Wrestling Match | Kyle Idleman

Hi, my name is Justin and I am a campus pastor at Southeast Christian Church at our Nelson County campus. And I am so glad that you are with us, Pando family. It is an amazing day and we are going to worship together. And I just want you to know that you are made in God's image as a son and daughter that he loves deeply. As a Pando family, we would love to encourage you to write in anytime. We have volunteers who would love to hear from you. Write in anytime they read those letters. They would love to even respond to you as well. So we look forward to hearing from you. You can write into that address that we have there for you guys as well. But we would also love if you would subscribe. We have over 32,000 subscriptions to this channel and we would love for you to be blessed by the content that we are creating just for you. This day, today, Kyle is going to be talking about dysfunction junction. That's a sermon series that we are in. And right now we are talking about how Jacob wrestled with God. And Kyle is going to be leading us through that. And I know each and every one of us have been through a wrestling match at one point or another with something going on in our life or even with God. So I would love for you to tune into that message and just join us for that. And we're going to see what God is going to teach us, not only about himself, but also about us as well. So join in with me as we worship together. We turn it back with praise. We say, let all the earth declare his name. How great, how great is Yahweh, Yahweh. No other name deserves our praise. We say, no other name but Yahweh, Yahweh.

Hallelujah. Every stronghold, every mountain, built like wax before a king. If the rock shall know our dominion, how good our outstanding state. Let all the earth declare his name. How great, how great is Yahweh, Yahweh. No other name deserves our praise. No other name but Yahweh, Yahweh. No other name but Yahweh, Yahweh. Come on, we sing his faithful. Faithful, holy, strong and mighty. All creation shine. There's no one like our God, righteous, worthy. Not more deserving. All creation. Shout it out. Faithful, holy, strong and mighty. All creation shine. There's no one like our God, righteous, worthy. Not more deserving. All creation shine. There's no one like our God. Faithful, holy, strong and mighty. All creation shine. There's no one like our God, righteous, worthy. Not more deserving. All creation shine. There's no one like our God. There's no one like our God. Oh. We declare it today.

We sing Yahweh. No other name deserves our praise. No other name. ♪ But Yahweh, Yahweh ♪ ♪ Let all the earth prepare His Name ♪ ♪ How great our praise is Yahweh, Yahweh ♪ ♪ No other name deserves no praise ♪ ♪ No other name but Yahweh, Yahweh ♪ ♪ No other name but Yahweh, Yahweh ♪ ♪ No other name but Yahweh, Yahweh ♪ Church, we give a shout of praise this morning to the Lord. Amen. ♪ Our God is faithful, come on let's sing it ♪ ♪ God put flowers in all of their beauty ♪ ♪ I don't have to wonder in all that You're doing ♪ ♪ So why would I worry at all when You're faithful to supply ♪ ♪ We sing everything I need, everything I need ♪ ♪ Everything I need, my Father has it, my Father has it ♪ ♪ And every single time the Lord will provide ♪ ♪ My Father has it, my Father has it, yeah ♪ ♪ He has it all and He'll provide to all the children ♪ ♪ And we'll look at the spiral, back in front of us ♪ ♪ And we'll look at tomorrow and find it will be ♪ ♪ Oh if I have You, I have enough ♪ ♪ Cause Your love will satisfy, we believe it ♪ ♪ Everything I need, everything I need, oh we know ♪ ♪ My Father has it, my Father has it ♪ ♪ And every single time the Lord will provide ♪ ♪ My Father has it, my Father has it, yeah ♪ ♪ There's nothing I need because He has it, oh ♪

