Barely Standing but Still Holding On

Hey, a big welcome to our whole church family. And I just want to say again, thank you to everyone who's considering giving toward one day. We're looking at what do you make in an entire year, taking one day of what you make, giving above your normal giving toward our mission partners. And 100% of what you give goes to one of our 170 different mission partners. I've got a list of those up on the screen. If you can read all those, you're smarter than I am, but it's like a mutual fund of ministry partners. We don't just send money, but we send people to make a difference. And when you give, you create stories over and over again, just like Juan's. I'll show you a picture of Juan. He showed up at Victory Mission Shelter in Springfield, Missouri. No income, no resources. Didn't have a relationship with his kids at the time. And through Victory Mission and through Life.Church Springfield, Juan found a job, he found a spiritual family, he found a new life in Christ, and he reconnected with his kids. Juan, we celebrate your story. And now he volunteers at the very same mission ministry, helping other men find freedom in Christ.

And that's what your giving does to make a difference in 170 different mission organizations. And so if you wanna give, we'll do it next weekend, but you can schedule your gift through the Life.Church app, and then we'll all give on April 26th, one day. Then two weeks from now, we're starting a new message series called Love Killers. And what we know is, you see it all around, so many people are struggling in dating relationships, struggling in marriage, relationships are under attack and under pressure. So we're gonna look at the five biggest relationship killers and we're gonna let God's word speak directly to them and find hope and healing in our relationships. Let's now go to week number three of our message series, Jesus Always. Jesus Always Last week, I told you rather vulnerably that I've been a little bit in the fire. How many of you are kind of in the fire, going through some difficult times right now? You can type in the comment section if you want to, I'm in the fire. I told you my family has been dealing with some personal struggles, some painful challenges and health issues in our family. And as I was thinking about it, I think the hardest part is not just that we're fighting against our spiritual enemy, but I think the hardest part in many ways

is that kind of I'm wrestling with God in the middle of this. Some of you might have something in your own life that you can relate to. You're not just fighting against the forces of darkness, but you're wrestling with God. You're not angry with Him, not walking away from Him, but maybe you're wrestling about something and you're asking some real serious faith questions like, God, why didn't you do what I knew you could do and prayed that you would? I don't know where you are. Or God, why did you let this happen when you could have stopped it? Or you might be saying like, God, why am I in pain when you're good? Where are you in the middle of this? And so some of you, you're like me. You haven't quit on God. You're not walking away from God, but maybe you're wrestling with Him a little bit. And if that's you today, it's my prayer that by the power of the Holy Spirit, God would speak to you through His word. And so I'm gonna ask Him to do that just now. Would you just pray with me? Father, we thank you for your presence. We thank you for the risen Christ. We thank you for your living word that never returns void. God, would you speak to everyone who's wrestling

with this problem today? And would you speak to them in a way that would draw them close to your Son, bring comfort, bring hope, and bring healing, we pray. In Jesus' name, if you agree, say amen. Amen. We are in a message series, it's called Jesus Always. And what we're doing is we're actually seeing Jesus, not just in the Gospels, but we're seeing Him all through the Old Testament. Because before Jesus was ever born in Bethlehem, in the series, week number one, we saw that God said He would provide a lamb in the Old Testament at Mount Moriah. And we discovered that the lamb was actually the Lamb of God, the Son, Jesus. Last week, we saw Jesus show up as the fourth man in the fire, and the boys walked out and were not harmed because of the presence of Jesus, even in the Old Testament. Today, we're gonna be in Genesis 32. And for many of you, you're gonna agree, it actually gets very, very personal. We're gonna look at a guy named Jacob. If your name is Jacob, I'm sorry for what I'm about to tell you, but the name Jacob means deceiver. Doesn't mean that's what you are. You might be a really good dude. Jacob means deceiver.

