Charlie Dates | Staley Chapel Series | Genesis 32:22-32 | 11/2/2017

this morning I want to tag our text in this exchange between a rock and a hard place Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now AM found I was blind but now I see these words which echo through the corridors of church history not written by someone who you and I at the time of the writing with regard as the most saintly person alive not by a sight like Mother Teresa or an amazing preacher like Charles Haddon Spurgeon or about one of your not so known alumni named Billy Graham but these words to this life-changing hymn were written by a slave trader one who was engaged in the transatlantic slave trade and in fact on a boat one day when no small ship sailed the storm I sell no small storm assailed the ship that he was on the young writer of this hymn John Newton fell to his knees and pleaded with God for mercy he prayed one of those if you get me out of here God I'll never do this again kind of prayers maybe you've never prayed one of those prayers I'll tell you like my grandmother used to say to me keep living life has a way of backing you into a corner where you know but the circumstance you're in is your fault and you pray to God God if you get me out of this I'll never do it again well that's what Newton prayed and believe it or not God stilled the storm bringing him out of that storm Newton picked up his pen and wrote the words to Amazing Grace it's an interesting window in terms of how God uses trouble to transform us dr. Freddie Haynes the pastor of the friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas Texas says it this way that God takes our adversity and turns it into a university where he uses trouble not to harm us but to build us that seems to be an interesting window and a great gateway to the passage which you and I heard read today we meet Jacob in Genesis 32 taking the nap between two burned bridges he has lived as a man on the run almost out of the womb he was on the run coming out of his mother's womb he was holding on to the hills of his brother Esau he lived his life on the run tricking his brother Esau out of his birthright for a bowl of bean soup I could understand if it was chicken noodle soup but being soup he got his brother out of his birthright he then went on to trick his father and to giving the covenants of blessing to transfer it from Isaac to Jacob instead of Esau the elder son to whom it belonged and then in conspiratorial instincts with his mother he'd lived on the run again he had to run to his uncle Laban place where he ends up meeting the love of his life Rachel but on a cool dark wedding evening he actually ended up with her sister who according to the Hebrew or the Acadian it's kind of hard to tell she was hard on the eyes her name is Leah and in the morning the Bible says he was shocked to discover that instead of getting the woman who he had worked seven years for he ended up getting her sister that's the kind of relationship he had with his father-in-law Laban he was a man who had used to trick people Jacob was accustomed to getting over on people like a local car dealer but it turns out that his father-in-law was a match for him his father-in-law ended up checking and after working another seven years for Rachel Jacob comes to discover that he will not have the kind of life promised to him living with Laban and so he plans to leave it's a kind of coup d'etat with sheep and goats he spots all of the sheep and the goats and he breaks away with the lion's share of the profit of his uncle Laban place and here Jacob is again on the run it's time he's running back south towards Sierra and he is going to encounter Esau his brother this isn't the kind of family reunion you want to go to in the south during the summer this is a kind of ugly family reunion the kind where the last words Esau utters on the pages of Scripture is the next time I see my brother I'm gonna kill him knowing these things Jacob is now caught having to run at night knowing he will run into his brother knowing he cannot go back to his uncle and here God meets him at the Florida J Buc this is an interesting season of jacob's life and in this moment as Jacob has just crossed his family across the fort having tread the water at night a dangerous difficult and dark Trek he comes up for air to lay his head upon a stone when that evening exhausted wet fatigued emotionally distressed out of nowhere an unidentified assailant picks Jacob up at night throws him down to the ground and begins to wrestle with him until daybreak now this isn't that WWF wrestling I grew up watching with mondo Macho Man Randy Savage or a whole coke and I know that's before your time this is that WWE fake choreographed wrestling know the word in the original language literally means that they were kicking up dust here is Jacob in the throes of hand-to-hand back with someone he does not know he does not recognize what he understands very quickly as this man is more powerful than he is can you see Jacob dare at night on the side of the fort of J Buc wrestling with this man for his life when he and he realizes he cannot overpower the man he simply starts to hold on to the man now holding on to the man the man says well let me go I can't be sane in these parts when day breaks we did not know Jacob did not know who this man was but when ESPN shows up at the end of this fight we learn and the post-interview fight that this is none other than a pre-incarnate sighting of jesus christ at the apogee it turns out Jacob was wrestling with Garland one of the ways in which we know that rape Jacob was wrestling with God it's because God touched him and dislocated his thigh and it is at that point well Jacob is holding on to God that God says let me go and Jacob says I can't let you go so I recognize there's something about you that I need there's something you have that I need from you I won't let you go until you bless me to which the reply comes well what's your name and Jacob admits his failure in his name and his name has changed and he goes from being simply the trickster shyster Jacob to being Israel one who struggles with God and wins all of that to say this to you my friends this morning at we we win with God by losing there is in this room tonight unknown today unknown potential many of you will go on to places where you will have an opportunity to change the world to reach your neighborhood your family and your friends but I want to tell you today that you will not win in life by being stubborn with God by being self-reliant or self-sufficient by swinging onto the things you want the only way you win with God is by losing to God I know in a gathering of this size somebody here today has to be struggling with God God may not come down in time and space to wrestle with us in the way that he did with Jacob but you can feel like your life is in the throws I want to pass on to you today a few things that will help you to surrender to God and to experience the