♪ So seek first the kingdom and its treasures ♪ ♪ Then everything else will be added, all that I need ♪ ♪ And we believe, I know, we declare in faith ♪ ♪ I know my God's not empty handed ♪ ♪ So He gives us blessings upon blessings ♪ ♪ And I'm still believing, oh I know, I know the Lord will provide ♪ ♪ I know the Lord will provide, we sing this to fear ♪ ♪ Seek first the kingdom and its treasures ♪ ♪ Then everything else will be added, all that I need ♪ ♪ And I believe, I know the Lord will provide ♪ ♪ I'll sing when I'm afraid, I know my God's not empty handed ♪ ♪ So He gives us blessings upon blessings ♪ ♪ And I'm still believing, oh I know, I know the Lord will provide ♪ ♪ Oh come on we believe, everything, everything, everything ♪ ♪ That's everything I know, my Father has it, my Father has it ♪ ♪ Every single time what He'll do, He'll provide it all, He has it all ♪ ♪ Everything I need, everything I need, my Father has it, my Father has it ♪ ♪ Every single time, my God will provide, my Father has it, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, so sing blessing kingdom ♪ ♪ And everything else will be fine around me ♪ ♪ Every single thing I know the Lord will do it for me ♪ ♪ Yes He will, yes He will ♪ ♪ Cause I know my God's not empty handed ♪ ♪ He gives His blessing upon blessings ♪ ♪ And I'm still believing ♪ ♪ I know the Lord will provide, yes I know ♪ ♪ Oh, I know the Lord will provide, yes I know ♪ ♪ I know the Lord will provide, amen ♪ Amen. Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. You are so good. You saw fit to care about us. You did not have to. In your infinite power, you could have left us here in our sin, in our shame. But not only did you see us, you died for us, Lord, giving us what we couldn't even take, couldn't even dream to take, Lord. You descended from heaven and humbled yourself into man, and then you died on a cross for us, Lord. That's all we need, actually. That's every single thing we need is your blood poured out for us and your resurrection from the grave, Lord. Your victory over death, that we would be with you for eternity. That's all we needed, Lord. That's all we needed, and you gave it to us in your infinite mercy, Lord. Let us remember the sparrows and the flowers, Lord. You care for them, and if you care for them, how much more do you care for us, Lord? Remind us of your faithfulness through the generations, Lord. Remind us how you've been faithful to us, to our friends, to our families. The very fact that we're standing here today worshiping you, Lord, is proof of your faithfulness.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. It's in your name we pray, amen. Y'all can grab a seat. I wanna start by asking you a question. When was the last time that you wrestled with God? I'm not asking about when you last prayed politely or attended church or read a devotional, maybe checked a spiritual box. Not those things matter, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, when did you last wrestle with God? Where you were angry or maybe confused or scared or hurt or uncertain or trapped or exhausted or maybe just overwhelmed, and you brought all of it to God, and you didn't let go until something moved. For some of you, it was this morning. In the shower at 6 a.m., you were wrestling. We're on the drive here or maybe just a few moments ago when we stood and we worshiped, you weren't worshiping as much as you were wrestling because you're in the middle of it right now. Or for some of you, it's been a while, years, or maybe never, not really, because every time life gets hard, you don't wrestle, you run. You reach for the next solution, the next distraction, the next relationship. You scroll, you scheme, you fix, and you avoid God by running to the next thing.

Let me give you some indicators that might mean you're running from God. Number one, you're always busy. You are afraid to stop because something's gonna catch up with you, so silence is the enemy, and you fill every moment with noise. Another indicator that you might be running is that you always think the solution is something new or something different, and so you just keep moving to the next city or the next job, a new spouse, a new church, a new diet, a new hobby, a new purchase. Or maybe you know you're a runner because you made a mess that feels so big that the only option feels like just move on. Like you didn't set out to make a mess, but somewhere along the way, things got complicated enough that facing it felt impossible, and so you just left it, and you moved on to the next thing. Start fresh somewhere else with someone else. It's like knocking over a full glass of red wine on white carpet. Your first instinct is not to clean it up. Your first instinct is to walk out of the room and hope nobody notices, but I know people who've been walking out of rooms for 40 years,

but what nobody tells you is that the mess doesn't stay in that room. room, it follows you no matter how fast you run. Like you can relocate and rebrand and remarry and restart and reinvent, but you can only run so far. One more way you know you might be a runner is like this whole conversation is going to make you uncomfortable, and you just want to get up and leave. Or at least mentally check out, like that is your spiritual strategy. It's the runner's instinct, and these types of moments, just get out of it. Don't stay in that space. What I've learned about runners is that they usually don't stop running because they decide to. They stop running because eventually life corners them, the road ends, and you find yourself alone in the dark and unsure of where else to go or what else to try. And that is exactly where we find Jacob in Genesis 32. Last week we saw Jacob working for his father-in-law Laban, but that relationship starts to fall apart. Genesis 31 verse 7 says that Laban changed Jacob's wages ten times, essentially cheating Jacob out of what he had earned. And so Jacob being Jacob doesn't confront it directly. Instead he finds ways to manipulate the situation. He's passive-aggressive, and he comes up with a scheme to take the best of Laban's livestock for himself. And so he works the angles, and he quietly builds wealth, and then when he senses that it's all about to catch up with him, it takes off. He runs in the middle of the night, he loads up his wives and his children and his livestock and his possessions, and he disappears. And so this is the cycle of Jacob's life, manipulate, control, and fix. And then when that stops working, disappear, withdraw, and run. And my guess is that sounds really familiar to some of you.

Manipulate, control, fix, and then disappear, withdraw, run, like that is the cycle of your life. And I'm not saying that this is just a man thing, but look, this is a pattern for a lot of men. A lot of men operate exactly like Jacob. When they find themselves in a place where things are going well, like they feel competent and in control, like they can fix what's broken, then they show up, and they're present, they're engaged. But the moment they feel like they're losing, like the moment the situation gets too emotionally complex or too relationally demanding or too outside of what they know how to fix, they check out, and they withdraw, and they stick to an area of life where they feel like they have more control or they know how to win. And I'll just say that like this is a tendency I've had to confront in my own life, where I have to own this, and I have to repent of it. When we were in the thick of parenting, and we had four teenagers in the house, there were times that I just felt like I was failing, and I didn't know how to help, and I didn't know how to fix. My tendency was to disappear, to disappear into my work where I could see results, and I knew what to do, and I felt more competent. And here's the thing, ministry in some ways is a very convenient place to hide, because nobody really questions it, nobody calls it running, they just call it being faithful. And so I have had to repent of that, I know I'll have to do it again. But look, Jacob doesn't know how to be in a hard situation without either controlling it or leaving it. Those are his two modes as a man. I either have to fix it or flee it. But what happens when you can't do either? And so maybe you're a man who has been in fix-it mode, and you're good at it, like you're good at solving problems, but somewhere along the way you came across something that you can't fix.