And Jacob in the Old Testament, he lived up to what his mama named him. He was a deceiver. He tricked his brother Esau out of the birthright. He deceived his own dad and stole the blessing. He went on the run and continued to deceive people. Not exactly the guy that you would pick to be your life group leader, but nevertheless, this was who he was. And a lot of us can relate because even though we wanna do the right thing, sometimes we don't do the right thing and we make mistakes and we hurt people that we love and we disappoint others or disappoint ourselves and we find ourselves waking up one day living with some regrets. Well, the good news is when you look at this guy who didn't get it right, God wasn't done with Jacob. And I wanna tell you right now, God's not done with you. No matter what you've done, God is still good. He loves you. He cares about you. And we're gonna see it in this story because the night before Jacob sent his family ahead, there's this little verse I'm gonna show you. To me, it's one of the most frustrating verses in the Bible because it just says a little bit and I have so many questions. I'm like, when I get to heaven, one of my first 1,000 questions

are actually gonna be around this verse and there'll be a lot of other ones, but this is the verse. The verse says this. Jacob, this left Jacob all alone in the camp and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. So frustrating. Jacob's alone, a man shows up, they get in a wrestling match and if you're a man like me, we want to know more. How'd it start? Was there like a little nudge? Was there like a, you look at him, you want some of this? Was there an introduction? Was there a fight over somebody? I mean, there's just a man out of nowhere and the fight goes all night long. That's crazy. And let me tell you why. If I haven't told you, I am a purple belt in jujitsu, which means I'm pretty good, but it means that there are other purple belt, brown belt and black belts that still whoop me like I'm a four-year-old little girl. I'm decent. And so if we practice all day long at the end of the match and we go and do a five-minute roll with a break, another five-minute roll, sometimes we'll do five or six five-minute rolls

with breaks in between. You're supposed to break one minute. Sometimes I'll break six minutes and let someone else do the whole five. After five of those, I can barely drive home. My hands are shaking, 25 minutes and I'm out of juice. These boys went all night long and the story gets weirder. Verse 25, when the man saw that he wouldn't win the match, he's wrestling Jacob and this man who shows up, we don't know who he is. We're about to find out he's something pretty special. He touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of socket. Then a man said, let me go for the dawn is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Crazy story. The man couldn't overpower Jacob. Why? Maybe Jacob was a purple belt, we don't know. And so the man touches Jacob's hip and dislocates it. One touch and his hip is out of socket. What kind of man can touch your hip with a finger and take your whole hip out of socket? The answer is no ordinary man. Now think about this. He destroys Jacob's hip. And in agony, Jacob can barely stand and he keeps wrestling. He's in pain, he can barely stand and he doesn't let go. In the middle of pain, he just keeps hanging on.

And that may be where some of you are right now. You're in the middle of it. You're in agony. You don't have the answers. It came out of the blue. You don't understand it. And it seems like it's lasting forever. forever, but to your credit, you just keep holding on. Barely standing, but holding on. Barely standing, but not letting go. Verse 27, the guys start talking to each other, because you know if you get in a fight with somebody, you can actually become friends afterwards. Oh, you're not so bad, let's just be friends. Maybe this is gonna happen. What's your name? The man says. They fought all night long. Hey, let me introduce myself to you. What's your name? And he replies, Jacob. It's a crazy story. It's almost like the man wanted Jacob to say it out loud. What does Jacob mean? Who remembers? It means deceiver. Hey, what's your name? I'm deceiver. It's almost like the man wanted him to say, I'm Jacob.

