Penuel

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. What a sweet time. Thank you, David. Just a good time with the body this morning. Glad to be here with you all. I'm not sure if you have caught up with the spiritual journey of a guy named Russell Brand. You've never seen him. This is what he looks like. He's right here, I promise. He's on this screen right here. It's this screen right here. It's that screen. There you go. It's right there. It's good. Russell Brand is actor, comedian. I'm sure you maybe have heard him say some pretty vile things, but in the last six months, he has gone from complete egotism to, in his words, quote, serving Jesus Christ. The man wants to follow the Lord. And what's most interesting, and it's a pretty interesting story, and it's really like since January, and he's just been kinda coming to faith and you can see some clips, it's pretty interesting. He's most open about his struggle in coming to Jesus.

He didn't, according to Russell Brand, he didn't just kinda waltz in and decide to follow Jesus. Here's a quote from Russell Brand, here we go. Repentance, repentance means that you have to continually change and acknowledge that I am in a battle against myself, that I need to surrender myself to an ever-present, eternal and accessible Jesus. That's, yeah, it's kinda wild, right? Like this guy's like, are you sure, are you okay? Did something happen to you? Cause this guy was off the rails. I mean, this guy was living the hedonistic life. This guy was just way, and so for him to just kinda watch that, just to watch that journey, and he's been pretty open about it,

and the thing that got my attention was the struggle, like how real he was. He's not just filming himself on a high or just saying how great everything is or anything, but I mean, it's just visceral. It's just gritty and I love that. And I love to hear him talk about it. And he admits actually, Russell Brand admits that the journey that he's on has been exhausting, but beautiful, exhausting but beautiful. And it's exhausting because you're just moving from one battle to the next. And look, coming to Jesus, which we're gonna be talking about this this morning, coming to Jesus is messy, it is uncharitable, it is frustrating, it is a fight, it is a wrestling match. And if you think that, oh hey, you know, I follow Jesus and it's just rainbows and unicorns all the time, man, I don't know if you're following Jesus, to be honest, I mean, not that I get to decide that,

but man, it's grueling at times. It's extremely difficult. And although we acknowledge that in theory, I think I could say that and you could feel that and you're like, yeah, I'm down, I get that. Our every desire is to have a nice, neat life that is free from despair and frustration and antagonism and wrestling matches, we don't want that. And sometimes, sometimes we hear about people that are dealing with things that we don't want to even think about. They're dealing with doubt, they're dealing with a big loss. And in our hearts, we want to kind of put distance there. We kind of treat them like a leper. We might be nice to them when we see them, but we're like, man, I don't want to catch what you have. I don't want that kind of despair in my life. I don't want that kind of frustration. And in our culture in particular, we kind of glorify this stress-free life.

We put on leadership podcasts about how we never have to, you know, we just never have to deal with this frustrating thing again. You know, like there's a way to get rid of it in our lives. We are, some version of the American dream is that we don't have that many problems. and the problems we have aren't that bad. And even translates whenever we read scripture. When we read scripture, we'll say, okay, I should have the peace that passes understanding. I should be able to do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We read scripture and we think that we need to be perfect on that. We think that we need to, maybe not perfect, but we need to not go through these major potholes, these major ditches, these major kind of car wrecks, metaphorically or literally. We don't want those things. We don't desire those things. We don't see the need for them. We don't understand them.

We run from them. Today in our Bible World Tour, where we're gonna be all summer, we are gonna be looking at a place called Penuel in Genesis chapter 32. We're gonna be in Genesis chapter 32 today in Penuel. Bible World Tour, we're just touring a bunch of different locations this summer, and we're not just learning geography or maps. We are seeing kind of how God reveals himself in these different locations, in these different circumstances, in these different eras.

And so today we're gonna meet Jacob. Jacob and his life really teaches us a lot about coming to the Lord. And we see the wrestling, and we feel the wrestling. And it's just good, and here's kind of what I want you to, what I want you to understand. If you are going to come to God, okay, if you're gonna come to God, then you must wrestle. If you're going to come to God, if you're gonna do that in any capacity, first time, millionth time, doesn't matter, if you're gonna come to God, you are going to wrestle. You must wrestle. You have to.