A marriage that needed something, and you didn't know how to give it. A child that needed presents, but all you knew how to do was offer solutions, or a grief that couldn't be managed or resolved, and what happened? You found an exit, you ran. And that's what Jacob has done his whole life. This time he runs from Laban. The problem is, the path he has to take to run from Laban is taking him back home, where he's already run away from Esau, the brother he hasn't seen in 20 years, the brother who wanted to kill him. And so Jacob gets word that his brother Esau is coming after him with 400 men. And so Jacob can't go back because of Laban, and he can't go forward because of Esau, and there is like nowhere left to run. So here's what he does. He separates his family and his servants into two different groups, and he sends them in separate directions. He's thinking that if Esau attacks one group, then the other group will survive. You've got to imagine that he put some family and servants in a certain group that he thought was normal. Maybe the most likely to be attacked, and maybe they looked around, and they're like, I know what group I'm in. I'm in Leah's group. And if you had to do this, you'd probably have an A team and a B team. He's trying to find a way out. He separates them. He sends gifts ahead to Esau to try to soften them up. And so, he's just doing what he does. He's scheming. He's hedging. He's trying to control, working the angles, looking for a way out. He's going to fix it.

But then Jacob does something that he almost never does. And when I say he almost never does it, this is the only time we have any record of him doing what he's about to do. He prays. And it's not a polished prayer, and it's not a religious prayer. It is an honest and a desperate prayer. Genesis 32, 11, save me, I pray, for I am afraid. That's it. That is the prayer. No negotiating, no scheming, no angles, just this humble and vulnerable prayer that God would help him because he's scared. And I would just tell you that this seems to be the kind of prayer that God responds to. And we see in verse 24, just the simple description of what plays out next is Jacob, it says, was left alone. He was left alone. Alone is not something that Jacob seems to do well. To be clear here, he is alone, but not because he wanted to be. For us, what's interesting is, like, we are the least alone generation in history, but yet somehow we are the loneliest. Like we have engineered our entire lives to make sure that we are never truly by ourselves. Like the average American checks their phone a few hundred times a day. They touch it like thousands of times a day. It's what we reflexively do the moment there's nothing demanding our attention. It's like our go-to. And I would just say some of you are addicted to that kind of noise the way other people are addicted to substances. And I'm not saying that to be dramatic. I'm saying it because the mechanism is identical. You use it to not feel something.

And when that feeling starts to surface, you reach for the next hit, the next scroll, the next episode, the next dopamine hit that will keep the quiet from getting loud in your life. MIT researcher Sherry Turkle spent years studying our relationship with technology, and she found that we have developed what she calls a flight from conversation or a flight from solitude. It's this idea that we reach for our phones in moments, not because we need information, but because we need to not be alone with our thoughts. Just think about this. When is the last time you were truly alone? No podcast, no music, no scroll, no screen, just you and your thoughts and silence. Because we eat with the phone in our hands, and we exercise with our earbuds, and we lie in bed, and we watch something until we fall asleep. Because just lying there and just thinking and just being quiet, it feels unbearable. And what I want to say is that some of you, some of us, lack the courage to be alone. Because being alone means that you might hear something that you've been successfully drowning out for years, a question you've been avoiding, a conviction you've been outrunning, or some grief you haven't let yourself feel, or maybe a confession you've been suppressing, or a decision that you've been postponing. And as long as you stay busy, you don't have to deal with it. And so, we don't just run from God, but we have built an entire economy around running from God, a multi-billion dollar industry of distraction where we medicate our souls with endless content so we never have to be alone. And so, noise, for a lot of us, is more than a distraction, it is a spiritual strategy. Blaise Pascal, the 17th century philosopher, he wrote something in 1654 that feels like it could have been written on Tuesday. He said, all of humanity's problems stem from man's ability to sit quietly in a room alone. And he was describing something in human nature that predates smartphones and social media and streaming services. Like we have always run from stillness. We have always filled the silence.