I'm, say it out loud, I'm deceiver. And when you start to know who the man probably was, you start to recognize the man wasn't trying to shame Jacob, but wanted to actually free Jacob, and perhaps wanted him to be honest before the blessing, because honesty always comes before the blessing. In fact, today, I'm gonna encourage some of you to maybe push yourself beyond your comfort zone and admit something that you might not wanna admit, and something that's not easy to admit, and to be honest. Why? Because honesty isn't what keeps you bound. Honesty is where the blessing starts. And this is why for some of you, I'm gonna just encourage you to like say it, and you may even wanna say it out loud, like, I'm wrestling with God. I'm hurting right now. I'm confused. Some of you might say, I'm addicted. I mean, like literally admit it and stop, make excuses for it. If two or more people who love you tell you that you're addicted and you have a problem, you probably do. Or you might say, I'm angry. Or some of you might say, I've been putting on a good show for a long time, and I come in church, and I smile, and I try to hold it together in front of my family

and my loved ones, but I'm not okay. The blessing starts with honesty. And the moment Jacob was honest, the man changed his name. Verse 28 tells us this. Your name will no longer be deceiver. Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him. From now on, you'll be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won. From now on, your name will no longer be deceiver, Jacob, but it will instead be Israel, which means the one who wrestled with God and overcame. If you're wrestling with God, it's okay to be honest about it. You're asking, why won't God heal me? Why won't God heal my loved one? Why am I still waiting and waiting and waiting? Why has God blessed them in that way and not me? Why am I still battling with depression? Why does anxiety grip me and grip me and won't let go? God, why won't you answer my prayer? If you're struggling, if you're hurting, if you're questioning, I wanna tell you right now, your struggle does not disqualify you. In fact, for some of you, it may be the very thing that God uses to free you from where you are and to give you a new name. Think about it. Jacob's worst night of fighting and wrestling and the battle and the pain and the fear and the questions,

his worst night became his new name. The man blessed him and said, you're not deceiver, you're Israel, you're one who wrestled with God and overcame. And verse 30 says, so Jacob called the place Peniel. Penny means face, El means God. Literally, he says, this means face of God. I'll show you the next part of the verse. Next part of the verse says this. The Bible says this, so Jacob called the place Peniel. face of God, saying, it's because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared. All night long, wrestling and holding on. And he didn't know who he was holding on to. The man that he wrestled with, according to this text, was God, the one who touched his hip was God. The one who blessed him was God. The one who gave him a new name was God. Face to face, all night long, with God. And he didn't know it. Some of you, you've been wrestling for days, for weeks, for months, maybe even for years, and you felt alone, and you wonder, where is he? It feels like God was silent. But what if, just like Jacob, you just didn't recognize who was in the battle with you? And here's the part I don't want you to miss, is the whole time, you thought maybe you were trying to hold on to God, but maybe the whole time, God was holding on to you.

God was holding. I'm gonna give you a moment to think about that, and I'm gonna try to tell you something. Sometimes I feel like I'm preaching uphill. I feel a little bit like that today. I think it's because, inside, there's a lot going on. So I'm gonna try to tell you what's appropriate, because some of you are nosy. Tell us more, Pastor Craig. I'll tell you, there's, I have a heavy heart, and I told you we're going through the fire, and this is human stuff. You go through it, I go through it. When you're a pastor, it doesn't make this shield. We still live in the same world, right? And so the biggest of the issues, and there are others, but the biggest of the issue is that I've got three daughters that have, and we don't talk a lot about it, but they have ongoing, very complicated, ongoing years and years and years of health issues. And here's the part. The part that I'm facing is this, is that they grew up, two girls in one room, I've got four daughters, two in one room, two in the other. And 15 years ago, I went in there, and I'm like, there's black stuff up on there. I think one of the, and I asked the people,

does that look like anything? And a couple of people are smarter than I said, oh, no, it's nothing, don't worry about it. Well, it was severe black mold. And so they grew up in this, and I'm their dad, and I was aware that something was there, and I didn't do anything about it. So when Jacob says, like, I'm deceiver, what I feel like saying is I'm responsible. And I know, you know, you can all say what I know is true, which is, yeah, you didn't, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I'm the dad, they're my daughters, they were in my house, and they were in mold. And so we do it all. Whatever advice you have, thank you, we've done it. We've been to that doctrine, that doctrine, that state, and this state, and that thing, and traditional, and nontraditional, and holistic, and we're doing it all, and praying like crazy. I'm gonna tell you right now, we are so blessed, and so blessed, and so blessed, and so blessed, and we are so blessed, and so blessed, and so blessed, but it's hard to enjoy the blessing when your kids are hurting. No? And I can preach sermons on faith, and I do, but I can't fix what's wrong with my girls. And so what I've learned is this, is I've learned I am not holding it all together,

