you and I choose to do, worship is one of those wrestling times. Am I going to let my heart be set upon him? And so that worship ought to be pleasing not only as we come together maybe in a corporate setting, but that worship overflows into everyday many gritty details of life. Either I live with an attitude that light is about God.
And what I do and what I attempt to communicate is to God's glory, that his name may be lifted and his be praised. Worship is a wrestling match. It is a constant challenge. I can clearly remember as a new Christian beginning to come to faith in deciding whether or not I was going to humble myself and enter into worship.
It's one thing to simply sing a few songs and kind of go with the flow. It's another to say, Lord, my life has got to change. And somewhere within that courageous confidence, God could change my life. It had to do with an issue of the heart of choosing to be a worshipper of God.
A third thing that's important is what is called truth. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter four. We realize that the wrestling goes on. The wrestling is a complex web of many dynamics that will allow us to change and become the kind of people God wants us to do.
And God continues to make these things clear to us. But in the wrestling moments of life, we might simply run from God so that we can avoid the wrestling because we tend to believe that simply being a peacemaker like Jonah, I mean, he found a creative way that he didn't have to deal with the issues of what God wanted him to do. He simply got in the boat, paid the ticket and off. He went, we can laugh at the story.
We can chuckle about it, but then we cry because we realize, oh my goodness God, what have I been doing with my life? I've been running from you. I've been dodging your purpose and plan. There are things that I simply don't want to do or things that you are attempting to accomplish in my life and I have found ways of getting on a boat and getting out of there.
It doesn't make sense that you can run from God, but we all know it makes perfect sense. When you and I are struggling with this surrender aspect, we're struggling with the wrestling that God wants to do with us, it's easy to find a way to get a boat out of here. Okay, we're looking at the truth in Hebrews chapter four, verses 12 and 13. Now we know that the word of God is written here in verse 12, is living and active.
What that means is these words actually are alive and well. They communicate not only the thoughts of God, they communicate not only the promises of God, the word of God is alive and it's active, it's deep, it's at work in our lives, and then it says it's sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates even the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts, the attitudes of the heart, nothing at all creation is hidden from God's side, everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give a cow. It sounds like I'm in a hurry, I am, because this wrestling match, anybody ever wrestled, you don't get a break until the whistle blows. No, I'm trying to cram in a whole bunch of things that I think are extremely important.
When you and I are wrestling with God, I think we are well aware that you can tone down the conscience. There are creative ways of keeping that internal voice from doing what it's supposed to do. There's also ways of participating seemingly in those ideas of worship, but not really entering into the presence of God. We're not really opening ourselves completely up to the dynamics of who God really is and who we ought to be.
The third thing is you and I can find creative ways of being exposed to the truth, but it has no punch, it has no power, it has no penetrating effect, it's a wrestling match. And sometimes it's a matter of grasping a hold of God and saying, Lord, don't pass me by. I need your word to become alive and active. I need to penetrate between those thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.
We need the word of God to get deep within us, but we can find ways. I know that there are seasons in my life that I'm not so in tune to what God is saying to me because part of the conditioning of my role in life is to tell everybody else how they can get their life together. And God often has a creative way of taking me back to the conscience once again, taking me back to the flow of worship and bring me to a place that the truth can once again speak to me. You and I can be well aware of becoming so accustomed to the familiarity of truth that it loses the double edge of act.
And the wrestling isn't so much that God is gonna pin us down because he doesn't pin Jacob. He just changes his walk. That's important to understand. God isn't gonna pin us down.
He's just simply in the dynamic of wrestling. When we hang in there and work through the issues, our walk is going to be different. And that's the goal of us as followers of God is we do not wanna walk with arrogance or self-confidence. We need to walk with a limp because a limp is a humble life before Almighty.
And so it sounds brutal. It sounds awful to think that the golden life is to get beat up, but surrender is acknowledging that my faith, my confidence, my strength is in God, not in my own self-confidence. So truth is a constant wrestling match. It's learning to wrestle through so that that truth can once again do that penetrating effect in our lives.
Some would say what's the difference between the word of God speaking in your life and your conscience? Well, the conscience is something that sets the tone for worship and worship sets the tone for your interpretation of scripture. And the interpretation of scripture or its ability to penetrate will ultimately bring us to the next one of that's called obedience. I was just part of my family.