We just have more ways to do it now than ever before. But here's the thing, silence is where God tends to show up. And I don't even think the Bible is subtle about this. Psalm 46, verse 10, be still, be silent, and know that I am. God. I have heard that verse my whole life, and I've always kind of read it as this gentle invitation, like God is saying, hey buddy, you take a breath, just relax a little. But the Hebrew word here for be still is not like a gentle suggestion. It means stop, stop striving, drop what you're holding. It's less of an invitation, and it's more of a command. And then Isaiah 30 verse 15, God says, in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength. You think, well that's beautiful. Like that's what I want. But here's the next phrase here, but you would have none of it. God offers quietness and rest. He offered the very thing the running soul is so desperate for, but you would have none of it. Israel says, no thanks. We'll keep the horses and the chariots and the noise and the motion. We'll keep running. And so God says, in quietness and trust, that's your strength, but you would have none of it. And so the spiritual reality for a lot of us that we miss is that the external input in our lives is often the enemy to internal reflection. Like you cannot hear the still small voice of God when that feed is always running. And so it's Jacob who has been surrounded by wives and children and servants and flocks and noise and motion for 20 years, is suddenly alone on the bank of a river in the dark. And the moment he's alone with nowhere to go and nothing to do and no control, God steps out of the darkness and what happens next changes his life. But look, this is one of the strangest stories in the Bible. I want to break this story up into three different scenes. Here's the first scene. The first scene is we'll call the fight where God won't let you go. Genesis 32, verse 22. That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower

Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with a man. The man said, let me go for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I won't let you go unless you bless me. I told you, it's a strange story. A few questions. Number one, who is he wrestling with here? The text says he's wrestling a man, which is kind of mysterious. But by the end of the passage, Jacob names the place the face of God because he says, I saw God face to face and my life was spared. The prophet Hosea tells us this story and gives us a few extra details. Hosea says that Hosea was wrestling with an angel of the Lord. It's a divine being. And so many scholars would interpret this from Hosea's account that Jacob is wrestling with an angel of the Lord, that this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, that he's wrestling with Jesus at the Jabbok. But also, why? Like, why wrestling? Lots of ways that God could have gotten Jacob's attention. Why wrestle with him in the dirt? And I don't know the answer for sure. I wonder if otherwise Jacob would have taken off running. Like, if God didn't grab a hold of him to wrestle him, if he would have given him a vision, I bet Jacob would have interpreted that vision in a way that let him off the hook. If it was a voice, like Jacob would have tried to negotiate with it, a burning bush, Jacob would have run away from it. He always seems to find a way around what God is doing, but not this time. This time, God grabs a hold of him. And I'm guessing that there are at least a few people in here who understand what this is. In fact, just by show of hands, how many of you would say that that's your story? That God grabbed a hold of you? Raise your hand if that's kind of your experience. Yeah, I mean, you understand this idea. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways that that story can go. Like, maybe you would say, I walked into church to make my wife happy, or because of my girlfriend's ultimatum, but God grabbed a hold of me. Or maybe you'd say, I got fired from the job that I'd made my entire identity, and God got a hold of me. In my addiction, I hit rock bottom, God grabbed a hold of me. I was successful by every measure that mattered to the world, but I was completely empty, and in my emptiness, God grabbed a hold of me. I got the diagnosis, and God grabbed a hold of me. And Jacob wrestles through the night, and

then as dawn comes closer, there's something that shifts in him. Jacob stops trying to get away, and instead, he refuses to let go. Really strange verse. Verse 25, it says, when the man saw that he could not overpower Jacob. This is the angel of the Lord and he can't overpower Jacob? Like how is that possible? This is God who with the Word created everything that exists out of nothing. And this is a God who with a touch would wrench his hip out of a socket. So how is it that he can't get Jacob to tap out? The answer, I think, is not that Jacob was surprisingly strong. We know that as this story unfolds. But let me give an illustration that might help. Last week, I came home from work and my two-year-old grandson was running around the house like a wild man. I walk in the house and my wife says, he needs somebody to wrestle with him. So I get on the floor and I wrestle with my two-year-old grandson for like 45 minutes. He's like 30 pounds and I'm like 200 pounds. And so I'm wrestling, I'm wrestling with him, but I'm not wrestling to win. I'm wrestling with him to wear him down. I'm wrestling with him so he'll be worn out and he'll stop running around and finally be still. I think that's what's happening. God is holding back here, like he refuses to overpower Jacob and to surrender. He could have, instead he's going to wrestle Jacob into it. And I just want to connect some of these spiritual dots because I think this is happening for some of you. Forced surrender produces compliance, but chosen surrender produces transformation. God wanted more than Jacob's compliance, he wanted Jacob's heart. He wanted his life. And that requires someone to choose it. Like Jacob had to choose surrender.