and I can't hold it all together. What I'm gonna tell you right now is God has been holding onto us the whole time, the whole time. He's always been good, He's always been faithful. His Word is always true, and it never, ever returns void. And you can see it if you look with spiritual eyes on a different level in this story. Remember last week, we talked about the word theophany. when Jesus showed up as the fourth man in the fire. He looked like the Son of God. Well, here, we have a man that shows up out of nowhere, wrestles with Jacob all night long. This is not a vision, it's not a voice from heaven, it's not a dream. It's a man in a body that Jacob could grab hold of and physically wrestle with, and then he says, I wrestle with God. So let's play a little Bible trivia game. Who in Scripture is God in human form? It starts with a J and looks like Jesus. Who is it? Jesus. Jesus, right? And so many scholars believe, and they debate, but many scholars believe that this is what's called the pre-incarnate Christ. What does that mean? Jesus is the incarnation, he's God made flesh. And so scholars will say,

well, perhaps this was the pre-incarnate Christ appearing in the Old Testament in this way. If that's true, then you start to think, well, before Jesus healed the sick, he wrestled with Jacob. Before he touched blind eyes, he actually touched Jacob's hip. Before he renamed Simon to Peter, he renamed Jacob to Israel. What I want you to see is that that's why we say Jesus always. We say Jesus always. We say Jesus always because he will never leave you and he will never forsake you. And he's always been close. And we start to recognize who is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is love and he is love and he loves you. And he came because he loved you. And then you start to ask, well, what can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Shall trouble or hardship or famine or peril or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Christ to strengthen us. And so if you feel anything like I do right now, which is blessed and frustrated, blessed and confused, blessed and disappointed, I'm gonna tell you right now, he is with you right now. At this very moment, he's with you in the wrestling.

He's there in your questions that don't have answers. He's there and you may not recognize him yet. Jacob didn't either, but you may look back and say, oh, yeah, he was always good, he was always faithful, he was always present, his words have always been true. He's with you in the wrestling. Don't miss this, verse 31 tells us this. The sun rose, so they're wrestling all night long, fighting, fighting, fighting, wrestling, change the name. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel. And what was he doing? He was limping because of his hip. The sun rose and the night of wrestling became the morning of blessing. He was blessed, but he was limping because of his hip. He was blessed and he was limping. He was loved and he was limping. He was blessed and he was limping. And that's not how we want the story to go. We wanna be blessed and healed. You can say amen anytime you want to, because you've been really, really quiet and I've been really, really vulnerable. So anytime you wanna make your pastor feel like you love being in church today, you can do it anytime you want and I won't reject it at all. I'll let you clap and cheer and say amen and bless God. If anyone wants to go old school and wave a white hanky, you could even do that. It might look weird, but I know what you mean.

That was a thing at one point in someone else's church. But we wanna be blessed and everything back to normal. But in this point, he was blessed and still limping. When he met God face-to-face, when he met God face-to-face, he was blessed and still limped. And here's what somebody needs to hear, and maybe there's somebody that's me. Some of you are waiting for God to fix everything. You're waiting for the limp to go away before you call it a blessing. But what if the limp is part of a blessing? Well, thank you, go ahead, all day long. I'm not gonna stop you, but I want you to think about it. What if the thing that hurts is the thing that helps keep you close? And imagine this, every step that Jacob took, he remembered the blessing. Why? Because he walked with a limp. Every single time the weak leg hit the ground, he remembered how dependent he was on the one who is his strength. And so, now you guys are being too generous because that wasn't that good, but I'll let you do it. Here's the thing. Think about what happened on that night.