I'll tell you I was carving pumpkins yesterday because it was a pumpkin carving contest and all the kids were invited and somebody mentioned because we're in a prime Amish country. And some were kind of chuckling about this one Amish story about I don't know what they can use and can't use and somehow they had figured out that they were allowed to use this lawn mower as long as they didn't touch the lawn mower, they drug it behind a horse with a rope. And somebody said, well, that's really legalism. And of course they use that concept of legalism saying that that's simply a kind of, you gotta do it because God wants you to do.
And they took that to say that basically all obedience is legalism. And I thought, wow, it's amazing how that unless God is able to take us back to the door of the conscience, bring us to a place where we bow and worship. Once again, bring truth to the word. Ultimately it is to bring us to a place where you and I understand we are obeying God, not because we're afraid of a lightning bolt.
We are obeying God because we love him. And there's the difference between legalism. Legalism may be an understanding or commitment to God, not so much because of love but it's because of fear. So we do these things out of fear.
What you and I need to realize is that look, they might look exactly the same. In some sense, it's important to know that if I have some standards or you have standards that might be different in some sense because my conscience says one thing, my understanding and worship sees one thing and my attitude towards the word of God gives something which is important is whether or not it's out of love or I'm afraid that God is gonna get me. It's important to know obedience is a very important fundamental aspect in which God has invited us in the wrestling match. We have to ultimately decide whether or not we're gonna hold on to God and work through this obedience thing because there's no simple way of measuring do you and I obey.
Now we know that we had a couple of tricks about my daughter, well she says, watch this, I got my dog trained. The dog's there and he's got a cookie on his nose. You know how that works. So the dog isn't allowed to eat that cookie until the whistle's blown or whatever and he gets the treat obviously if he can catch the cookie in his mouth.
Okay, I hope that our obedience is a little bit different when we are followers of God, that we are not simply trained to catch the cookie but we have wrestled through the ideas of obedience. Turn with me to Romans chapter seven. Romans chapter seven, I'll start with verse 14. Now we know that the law is spiritual but I am unspiritual.
I'm sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do for what I want to do I do not do but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is. It's no longer I myself will do it but it's sin living in me.
I know that nothing good lives in me. That is in my simple nature where I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out. But what I do is not the good I want to do. No, the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do it is no longer I who do it but it's sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work when I want to do good evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law but I see another law at work in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am who will rescue me from this body of death.
The sad reality is there are many who interpret this as the normal lifestyle. And we quit wrestling with God over sin. It's sin become so much a familiar part of our life that we no longer are fighting to overcome. It's important to know that each and every one of these aspects are part of the wrestling in which God is taking us from one place in life and leading us to the next.
It's important to recognize that all we might allow ourselves to think that the conscience doesn't always have to be a piece nor does worship always have to be a priority nor does the word of God always have to be so penetrating and so real and alive ultimately does sin need to be wrestled with those obedience really need to become important in our life. Once again, getting the right answer isn't necessarily going to get a heart to the right place. And that's the sad reality. The sad reality is you and I are never going to attain perfection but our attitude at some point should be I am going to win.
I am going to trust the grace of God so that my life changes because I don't want to allow myself to think I have excuses on this area of obedience. I want to conclude to this what a wretched man I am who will set me free from this body of death in verse 25. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself and my mind am enslaved to God's wall but in the sinful nature I am a slave to the law of sin.
Chapter eight verse one, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus that sometimes is used as an excuse card. But verse two says because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life has set me free from this law of sin and death for what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature. God did by sending his own son in the likeness of simple man to be a sin offering and so he condemns sin in simple man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the spirit. I realize that as a big mouthful the point is are we done wrestling or shall we enter in again and say Lord get ahold of me.
Bring me to a place that I am not content simply staying who I am but may my grabbing spirit to be transformed into one that grabs for God and no longer is committed to grabbing everybody else and making life interesting for those around us. It's a long journey of transformation in life. The important thing is to trust that what God has begun he's going to finish and what God has called us to. We need to understand the way that our walk has changed is in the moments of wrestling.
There's God ultimately knocks us out of joint so that we can be our hearts in the right place. Our walk will look different. The external things of life will look different but the internal will in fact be transformed as you and I keep wrestling. It's easy to quit I know it is and we see to the left and the right and all around us in life we find there are people that are no longer coming to faith and experiencing a deep transformation.