You must face the things that you believe will ruin you. You must trust God when it seems like he's not going to come through. That is actually the stuff, the warp and woof of coming to God, the substance of it. So let's look at the life of Jacob. In Genesis 32, we're gonna find Jacob, he's beginning to kinda wrestle through his past where we find Jacob in this moment in Genesis 32, some of his life has already been lived, and he famously tricked his brother Esau. He's an older brother Esau, but he tricked his dad to get his inheritance, to get his older brother's inheritance. So, and when he did, when he tricked his brother, when he tricked his dad, and he got his brother's inheritance, he ran. He hadn't seen his brother since that moment. And after that, he tricked his father-in-law out of a big portion of his estate. He kind of did some underhanded things, right?

And this is Jacob's lot in life. Jacob's name means heel grabber, which is a euphemism for like a trickster. So there's a famous trickster that I've watched on TV. His name's Loki, if you've ever seen. Look, when I'm telling you, there's some parallels here, man. If you've seen this TV show, that's a lot like Jacob. Okay, Loki is the trickster, right? But in this TV show, and I'm not trying to recommend this too hard, but he is kind of where Jacob is right here. He's kind of come to the end of his tricks, and he's like, wait, what kind of life am I building? Right? You know, like this is, so this is the story of Loki going from trickster to kind of this self-reflection and kind of figuring out, like maybe something's different. Jacob is in the exact same spot in this story. He's right here. He has tricked his brother. He's tricked his father-in-law, and he's kinda on the run, but he's striving for more.

And so in doing so, in striving for more, he reaches out, the beginning of Genesis 32 is, Jacob reaches out to his estranged older brother Esau. So it says, chapter 32, verse three, Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. And so he passes the messages on to him through his servants, verse five. This is what he says to Esau. He says, 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. So he's trying, Jacob in this moment is trying to settle debts. He's trying to move on. He's trying to say, look, I know things aren't okay between me and you, Esau. I'm gonna send all these gifts, and I'm gonna say, I'm real sorry with a cherry on top, please don't be mad at me, and please don't kill me. And he's serious.

Look, and we can kinda stop here for just a second. When Jesus calls us, when we begin to move toward Jesus, whenever we are going to come to him, There is a move in us to begin to assess our lives, and maybe not the grand scope, but maybe it's the last couple of months, maybe even a couple of weeks. And we begin to kind of assess, we know that we're gonna have to deal with something. And so, will it be this broken relationship? Will it be this job that I left bad? Will it be this old hurt that I have? Will it be this big regret? And we kind of begin to, so when we feel like we need to start moving toward the Lord, it's not always a move to clean up our lives, but it is a move to assess where things are broken, to assess where things are undone in a big way. Or yeah, maybe like a broken relationship or something potentially bad. And we both want to deal with it, like we wanna fix it,

but we're hoping we can just kinda do a little bit and move on. We don't really wanna get into the weeds of this whole broken relationship, We just want it to be okay again, right? And so we could, in kind of that first move, and this isn't sequential necessarily, but in that first move, like when we start going toward the Lord, we do begin to try to assess like what is going on in our lives. And so with hesitation, Jacob kind of begins to uncover the thing that he's really afraid of, which is his brother, right? All the brother that he's tricked, He's trying to settle debts, he's trying to figure that out. Okay, and the message that he gets back is somewhat unsettling. Verse six, it says, and the messengers return to Jacob saying, we came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are 400 men with him.

That's not exactly a Hallmark card, okay? And Jacob immediately goes into crisis mode. It says that he is greatly afraid and distressed. And what he does is immediately he splits his entire camp up into two different camps so that he can mitigate loss. Because he's thinking to himself, he's thinking to himself, if Esau comes and attacks my camp at least I had the other half that can kind of run the other direction and I've got half of what I got. So Jacob does not receive that well and he is freaking out. In fact, he's freaking out so much that he prays. Okay, and you don't see Jacob praying a ton in the, Jacob's not exactly this paragon of prayer or like a life that we should all live, right? Jacob's kind of a, he's a trickster, right? I mean, he's not this person that we need to necessarily emulate, but he does pray here. And this is a pretty interesting prayer.

I wanna read it in its entirety and so it's a couple of screens, but it's verses nine through 12. And so I just want you to hear this prayer as a prayer. You can read along if it helps, but you can just kinda listen to it too. 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. "'I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds a steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For with only my staff, I crossed the 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. 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.