So maybe you're sitting here and you're not even sure you'd call yourself a Christian because you never chose it. Like you didn't have a dramatic conversion moment and you didn't walk down an aisle or pray a prayer, you weren't baptized, or maybe you did, but you felt forced, didn't feel like your choice, felt like you got pressured into it. Maybe it feels like you've just had some bad luck in life, like you tried to start this business and it didn't make it. Or a relationship you thought, for sure, this is it, it wasn't it. The job you thought was going to be the thing wasn't the thing. And you've never thought of it, but maybe it's more than bad luck, like maybe it's more than bad timing, maybe it's more than life just being hard, what if it's more than that? What if what you've been experiencing is the persistent and frustrating and won't leave you alone resistance of a God who loves you? Like what if it's not the universe working against you, what if it's God at the Jabbok refusing to let you go? He's not forcing you, he's not overpowering you, he's not dragging you somewhere against your will, but he's not letting go of you and he's going to wrestle with you and he's going to stay in it with you through the night, refusing to give up on you even when you wish he would. Because what we see in Genesis is that God does not abandon Jacob, but neither does he overwrite him. He doesn't walk away, but neither does he force him into submission. Why? Again, it's because he's after Jacob's heart and the heart cannot be taken, it can only be given, which means the wrestling match that you've been in, like this one that feels like resistance, like nothing is going your way, it might be the most loving and caring thing that God is doing for you. Like I'm convinced that for some of you, you're in a wrestling match with God and you don't know it. Like you think, you think it's a health crisis, but it's a wrestling match.

Like you think it's financial collapse, but it's a wrestling match. You think it's this exhaustion of parenting through the toddler years, but it's wrestling. You thought it was a marriage falling apart or career derailing or friendship ending, and all that's real and it was painful, but something else was happening. It's a wrestling match where God is inviting you to choose surrender, an invitation for you to finally submit. In our story, dawn is breaking and the angel of the Lord says, let me go. And Jacob's good at letting things go. Like let go and run away, Jacob, it's what you do. But something has happened that shows you that this wrestling match has changed him. Instead of running away, he tightens his grip and he says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. So this is a different Jacob. Like he's broken, he's exhausted, but he is not running. And I think what seems to change during this wrestling match is he stops trying to get away and he starts holding on. He stops fighting and he starts clinging. you this is that moment. Like you have been resisting God and you have been trying to get away from him but he keeps wrestling with you and my prayer is that you would stop trying to get away and you would start holding on because when you find yourself alone in the darkness you're gonna have to decide am I gonna push him away or am I going to hold on and draw close. For the first time Jacob stops running and he holds on. So Jacob fights through the night and then with one touch everything changes. Here's scene two. We'll call it the limp. Surrender always leaves a mark. 32 verse 25. 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 its daybreak but Jacob replied I will not let you go unless you bless me. Then verse 31. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel and he was limping because of his hip. The word I want you to notice in verse 25 says God touched the socket of his hip.

That word touched here is not struck or punched or hit. It's light tap. Light tap. And his hip is wrenched. Do you know what that injury makes it hard to do? It makes it hard to run. Like if you're a runner what keeps you from running is a hip out of socket. That'll do it. God says to Jacob it's time for you to stop running. Verse 31 says he walks away with a limp and so every single day for the rest of his life like every morning when he swings his legs out of bed every step he takes across the field every time someone notices and says why do you walk that way? Jacob remembers. He remembers the night he wrestled with God. He remembers the night at Jabbok and he remembers what it felt like to run out of his own strength in that moment to stop fighting and start clinging and he remembers that God was there in the dark holding on. I was thinking about the Jabbok. It's not a bad name for what happens down front because really that's what this place is supposed to be. Church is not a place where everything is supposed to be polished and everything was is fine and we pretend the night isn't real. It's a place where you wrestle where you show up exhausted and limping but still hanging on and the people around you they're not surprised by your struggle because they've been through their own. C.S. Lewis famously wrote God whispers to us in our pleasures but he yells at us in our pain and I think what he meant there is not that God causes pain but that pain has a way of stripping away the noise that keeps us from hearing him. Like pain gets our full attention in a way that comfort just never does. A number of years ago I was driving with the radio on and I caught an interview with a man named Jerry Sitzer. He was a theology professor at Whitworth College in Spokane and he shared his story on this interview. He was driving with his family when a drunk driver crossed the center line and hit their minivan and in a single moment Jerry lost three generations of women that he loved. He lost his mama, his wife, and his young daughter and he walked away without a scratch. And he wrote a book about trying to figure out how to live after something like that and the title alone is worth the price of the book. The title is A Grace Disguised. And the idea is that grace came but it showed up in the worst possible package

like nothing about it looks like grace at first. But in that book he makes this observation. He says the quickest way to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west chasing after the setting sun it is to head east to plunge into the darkness until you come out on the other side at the sunrise. Think about that. Everything in us says run. Run from the dark. When the marriage gets hard, when the consequences catch up, our instinct is to run. Run from the darkness, run from confession, run from repentance, run from hard conversations, run from the thing that God is doing in you that you just don't seem to be ready for. Just run. But what if you have been running the wrong direction your whole life? What if the fastest way to the light is to stop running? To stop running from the darkness? See, Jacob has been running west his whole life. He ran from Esau, he ran from Isaac, he ran from Laban, he ran from himself, he ran from God. He's always chasing the light, always trying to outrun the dark, always trying... Trying to control, always trying to fix, always one step ahead, until now. This night where he wrestles through the darkness with God. Daybreak comes. The early morning sun is rising and we come to scene three of our story. We'll call this scene the name change. What got you here won't get you there. Genesis 32, God asks Jacob a question. Verse 27, 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 humans and have overcome. Before we talk about his new name, can we just talk about his old name for a moment? Because remember, Jacob is born a few seconds