The deceiver became Israel. And from Israel's line came Jesus. Do you see that? So, do you see that? So, if you're holding on to God, I want to tell you right now, you're not the only one that held on. Because on the cross, that same Jesus who was beaten and broken bloody by the creation, mocking the creator, he held on to the cross. And three days later, after giving his life, he walked down to the tomb. He was scarred, but alive. He was scarred, but alive. He was blessed, but had his own version of the leptos. Still had the nail marks, still carried the scars, not because he lost, but because he loved. And this is the part where I tie the message up in a bow, give you a nice little poem, tell you everybody's healed, and you clap and shout and cheer and go out and have an amazing meal because it always ends up the way we want it, right? Wish I could do that. But I can't do that because the sun hadn't come up yet at my house. It's still dark. We're still wrestling.

We're still holding on. But here's all I want you to know is, promise you right now, I know who I'm holding on to. And even more importantly, is I know who's holding on to us. And so if you're wrestling, if you're wrestling, if you're wrestling, if you're wrestling, if you're wrestling, if you're wrestling, don't let go, don't let go, don't let go, don't let go. If you're blessed and limping, maybe the limp is a part of the blessing. As long as we're in these broken bodies, living in this broken world, any type of brokenness teaches us to get out of our strength, into our weakness, to call on the one who is our strength and might be the very thing that keeps us close to Him. So in the middle of my limp, I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm holding on to Him. In the middle of my limp, I'm still preaching with faith. In the middle of my limp, I'm not letting go. In the middle of my limp, I am not gonna let go and I'm never gonna let go because I'm gonna hold on to Him and I'm gonna continue to pray and I'm gonna believe by faith and by faith one day, I pray and know and declare that I will believe that my girls are healed and until that day, I won't let go and even if He doesn't, I'll never let go.

And I pray that you don't either. And that's how I'm into this sermon. So let's pray. God, I ask that by the power of your Holy Spirit, that whoever is limping, whoever is hurting, whoever is wrestling, that they would encounter you in a very personal and very powerful way. God, you are the only one who can minister to them. God, as they hang on to you, show them, God, that you're holding on to them. At all of our churches, nobody looking around, what I'm gonna ask you to do is be honest. I'm gonna give you a two-part kind of assignment. One is we're gonna pray here and I'm gonna ask you to be honest about any part of your life that's not okay. It is not easy nor comfortable to me to talk in front of a big group of people about something this personal. I go first. I'm gonna ask you to do the same thing, is to be honest first with God about anything in your life that is not okay. It could be an addiction, it could be a fear, it could be your anxiety, it could be your marriage, it could be a relationship with a child, it could be any number of different things, whatever it is, be honest before God. And then. I'm gonna ask you to be honest with somebody else.

Be honest with God. I'm gonna ask you to be honest with someone else. If you're willing to do that with me today, all of our churches, would you just lift up your hand all over the room, all over the room, online, you can type in the comment section, I'll be honest, I'll be honest with God. You can leave your hands up if it's comfortable and you can make it kind of like an act of worship. If you wanna put it down, it's more comfortable. Whatever you wanna do, I'm gonna pray. God, thank you that the blessing follows the honesty today. And God, we're just broken people in need of your goodness and your grace. God, we thank you there is no condemnation now, therefore, for those who are in Christ Jesus. So with honesty, we just confess our need for you, our brokenness, God, our sinfulness, God, our fear, our unrighteousness, God. We just confess it to you. And Father, I pray that not only do we confess to you, but as your word says, that if we confess our faults to one another and pray for each other that we may be healed, God, that we would have the courage to confess to someone, a family member, a friend, maybe a person we just meet, here's where I am, and pray for each other and in your presence, we'd see healing. And God, I just declare the name of the risen Christ,