Okay. This prayer is a little bit difficult to discern, much like Jacob, actually. Much like Jacob, his prayer seems to play both sides. It's both a concerning prayer and a really cool prayer. So on the one hand, it looks like, it looks like he's trying to get God over a barrel. It looks like he's playing his tricks on God, right? It's like he's pulling out the Uno reverse cards and he's like, look, you owe me. Remember what you said to me?

The timing and the tone in particular, the timing is like, he's praying when he's in trouble. He's praying, seems like he's just trying to cut his losses. To him, this prayer is like dividing his camp up in two. He's just doing, he's just trying to cover all his bases. But there's a tone, the tone even is that It feels like he's calling in a debt. You know, it's like you said to me, you said to return back, you said that you were gonna make my family like the sands of the sea, like the multitude. That's what you said and I'm calling in that debt. You said that to me and so now you better make good on it. I don't know if you've ever been in that kind of foxhole in your life, but I almost guarantee you that you've prayed that prayer in that foxhole, okay? There's just moments where we feel like things are just right here and they are 400 degrees, man, like we are about to be in it.

And we almost say anything to the Lord in that moment. We get pretty desperate. And we're praying and maybe we're praying like this. But our motives are shaky at best, right? We're in trouble. It's hot, you know? And we're in trouble and so we're praying. But then on the other hand, so remember, just both sides, because it's Jacob and he's weird. On the other hand, Jacob actually wrestles through the gospel in this prayer, which is super amazing, really, that he's wrestling through the gospel truth. Look at what he says, verse nine. So I wanna just go through each one. Verse nine. Verse nine said, said, you said, Oh God, my father Abraham, God, my father Isaac, oh Lord who said to me return to your country and your kindred that I may do you good, okay? So he's remembering the command that God gave him.

He's remembering the command. That's a really good thing to do. There's things that God has commanded you and I to do that we should remember and we should recite. That's a good thing to do, okay? Verse 10, verse 10 he's like great is your faithfulness, He's saying, he's saying, I am not worthy of the lease of all the deeds of steadfast love with all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, which is him, for with only my staff I crossed the Jordan and now I have become two camps. So he's saying like in the passage of time, so when I first crossed this place I just had my staff in my hand. Now that I'm crossing back over it, look at all that you've given me. That's kind of what Joseph is, that's what Jacob is saying right here, not Joseph. That's what he's saying right here. He's saying, you've given me all this and I'm not worthy of it. And that's a great thing to pray, right?

Like there's this confession, there's this confession before the Lord, like you have given me so much, I'm so thankful, there's no way I could earn this, right? That's a great prayer to pray. So he's remembering the command, right? He's confessing kinda his need. And then at 11, he gets to kinda the meat and potatoes, please deliver me from the hand of my brother. I'm going to die unless you intervene and I need you to do it. That's a good prayer to pray. God doesn't always appreciate all the window dressing that we put on prayer, right? He doesn't care if we pray in King James. He just wants us to just share our heart with him and sometimes our heart is I am greatly distressed and afraid, I'm worried for my child, I'm worried for my job, I'm worried for my marriage, I'm worried for my life, my health, I'm worried about these, I'm fearful of these things. God, no, I shouldn't be fearful.

I know that if I were a good Christian, I would not be fearful, but here I am fearful. I believe the Lord sees that and says, yes, thank you for your honesty, that is a good thing. The Lord appreciates when we come, and we, as the Old Testament puts it, we rend our hearts, we open up before him, right? That's always, always appreciated. And then verse 12, verse 12 it says, but you said I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for multitudes. So this is remembering the promise, right? This is Jacob reciting what is true in the promise that God gave him. So a couple chapters earlier in Genesis, God said this exact thing, same thing to him and Jacob is quoting it back to him and saying, You promise to do this. And I know I described it before as kind of trying to put God over a barrel, but it is a good thing to pray

and remember the promises of God, and to pray those promises and say, God, you promised. Remember that you promised this? Remember that you promised? God doesn't take offense to that. That actually happens several times in several prayers, the Old Testament and the New Testament, that people are praying the promises of God back to him. That's a good, good thing to do. And so I wanna challenge you. I wanna challenge, that's your model prayer now. Genesis 32, nine through 12, that's your model prayer. Okay, I know that the Lord, we have the Lord's prayer. I get it, I'm not trying to say forget the Lord's prayer. But try this one on, it's nice. See what's there. Maybe there's a command. God said to go and make disciples. God said to go and live a life that is pleasing to him, live a life according to the gospel. Maybe you confess, Romans 5a, maybe you confess that God showed his love for you by dying for you