after his older brother Esau. And he's grabbing his older brother's heel as they come out of the womb. And in those days, being born second meant like everything. The firstborn son received the blessing. The firstborn son received the inheritance. The firstborn son received the father's full attention. So Esau got all of it. And Jacob got the leftovers. Genesis 25 puts it pretty plainly. It says that Isaac, the father, loved Esau. It says Isaac loved the taste of wild game and he loved Esau, but Rebecca loved Jacob. And so what becomes clear in Jacob's life is he grew up in a home where the affirmation he desperately needed from his dad just wasn't there. And that ends up shaping the identity of a man. Researcher Dr. Kenneth Adams spent decades studying what he calls the father hunger in men. It is this specific ache that comes from an absent or distant or critical or an emotionally unavailable father. And his findings are striking. He found that men who didn't receive that kind of affirmation from their fathers are significantly more likely to spend their adult lives in what he calls compulsive achievement. Like driven, but not by a genuine desire, but by this unconscious need to finally earn approval that was never given. And so they become the most productive person in the room,

the highest achiever, the hardest workers, but also the emptiest and the angriest. And this is Jacob. He's always running and we read that he is often angry. And if I'm just being honest, that just sounds like a lot of men I know. Your father's voice was never satisfied. He was never impressed, always critical. Or maybe his voice was absent and silent and you've been trying to fill that silence with achievement or success. What I think is happening in our story is that Jacob is not just wrestling with the stranger in the dark. Like Jacob is wrestling with every unanswered question his father left him. And God, his heavenly father does the one thing in the story that his earthly father never did. He looks him in the face and says, this is who you are. And so as we approach Father's Day weekend next weekend, and I just think God wants to do this for some of you men. He wants to wrestle you down and he wants to look you in the eye and he wants to tell you who you are. Not because you've earned it, not because you've proven yourself, not because of what you've built or because you finally got it right, but because you are his. You are his son, you are his daughter.

So I just want you to think for a moment what's happening here. God asks him his name, but why? It's not that God needs the information, but think about the last time in scripture someone asked Jacob his name. If you go back to Genesis 27, his blind father Isaac reaches out in the dark and asks Jacob his name. Who are you? What's your name? And Jacob lies and he says, I'm Esau. He lied about his name. He built his entire future on a lie about his identity and now God asks him that same question. What's your name? And he says, Jacob, which in Hebrew means the heel grabber, the deceiver. And God says, no, that's not your name anymore. Your name will no longer be Jacob, but it'll be Israel. So Jacob has spent his life trying to get the blessing, trying to get inheritance, trying to establish his identity, but now when he is broken and desperate, the blessing finally comes. And listen, like this is the gospel. The blessing comes to the humble, the blessing comes to the broken and to the desperate. When you stop striving and you start surrendering, you start to find a new identity. God names him Israel,

which means the one who wrestles with God. So God doesn't give him a name that erases the struggle that he had. Instead, he gives him a name that actually highlights the struggle. And I love this because your struggle with God. God, it's not the embarrassing part of your story that you should try to leave out. It is what God wants to weave into your identity. There's one more scene in this story. Jacob limps across the Jabbok, and Esau's coming, 400 men. This is the confrontation he's been running from for 20 years, and it's right in front of him. And Genesis 33 says that Jacob himself went ahead and he bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. So something has shifted. He's like not sending out a group first. He's not running away. There's not some scheme or manipulation. There's no exit strategy, just a limping man, limping towards the thing he's been running from his entire life. And then Genesis 33, verse four tells us that Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. And he threw his arms around him and kissed him, and the Bible says they wept. 20 years of distance, 20 years of betrayal and anger and unresolved hurt,

20 years of dysfunction and a mess that seemed too big to ever clean up, and they weep in each other's arms. Notice the sequence here. It's not an accident. Jacob wrestles with God, and then he reconciles with his brother. His pride is gone, he is humbled, because listen, you cannot limp and swagger at the same time. You cannot limp and swagger at the same time. And Jacob's story can be your story. Like I believe today, God wants to give some of you a new identity. He wants to give you a new name. Your name is not deceiver or manipulator. It's not failure, adulterer. It's not too far gone. Your name is not what your earthly father called you. It's not the worst thing you've ever done. He wants to give you a new name. Second Corinthians 5.17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The Bible says to take off the old, to put on the new. But you have to stop running, and you have to start wrestling. And so we wanna have some time to wrestle together. Some of you, you walk down here with a swagger, and the invitation is to leave here with a limp. A limp that comes from finally surrendering

and letting go and letting God say who you are, finding your identity in him. So we're gonna have a time of worship. We're also gonna have a time of communion, some extended communion. And really, this is a time to wrestle with God. This is a time for some silence, a time to be alone in a room full of people, but alone. So can I just invite you to turn down the noise in your life, the distractions that maybe you have on your mind, notifications, that urge, that runner's urge that tells you, I gotta get out of here. Would you just sit in this moment, and would you wrestle? Let's pray. God, I thank you for your grace that meets us here at the Jabbok, it meets us where we are. Lord, I thank you that you have not let us go. The fact that each person who's hearing this is hearing this is evidence to me that you have not let them go, that you are still wrestling with them. And God, I know that all of us, no matter how long we've been following you, we have some things that maybe we've been clinging to and holding on to. We have some things that we're trying to control and fix, and we don't quite know how to surrender, but God, you want us to surrender them.