There's many people come to faith and it's simply something between the head and maybe it's a little bit of the heart issue but that experience of depth and quality is something that only happens in the wrestling of a surrendered life. Another one of those has to do with your identity. I like that one song we sang, I'm a child of God and then what's it say? Yes I am.
Knowing who you are and ultimately deciding who you are, I mean the hardest thing about the teenage years is deciding whether you're in or out or out or in and who you're with and everything else but somehow in the Christian journey we ultimately have to decide whether or not we're going to be a Christian or not be a Christian and if we're going to be a Christian then we get connected to Christ and we begin to live a more resolved focus life. The wrestling is ultimately all right, I've settled the matter. I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back, okay you guys bought it, okay. We didn't realize ultimately though that we have enormous influence within the Christian community that hasn't quite decided what they decided and it's important to know that's part of the wrestling process.
The wrestling is that I have decided to follow Christ. I've begun to make this kind of commitment or resolve in my life. The Apostle Paul didn't quite get it until God wrestled with him on the road to Damascus. And some of us we are maybe in the midst of all that wrestling on the road to Damascus where we ultimately realized Jesus is I who is Lord and finally God begins to do one of those.
That's an important aspect. How about the one where Peter is kind of wrestling with Jesus when Jesus says before the rooster crows three times he will, crows twice, you will deny me three times and of course Peter right away is rather self assured he's fully confident until we have failed we've gone through again the wrestling process of being reinstated back into a relationship with Bob until we weep our eyes out in a heartbreak because we have let down Christ not once but not twice but three times somehow that wrestling is something you and I need to go through. I don't think there's any, I've never met a Christian who got it right from day one and a state day right? You know all the way through.
We are in the process of wrestling and ultimately we let the eyes of Christ penetrate into the heart and let it break us. Some of us were afraid to feel, were afraid to respond to the stirring or penetrating eyes of Bob you and I need to wrestle and let Bob get to the inside of us because that's what changes the way we walk and that's what takes that self confidence and that arrogance or that pride issue and causes us to be a grabber for the things that really count ultimately we find that John is experiencing in chapter 21. I'll, we'll read these in conclusion here. The Gospel of John 21 where Jesus then speaks to Peter after he's risen from the dead and he asks Peter do you love me?
And of course Peter is struggling with this and in verse 17 I'll read it. The third time that he meaning Jesus said to him, Simon son of John do you love me? Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time. Do you love me?
He said Lord you know all things you know that I love you Jesus said feed my sheep. And then I tell you the truth when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Jesus said to this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God then he said to him follow me. Peter turned and he saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them.
This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said Lord who is going to betray you? When Peter saw him he asked Lord what about him? Jesus answered in verse 22, If I want him to remain until I return what is that to you you must follow me? Ultimately the most powerful wrestling match that we will ever deal with in God is can we trust that the purpose and plan Christ has for me may be very different for the purpose and plan that he has for you.
But I've got to get my eyes off of the competition and the grabbing after what's over here over here and simply come to faith and say Lord this is about you. It's quite a journey some of us tend to fight things a little bit more than others. The important thing is that Jacob was born with a personality that made it rather interesting. I think it's just as much a valid concern that if we don't have any grabbing nature to us we've got to learn how to begin to not simply be careless or complacent in life but to understand we must seek God with passion and start grabbing for him in a healthy sense.
Either way we both have to come to a place where God is able to change us and he's going to take us through experiences that will seem like one long night of wrestling. Challenges, trials, disappointment setbacks the important thing is to allow our eyes to be open. Who it is that's trying to make those changes in life and whether or not we allow him to bring us to a place where the surrender ultimately is what winning is all about. Simply out doing the other person isn't going to change Jacob's life, it's when God begins to bring him to a place where he touches his hip, then his walk has changed.
I trust that that's our purpose and intent, that our walk is changed of one that is humbled and changed by the grace of God. Father, as we journey through life we realize that there's many ways of explaining or trying to illustrate the wrestling that goes on within our minds and hearts. We pray that your purpose and your plan will prevail, that ultimately that we might find ourselves reaching and searching for the things that really allow you to do your great work. Forgive us for the times that we have found creative ways of resisting the wrestling.
We pray God that you would enable us to once again experience some of the fruits of those dynamics in our lives. We give you thanks and praise in Jesus holding in. God bless you, have a great day.