while you were still an enemy, right? That's a good thing to remember. It's a good thing to be grateful, right? And maybe you ask for the things that you need, like if you're trying to make disciples, you're like, okay, Lord, give me favor with people. Don't let me get swallowed up in fear. Give me boldness and courage. Protect my reputation at work. Lord, I need these things. If I'm gonna do what you said to do, if I'm gonna live a life that you call me to live, then there's things that I need that I can't provide for myself and I need you to provide those things. And maybe, maybe you just kinda end that with a promise. You say, God, you say you'd be with me until the end of the age. You said the Holy Spirit would be convicting people, that the Holy Spirit would be working on people even whenever I'm asleep. You said that's true. You promised that that's true.

This is the model prayer. I would even encourage you if you listen to the worship songs that we sing, and I'm not saying you don't, sometimes you don't examine all the words that you're saying, examine them. You're singing a promise, you're singing a command, you're singing a confession, you're asking for something. That's the stuff of what we sing. This is what we talk about. This is how we share what's going on in our lives with the Lord and with each other. It's all kind of in terms of these things.

If you're gonna come to God then, you're gonna wrestle with your past, you're gonna wrestle, hopefully, you're gonna wrestle with some gospel truth, right? But you're also gonna wrestle kind of with your own abilities. If you look in the next couple of verses in Genesis 32, and we're gonna read them all because it's a long deal, but Jacob effectively tries to fix it with his own plan. It's a very elaborate plan. He actually sends three waves of servants. Each wave of servant has like 550 plus animals. And it's not just random animals, it's like male and female animals. So that effectively with each one, not just all of them together, but with each one, Esau who's receiving all these gifts, Esau could pretty much start his own herd. He could start, so it's like male and female everything that Esau needs. And so after it's all done, it's 1700 plus animals, right?

It's a gift of starting with your own farm. And it is a, it's like giving somebody a million dollars, right, it's not just that they now have a million dollars, but like think of what they could do with a million dollars, Think of what they could start with it. And so here's verse 20, if you skip to verse 20 all the way down, this is why Jacob did it. For he thought, Jacob thought, I may appease him, I may appease Esau with the present that goes ahead of me and afterward I shall see his face, perhaps he will accept me, right? Perhaps he will accept me. So you have Jacob really kind of playing both sides, He's just prayed this beautiful gospel prayer and he's hedging his bets. He's doing both, right? He's kind of hoping it works out. So he's kind of wrestling through his own ability. And I think whenever you and I come to Jesus, a natural question is like, have I done enough?

That's kind of a natural question that arises in us. Even with the best of our intentions, We're kind of wondering, like, did I obey everything the Lord asked me to do? Did I study for the test? Did I pray that He gives me an A on? Did I, you know, we're kind of counting costs and we're measuring steps and we're just trying to figure out, like, did we do right? Did we deserve this? That's a natural thing to do. It's a natural kind of set of questions

to kind of work through. But as you come to God, as you and I come to God, come to God, I think really our first move, even when we know the gospel, our first move usually is to usually try to appease God. Even when we know the truth, even when we know we can't do anything to please God, even though all we can do is kind of respond in faith, we still kind of run through the checklist in our mind, am I good? Have I done enough? Are we on good terms? when in reality, your terms with God aren't set by your behavior, right? Your terms with God are set by Jesus Christ on a cross and risen from the dead, right? But that's hard to remember when we feel like junk. It just is, it's hard, but we wanna earn it back. We feel like we're on the outs and we've gotta kinda wrestle through that. We feel like we need to keep up our end of the bargain. Maybe that's the best way to say it.

And the gospel says we can't do it. It's actually not up to us. And then verse 24, you kind of see the end, and Jacob was left alone. Verse 24, the beginning of it, it says, and Jacob was left alone. He actually sent everybody across the river, sent his wives, children, servants, herd, everybody. They're all across the river. Jacob's chilling in Penuel alone. And he kinda comes to the end of himself and if we're gonna come to God, there is a sense where we must first come to the end of ourselves. We've wrestled through our own ability, we've wrestled through our past, we've wrestled through gospel truth, we've wrestled through these things, but then at the end of the day, we kind of have to face God by ourselves. And I don't mean alone like being a part of a church is a bad thing, I mean that nobody can do it for us, right? It is a face-to-face kind of thing.