great fulfillment of his plan for your life after all God is up to something great in you and if you are going to experience the magnitude of the potential he has placed in your life and there are some things you need to know about God it turns out that Genesis 22 Genesis chapter 32 verses 22 through 32 is an answer to prayer Jacob has been praying saying to the Lord you promised me some things and I'm looking for the fulfillment of these things I'm wondering if you will deliver me from my brother Esau but it is amazing when we read the narrative of verses 22 through 32 that God does deliver Jacob but he does not deliver him from Esau he delivers Jacob from himself and you need to know this about God that God will prearranged calculated opportunities of life for you where he will bring you to your knees in your low moments so that you can see that he is God and you are not this friends is a word about how God meets us in our low moments you you may not catch it from a cursory reading but here at the part of J Buc and verse 22 is one of the geographical low places steep ravine near the Dead Sea and the Jordan River of that ancient Mesopotamian metropolis this this friends is a low moment a place for Jacob where he never thought he would settle not only is he in a low place geographically he's in a low place physically I don't know if any of you have ever had to be responsible for anyone other than yourself seeking to teach me a strong work ethic my mother made me get a summer job working for the Chicago Park District when I was in high school where I was erect leader and when I was responsible for more than ten little boys in the first grade it was my job to see to it that those parents got their kids back to them safe and sound every day I remember going on field trips dr. räikkönen to the Museum of Science and Industry and my at regular activity every 10 minutes on the 8th I would be counting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 10 minutes will pass again I'd be counting it's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 I did that so much that during my naps in the afternoon I'd be counting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 came home exhausted having to look after a few people here is Jacob with a company two wives one is enough to wise multiple children their handmaids and how does he get them across the board of the j-bot there are no bridges there are no no lights no street lights there are no GPS things on his smartphone to guide him safely through he has to tread water with his young children to get his cattle across he is wet he is exhausted he is emotionally drained he has left his crazy father-in-law and is now about to meet his slightly deranged perhaps brother in a few moments on top of that he's facing the difficulty of his life and it is at this moment when the text reads in verse 4 that Jacob was left a watch that don't miss that friends this is the very place where God often meets you and I and in our world today with earbuds in our ear everywhere we go podcasts everywhere friends in every locale it's actually hard to get alone he is alone in this passage with his disc insertion alone with his regrets alone with his life story alone pondering the future and when it seems like he is alone it turns out he's not alone at all I feel my help in this place y'all don't mind if I raise my voice of it I want to say to you that this often is how God works when it seems like you are alone when it seems like you are at the end of your resources when you are at a place where there is no one else there let me remind you that there is someone else there and he is there working for you speaking to you and bringing about his wonderful plan for your life friends I want to suggest you that if you want to experience the transformation of God if you want to experience him bringing your full potential to play in your life don't spend every waking moment with someone else but learn how to get by yourself to fall on your knees open a hymn book and to cry out unto the Lord and watch God meet you in that space here God meets Jacob in a way to fulfill his plan and he's working on Jacob because the problem is not with Esau the problem is not with Laban the problem was not with Jacob's mother or Jacob's father the problem was with Jacob and I bring it up today because for many of us as we ask God to be at work in our lives to bring about the fulfillment of the potential he has placed in us the problem is not our business our school our work one day our marriages that's not the problem for God to fulfill his potential in our lives the problem often is us when you are alone in your low moment God does some of his great work but I want to encourage you as well in this passage when you look at verses 25 to 26 to pay attention to the way Jacob fights with God this is something you might not feel like you need today but take it like a pearl and tuck it away in the pocket of your heart when moments of life arise listen when he saw that he had not prevailed against him he touched the socket of his thigh so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him then he said let me go but the dawn is breaking but he said I will not let you go unless she blessed me this is interesting because by now you and I have been listening to the sermon know who this one is who's fighting with Jacob and the text says that when he saw he had not prevailed against him he touched the socket of his thought this is this is almost suggesting that God couldn't be Jacob do you feel that tension in the text how does God not beat Jacob think about it how does God not beat any of us surely it's not because God is weak or Jacob is so strong no I think God God did - Jacob what I sometimes do with my children oh for the joy for many of you to have many children may you be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth it's a wonderful thing come home my six-year-old son will likely be with me tomorrow morning from time to time he'll want to fight he'll want to play and I want him to be tough I don't want a movie soft I'm wanting to be I want to be tough but that's that's my own bias pardon me that's mama I want to be tough and so we fight now at any given moment I can break him I can pick him up and I can slam him down and that'll be the end of the fight he hates losing by the way so one of the things that I do is I don't want to hurt crush his confidence so I don't make him lose right away and then in a joyful moment he'll come and grab me and tackle me and I'll fall down and I'll declare him the winner to which he's very pleased about and his mother is too you know how he wins he wins because I let him win he wins because I love him and I want to see him victorious he does not win because I cannot win he wins because I'm trying to build something in him friends this is how God could not prevail against Jacob it's because God let Jacob win God was trying to build something in Jacob to take something out of Jacob