our healer, the great physician over my daughters. I pray over every sick person here, the name of Jesus. Every brokenness, every disease, every demonic attack, we speak the name that is above every name, the name of the risen Christ, the name of Jesus that breaks the chain that pushes back the forces of darkness and the one who is the healer, the redeemer, the righteous one, we speak the name of Jesus. God, we believe there's healing and freedom in this room because your presence is real. As you keep praying today, all of our churches, nobody looking around, there are some of you right now that you don't know where you stand with God, and I wanna talk to you about him. I wanna talk to you about him. God initiates. God sent a man to Jacob the deceiver. God initiated. For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, Jesus. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God. He was there even before he was born. He is the living embodiment of God, and when you see how he lived and loved, he did not come for the religious and righteous people. He came for broken and sick people. He came for people like me and people like you, people who needed healing and help

and wholeness and forgiveness. And so Jesus, the lamb of God, was slain on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins. He paid the price we were unable to pay because he was without sin and died as a perfect sacrifice in our place. And three days later, God raised him from the dead, defeating death, hell, and the grave so that anyone, and listen to me, anyone, the deceiver, the responsible one, the one who messed up, the one who lied, the one who cheated, the one who stole, the one who lusted, the one who sinned, anyone who calls on his name would be saved. Today there are those of you that God brought here not by accident but because of his love to step away from your old life, to step into his grace, to step out of our sinfulness into his freedom because when you call on the name of Jesus, he hears your prayers, he forgives your sins, he makes you brand new. Today at all of our churches, those of you online, you recognize you're without him. You don't have to leave without him. His name is Jesus. When you call on him, he forgives your sins. At all of our churches, you say, I need him, I need his grace, I need his mercy. Today, I'm stepping away from my sin.

I am surrendering, I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now? Lift them up and say, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you. Right back over there, God bless you. Others of you, right back over here. Praise God for you. And over here as well, yes. Others say, yes, Jesus, I surrender, be the Lord of my life. Online, you can type in the comment section, I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. Just type that in the comment section. Would you just pray aloud with those around you? Pray, heavenly Father, forgive all of my sins. Jesus, save me, the Lord of my life. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you, so I could walk in your power, so I could show your love. My life is no longer my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for new life. In Jesus' name, I pray. Church, could you celebrate big? Welcome those born into God's family. Come on, church. Hey, it's Pastor Craig and Amy Groeschel with Life.Church. And if you just made the decision to give your life to Christ, this is the most important and life-changing decision that you'll ever make.

And all of heaven is celebrating right now because of your decision, and we're celebrating with you too. That's right. And we want you to know that God sees you. He's with you, and he loves you. He has a purpose for your life. And incarceration, it doesn't define you. It doesn't confine you because you are free in Christ. You are new in him. Chains have been broken today. And so as a follower of Jesus. God wants us to be on this journey together, and I want you to know you don't have to do this alone. And that's why we, as your church family, we're here for you and we wanna help you grow in your faith and find your next steps. So first of all, just keep joining us for church every single week and worshiping through the Pando app. We're so thankful that you're here. When we draw close to God, he draws near to us. And so I would also encourage you, read God's word if it's available to you. And as you do, just start to pray and invite God into every single aspect of your life. And then if you feel led, you might even share your decision with somebody else. There might be a family member or a friend, and they're gonna wanna hear your story and your spiritual journey.

We'd love to hear it as well. And you can send us a letter if you'd like to. The address is on your screen, and our team will write back to you and help you grow in your faith with Jesus. And so we'd love to mail you some content about who Jesus is and help you grow in your relationship with him now that you've chosen to follow Jesus. That's right. And God's plan for your life, it's greater than anything that you could ever imagine. In fact, Ephesians 3.20 says, God is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. Trust him with your whole life. You will see him work in ways you have never thought possible. Congratulations on this decision. We are your family, and you're part of the family of God.