And we get the sense that finally that Jacob is ready to do business. So 32, 24, Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. Okay, so it says, all of verse 24. I know we just have a little bit of there but the Oliver is 24, and Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled him until the breaking of the day. So it says a man wrestled with him, however, that man is God.

And this happens pretty consistently in the Old Testament where God will come in the form of a man or sometimes in the form of three men, like he does with Abraham. Sometimes he comes in the form, like there's an angel of the Lord, and it's a little bit kind of a different, it's not just an angel, but it's a different kind of deal, where God comes in the form of a man and just deals with people directly like that. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen here. It happens a couple other times. And so Jacob is wrestling with God himself, which is really an interesting concept. It doesn't happen really any other time but here. And it's a really, it's both terrible and wonderful.

It is, I'm sure Jacob is scared out of his mind. He's wrestling with God himself. And look, this is, we're gonna get to us in a minute. We're gonna read the rest of the story, but I do wanna just say like, there is nothing like wrestling with God yourself. There's nothing, like nobody can wrestle with God for you. Nobody can work through the pain of whatever kind of trauma or whatever despair, whatever situation that you have,

people can pray on your behalf. But if you're going to kind of work through that, you need to meet with God on it personally. You need to go and pray and wrestle. You need to make the time to sit down and go, okay, God, look, I've been mad at you for a little bit. We got some things to talk about. I got my list. Let's work it through. And look, I'm not saying that's some picnic, but it is very necessary. So we're gonna look at a little bit of what Jacob did with wrestling. So he wrestled all night. Look at verse 25, it says, after wrestling all night, it says, when the man, when God saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, interesting, he touched his hip socket and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he'd wrestled with him. Now it is strange to say that he could not prevail against him and yet in the same thing, because you're just like, what does that mean that the man could not prevail against,

or did not prevail against Jacob? It probably does not mean that he physically could not overpower Jacob. Because in the very next sentence, he just touches his hip socket and it's immediately thrown out of joint, okay? And that's the actual, when you look at the Hebrew, that's exactly what it means. It means he just touched him. It doesn't mean he like, you know, like touched him, but I mean, it just, it's a touch and Jacob's hip is thrown out of socket. So if the man had that kind of power the whole time, and Jacob lives for the rest of his life, so this isn't like your basketball injury that happened last week. This is like a life altering injury, okay? So if the man could do that the whole time, how was Jacob prevailing? Or how could he not prevail over Jacob? What does that mean? I believe we find meaning in the next verse, verse 26.

Then he, the man, God, said, let me go, for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go until you bless me. Much has been made of this wrestling with God, right? And so is this like when a dad wrestles with his kids? You know, it's like, oh, you've prevailed against me. Like, you know, what are we dealing with here, right? How does this wrestling match kind of work?

I think it's here, man, I think it's in verse 26. I think we get it right here. I believe that God wrestles Jacob to see how long he's gonna wrestle. I truly believe that. I think that he's wrestling Jacob and I mean, he's probably got Jacob against a wall and Jacob, is he gonna give up? Is he gonna turn a run like he did whenever he tricked Esau? Is he gonna turn a run like he did whenever he tricked his father-in-law Laban. What's he gonna do? I think that's kind of the moment for you and I whenever we're wrestling with God, it's like what are you gonna do? Are you gonna take the day off work and go and sit in silence and pray and kind of work through your list and read scripture and you're gonna give that day to the Lord? Are you gonna do that or are you just gonna keep doing the next thing and just stay busy until you're dead? What are you gonna do, right? That's your choice in real time.

Like, are you gonna do that? Are you gonna wrestle with that? Are you gonna, and maybe it's not that the man was prevailed, it says that the man could not prevail, or did not prevail, excuse me, against Jacob. But like, there is a sense in which when you wrestle with God, it's like, what are you gonna let win, right? Are you gonna let busyness and distraction win? Are you gonna let laziness win? Are you gonna let like feeling like an idiot Christian, are you gonna let that feeling win? And just be like, you know what, this is like some next level stuff, I'm just not there. I'll just like focus on just trying to have my quiet time today, okay? I mean, bless you for where you are, that's cool. But if you feel like the Lord is calling you to do something, man, run to that. That's pain, that's frustration. But run into it, embrace it. And like, I'm not saying that with my mouth full.