And God, I would pray that in these next few minutes, it would be a time for some new identity, that we'd find it in you, we would let you determine who we are, that we would listen to you say who we are, it's in Jesus' name, amen. As we take communion, this metaphor of wrestle, if I could just extend it a moment. We talk a lot about the old is gone, the new has come. We talk a lot about this new identity in Jesus. We celebrate that every time someone's baptized. In baptism, we talk about this burial. Someone goes under the water, the old is gone, they come up out of the water, it's this new life in Jesus. And everything about that process can sometimes feel like, I don't know, easy. And on one hand, it's simple, like this exchange that takes place, and Jesus has done the work on the cross, and yet, it also requires some wrestling, because we've been taught to just hold on with both hands. Like, our grip is tight. And so as we take communion together, my prayer would be that you would let go of some things. You'd stop fighting, you'd start clinging, that this would be a time where you would let your heavenly Father look you in the eye and say, this is who you are. Let's take communion together. ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If that's standing and raising your hands, please. If that's receiving prayer and coming forward, please.

Respond however it is that you need to respond to connect with the God who sees you and knows you and loves you. Let's continue to sing. Come forward if you need some prayer. ♪♪ Can't go back to the beginning Can't control what tomorrow will bring But I know here in the middle Is the place where you promised to be Thank you for your promise But not enough Unless you come Will you meet me here again This is our prayer Cause all I want Is all you are Will you meet me here again Right where we're scared Where anxiety reigns Where fear seems to win, meet us here As I walk now through the valley Let your love Let your love rise above every fear And like the sun saving the shadow In my wings, your glory I'll be Not enough Unless you come Will you meet me here again Oh, come and call me Lord

Cause all I want Is all you are Is all you are Will you meet me here again I'm not enough I'm not enough Unless you come Will you meet me here again Cause all I want Is all you are Will you meet me here again Would you meet us Lord In your presence chains are broken Let us see how you break chains How you're chasing for us We wanna see your face Lord Remind us how you're faithful How you've brought us through We're standing here today Because we weren't forsaken Lord you haven't forsaken us We believe you're here God We believe you're here God Oh come and power Holy Spirit over us Not for a minute Wasn't forsaken The Lord is in this place right here The Lord is in this place So come Holy Spirit Drive all to awaken

The Lord is in this place Thank you God Yes he's here And not for a minute Wasn't forsaken The Lord is in this place Yes, He did. Oh, come Holy Spirit. Dry bones awaken. The Lord is in this place. The Lord is in this place. You haven't been forsaken because He's faithful. He's so faithful. Thank You, Lord, that You're faithful. So good. I'm not enough unless You come. Will You meet me here again? Cause all I want is all You are. Will You meet me here again? I'm not enough. I'm not enough unless You come. Unless You come. Will You meet me here again? Cause all I want is all You are. Will You meet me here again? Would You meet us all?

You can't transform because You're whole. Make me whole. There's nothing left to do. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only Jesus. Who else is worthy? All praise. Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only Jesus. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only Jesus. Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only Jesus. Who else is worthy? Come on. Who else is worthy? There is no one. Only Jesus. Who else is worthy? Who else? Who else is worthy? There's no one. There is no one.

Only Jesus. There is no one. Only my Jesus. There is no one. Only our Jesus. Only our Lord. Only our Lord. Amen. ♪ Gracious You are making new wine ♪ ♪ In the soil I now surrender ♪ ♪ You are breaking new ground ♪ ♪ So I yield to You into the cave of heaven ♪ ♪ When I trust You are the way to understand ♪ ♪ So make me Your guest, You make me Your offering ♪ ♪ You make me whatever You want me to be ♪ ♪ We came here with nothing but all You have given me ♪ ♪ Jesus bring new wine for me ♪ ♪ In the crushing, in the pressing ♪ ♪ You are making new wine ♪ ♪ In the soil I now surrender ♪ ♪ You are breaking new ground ♪ ♪ You are breaking new ground ♪ ♪ So make me Your guest, You make me Your offering ♪ ♪ You make me whatever You want me to be ♪ ♪ We came here with nothing but all You have given me ♪ ♪ Jesus bring new wine for me ♪ ♪ Jesus bring new wine for me ♪ ♪ New wine for me ♪ ♪ And oh, Jesus bring new wine for me ♪ ♪ Cause where there is new wine, there is new power ♪