and God lets Jacob overpower him so that Jacob can be considered the victor in that interesting God could have made him the victim but instead he lets him become the victor and in the same way God works with you and I he could take us down he fights with us and he beats us but when he finished beats beating us he declares that we beat him watch how Jacob wins Jacob holds on to God he discovers that he cannot witness die his hip is dislocated he cannot fight much anymore and in this moment when he cannot wrestle or fight much he simply starts to cling to the one who he's wrestling with oh how I wish I had my church right in this moment he he he is holding on he cannot wrestle a fight he's simply holding on now this is a wonderful picture of my daughter and this says she knows she can't win she'll just hold on until I'm tired and say okay you got me you're good but I think friends in this text this is what God had wanted Jacob to do all along you see all of Jacob's life he had been fighting and cheating and manipulating and scheming and conniving trying to get something that God had always wanted him have Jakob is trying to manipulate his way into the will of God it was God's plan for Jacob to be the leader it was God's plan through whom the blessing of the world would come to come through Jacob but Jacob is wrestling his whole life trying to fight for something that already God has planned to come to him and I want to suggest to you and I that God all alone simply wanted Jacob to hold on to him don't hold on to your pride don't wrote on to your resources don't hold on to your scheme simply hold on to me this text suggests at the end of it as we're at the end of our time we see that God leaves Jacob with the limp I got you it's gonna take five God leaves jacob with the limp he's working some things out of him working some things into him but he leaves jacob with an unmistakable mark that jacob has been in a fight with god in other words for the rest of his life jacob will bear the insignia of having been with god when people see him walk limping they think it may be a handicap but it's actually a blessing they they think it may be something meant to slow him down but it's something god intended to help him savor and enjoy life friends i want to suggest you that that lips did not stop in Genesis 32 they're still happening in 2017 my guess is some of you here today have a limp maybe your lip has come as a result of sexual promiscuity but the fact that you still walking is a reminder that God is at work in your life maybe your lip has come from a broken family or a broken marriage but the fact that you're still here limping and walking walking and limping means that God is not through with you yet perhaps your lip has come from an absentee parent or a failed experience somewhere in life I want to suggest you French you don't have to be ashamed of your lip all of us got one some are just more visible than the others but they are tangible reminders that we've been with God and that God has not left us and it is by that limp that we get to see not our pain but our value it's it's not so much the condition we're in walking with the limp so much as it is a conviction that we've been with the one who has all power in his hands that's why I'm gonna take my seat god bless you may the Lord god bless you real good but before I go let me this I came to the historic progressive Baptist Church and it was an it is an old church will be a hundred in about a year and a half and when I got there the youngest senior passing that churches history and the predictions were clear I wasn't gonna make it long because what many had said my pastor and some others had given me some sage advice they said when you get there when you get there don't change a thing for an entire year well dr. Reich and I did my best but I changed something about the end of that year we we had an old like this eight-foot concert grand piano sitting on the platform it just took up too much space never really play well I didn't really want it up there all the time I liked it but it just didn't it didn't work well but I couldn't move it because some people felt like Jesus had learned to play chopsticks on that piano and so I couldn't do anything with it I waited till the middle of the week to take it down to the lower level we got it moved and then we start getting it assess what what would it take to get it fully repaired and I remember company after company would come in and they would say oh yeah we see the conditions it's ending they would study they say but here's what we'll do we'll take this piano and we'll give you a brand-new grand piano and and don't worry about it we'll take everything from there after that happened two or three times the third time someone offered us not only to give us a new piano but money on top of the new piano it occurred to me that they knew something I didn't know about that broke piano so we decided to call in the people who made the piano we called in the Steinway company to sleek Caucasian sisters came down to the church wanted a hair band on the hip flashlight on the headband start looking underneath it playing it tinkering with it so it's got good bones it'll need a new floor board some of the strings they can be replaced some of the keys need to be replaced we need to strip the whole thing varnish it and then we can have it back to you we'll give it to you in a case where you can control the humidity and it'll play like new for as long as you want it and I said well fantastic she said that'll only be these tens of thousands of dollars to which I replied well thank you for coming but no thank you we'll keep looking on she said what are you gonna do you don't understand there are other people who are offering us brand-new pianos for this one and money you want to charge me for this she said well what did they offering you I started to show her I couldn't pronounce the name Kawasaki Honda Kauai I just didn't know what it was and and she said no no no and I said yes yes yes she said you cannot do that I said well yes I can she said you don't know what you have here I said well what is it she said would you raise the hood for me I lifted up the hood and then boss in the metal frame was the name she said can you read the name I said Steinway & Sons she said stop right there she said sir we only make five of these a year she said even in the condition it's in it's worth far more than that other stuff they're offering you because of the name that's on the inside I looked at I said thank you that'll preach for me and here it is friends I don't know where you are I don't know where you had it you might have a limp there may be something broken about you something that you don't feel like it's valuable but there is a name on the inside of you and that name gives you value his name is Jesus [Applause]

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Length: 25min 42sec (1542 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2017