I'm embracing a lot of that personally, right? I'm embracing some things that I'm just not super excited about. And I know that the Lord's in it. And if you wanna know, like we can go get coffee, it's fine, I'm just not gonna go into it all here. But I do wanna just say like, I don't say it lightly. I don't just kind of, it's not a flippant thing like, oh yeah, wrestle with God. No, I mean, that's a serious invitation. And that's something that you should do and should make time for, but it's still gonna be kinda your choice. And this is it, man, like,

if you're gonna come to God, you must wrestle. Everyone must wrestle, personally. Nobody can wrestle for you. You can't like delay it until like when you're ready, whenever that is, you know, I don't know. And when we do, when we wrestle, because everybody must, when we wrestle, we find out that it's not about finding out the answer. When we wrestle, we kind of discover that it's not about the discovery.

We, it's not about knowing more theology. It's not even about becoming more confident in ministry. All those things are great. But it's not about those things. God wants to wrestle because he wants to find you. He wants to refine your heart. He wants to make you into the person that he's calling you to do, and sometimes that means giving up stuff that you're uncomfortable with, but it's always worth it. Because, Jacob, what did he say? He said, I'm not gonna let you go unless you bless me. Interesting. Look at verse 28, this is the man talking, he says, 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. When you and I are faithful to wrestle with God, when we don't give up,

when we are on the other side of that, We are so different that we often need a new name. That there really is nothing like being on the other side of a wrestling match and you've kind of understood things in a different way, you've just been kind of made aware. It's like you're reading the Bible in 3D now, like it's just a different animal, right? And all of a sudden, like the things that you used to be afraid of, you're not afraid of anymore. I'm not saying you don't have any fear, you probably have some new ones, but that's how you graduate, right? That's how you make progress in your spiritual journey is that you wrestle through these things. You face things you don't wanna face, you trust God for things that you don't think He can come through on. And when you do, you find Him faithful. But that takes wrestling. And wrestling comes in the form of getting really bad news,

getting your plans derailed. Losing things you thought you were gonna keep forever. And I mean, look, how significant is this name, right? Israel. Israel means that, striving with God, right? Basically, that's the, and that is the name that God's people would bear throughout the Old Testament entirely, Israel, Israelites, right? These are God's people. These are people that wrestle with God and don't give up. And sometimes, sometimes that does not turn out very well for them, but oftentimes they're wrestling with God and they're not letting go, right? They're not letting it go.

So Jacob wants to commemorate the place, verse 30. He wants to commemorate it, he says, so Jacob called the name of the place, Peniel, It's Penuel, Penuel, same kind of deal. Saying, for I have seen God face to face and yet my life has been delivered. Peniel or Penuel, they mean the face of God. They mean God's face, exactly what that word means in the Hebrew, the face of God. And it's because Jacob looked at the face of God and he's forever going to be changed by that wrestling match with God. And he doesn't get the new name without wrestling with God. And he doesn't step forward in that promise without wrestling with God. And so my invitation to you, and I just, I want you to, man, wrestle with whatever's in front of you. Wrestle through that, wrestle through the past, wrestle through your own abilities or inabilities, however you wanna look at, wrestle with gospel truth,

wrestle with God himself, right? begin that journey of just fighting through maybe what you're ignoring, right? We're gonna sing here in just a second. And as we do, man, my encouragement to you is that it is a high likelihood that the Lord is calling you to wrestle with something. And maybe that involves like having a discussion you don't wanna have, Maybe that involves kind of looking back and maybe settling old debts. I don't know. Maybe it's stuff you're real scared of. That's probably a good sign that you're real scared of. But I guarantee, man, the Lord is good in it. That's our hope. Our hope isn't somehow that we get self-actualization and clarity. Our Our hope is that we meet God there, and when we do, that He is the satisfaction of our souls.

So let me pray for us, and then after I do, I'm just gonna go back where the couches and chairs are and those lamps back there. I'm just gonna be sitting there. Man, if you want prayer, if you wanna work through, anything you need, that's, man, I'm back there. You can do that. Also, if you're here with somebody and you wanna pray with them, man, do it. That's my encouragement, my invitation is open to you and I don't wanna challenge you to that. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. We thank you for your opportunity to just see the gospel of grace and understand our need in the midst of it. We thank you for calling us to wrestle with you, that you want to meet us on the mat. I pray you give us the courage to get down in there and maybe scrape up an elbow or get a rug burn on the knee or something. I don't know.

I just pray that we wrestle. Help us to do it. It's your name that we pray.