♪ There is new freedom and the kingdom is here ♪ ♪ I lay down my old flames to carry Your new fire today ♪ ♪ Cause where there is new wine, there is new power ♪ ♪ There is new freedom and the kingdom is here ♪ ♪ I lay down my old flames to carry Your new fire today ♪ ♪ So make me Your vessel, You make me Your offering ♪ ♪ You make me whatever You want me to be ♪ ♪ I came here with nothing, but all You have given me ♪ ♪ Jesus bring new wine out of me ♪ ♪ Jesus bring new wine out of me ♪ ♪ Jesus bring new wine out of me ♪ Thank you. ♪ Just come and have Your way ♪ ♪ Just come and have Your way in my life, Lord ♪ ♪ All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give ♪ ♪ All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give ♪ ♪ I will ever love and trust Him, His favorite name is Jesus ♪ ♪ All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give ♪ ♪ Jesus, I surrender all to Him I freely ♪ ♪ And I will ever love and trust Him ♪ ♪ His presence freely, oh, His presence freely ♪ ♪ So make me Your vessel and make me an offering ♪ ♪ Make me whatever You want me to be ♪ ♪ I came here with nothing but all You have given me ♪ ♪ Jesus, with new wine, out of me this I forget ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, with new wine, out of me like a new gift ♪ ♪ Jesus, with new wine, out of me ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, with new wine, out of me this I forget ♪ ♪ Jesus, with new wine, out of me like a new gift ♪ ♪ Jesus, with new wine, out of me like a new gift ♪

♪ Jesus, there in time for me ♪ ♪ I see His wounds, His hands, His feet ♪ ♪ My Savior on that cursed tree ♪ ♪ His body bound and drenched in tears ♪ ♪ They laid Him down in Joseph's tomb ♪ ♪ The entrance sealed by heavy stone ♪ ♪ My sight is still and all is calm ♪ ♪ My sight is still and all is calm ♪ ♪ So let it rise to the only one who's worthy ♪ ♪ Sing, oh, praise the name of the Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh, praise His name forevermore ♪ ♪ For endless days we will see Your praise ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, oh, Lord our God ♪ ♪ And on the third at break of dawn ♪ ♪ The Son of Heaven rose again ♪ ♪ Oh, trampled death, where is Your sting? ♪ ♪ The angels roar for Christ the King, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh, praise His name forevermore ♪ ♪ For endless days we will see Your praise ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord, oh, Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh, praise His name forevermore ♪ ♪ He shall return in robes of white ♪ Let it rise. ♪ Then I will rise among the saints ♪ ♪ My case transfixed on Jesus' face ♪ ♪ Oh, You're worthy, Lord ♪ ♪ Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh, praise His name forevermore ♪ ♪ For endless days we will see Your praise ♪

♪ Oh, Lord, oh, Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh Lord our God, give Him praise ♪ ♪ Oh praise the name of the Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh praise His name forevermore ♪ ♪ For in this place we now sing Your praise ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, oh Lord our God, oh Lord our God ♪ ♪ Oh Lord, oh Lord our God, oh Lord our God, oh Lord our God ♪ Hey, Pando family. I am so glad that you joined us for worship today. I know that when we are talking with what it looks like to have a wrestling match with God, sometimes that can feel really heavy because it doesn't matter where you've been through your life. God has always interacted with us in a very unique way, just like He did Jacob in the passage. And I just wanna encourage you that if you are in a wrestling match with God and struggling maybe even with your identity in Christ, that I want you to remember that Jesus loves you so much, that God the Father loves you so much. He sent Jesus to die for you on the cross. So I want you to know that your identity in Christ is what defines you as a son or a daughter. And that's what we see from Jacob's life, that his identity is not defined by his failures or his past. It's actually defined by him being loved by God and that God was patient and pursued him. And when he submitted his life to God

in that wrestling match, it changed his identity and even his name when God gave him a new name and a new meaning and purpose, and he was able to restore his relationship with his brother. So I don't know what you're wrestling with today, but I wanna encourage you to submit to God with whatever you're wrestling and give it to the Father. And remember that your identity is as a son or a daughter in Christ. I also wanna just encourage you to check out our Pando exclusive podcast. It drops every Thursday and we have a brand new study. It's called Eden Into Eternity. And I can't wait for you guys to check out that content as well. Before I get out of here, I wanna make sure that I can just lead you guys through a prayer where we can slow our minds down together. So I would love for you to either write this down, write out a prayer or pray with me, or just listen along. Jesus, thank you for being a great redeemer. Even when life doesn't look the way that I planned it, you are good. I trust your promises. I feel your provision. I love your word. Please protect me from temptation. Please restore what I've lost. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit.

I am not in control and I am waiting on you. In chaos, I need your peace. In loss, I need your comfort. In confusion, I need your truth. And I trust you with everything. I love you. In Jesus's name, amen. Have a great day.