Fighting With God

Fighting With God

Genesis 32.22-31

DBC 10.22.06

22-23 But during the night he got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok [yab-boke' -a stream that emptied into the Jordan river]. He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.

24-25 But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn't get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob's hip out of joint.

26 The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak." Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me." 27 The man said, "What's your name?" He answered, "Jacob." 28 The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."

29 Jacob asked, "And what's your name?" The man said, "Why do you want to know my name?" And then, right then and there, he blessed him. 30 Jacob named the place Peniel [pen-oo-ale’] (God's Face) because, he said, "I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!"

31-32 The sun came up as he left Peniel [pen-oo-ale’], limping because of his hip. (This is why Israelites to this day don't eat the hip muscle; because Jacob's hip was thrown out of joint.) (Eugene Peterson, The Message, Genesis 32.22-31)

Last week, in the message Laughing With God, we focused in on Sarah whom had a hard time of letting go of things that were out of her ability to control and whom had a propensity of taking things into her own hands instead of having faith in what God had promised he would bring to pass in her life.

Those two bad habits (not being able to let go of things and taking matters beyond one’s control into one’s own hands) keep us from having inner peace and unshakable joy in our daily faith journey.

We noted that too many believers struggle with a Sarah behavioral complex; that is, many believers today want to take our life into our hands and obsess over things that are out of our control and belong in the hands of God alone.

Jacob inherited his grandmother Sarah’s behavioral complex. He too wanted to get what he desired by his own means and out of a need for self- preservation. He lied to get ahead and cheated to have a blessed life.

For most of his life, Jacob worked out of a policy of dishonesty and it worked out for him! He lied to his father and cheated his older brother, but he would live in dread fear of his older brother Esau for a very long time.

Today, I’m talking about how Jacob fought against God and how we too fight against God in our lives and faith journeys. For a long time Jacob avoided his brother Esau and he also avoided facing and fighting with God.

When I was 10 years old, I savored every Saturday morning to watch TV at 10am when I could see the Von Erich boys wrestle the fabulous Freebirds at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Ft. Worth TX. Ah, the good ole days…when wrestling was “real.”

For those of you who don’t know who the Von Erich boys (David, Kevin, Kerry, Mike and Chris) were, they were the heroes of wrestling and the Freebirds were the villain scoundrels that you loved to hate.

Not only were the Freebirds villain scoundrels, they were also often too chicken to stay in the wrestling ring against any of the Von Erich boys. The Freebirds were cheaters, liars, and chickens much like the early Jacob!

Sometimes we’re more like the Freebirds and Jacob then we want to believe or admit.

Jacob lied to his daddy Isaac to get his father’s blessing and inheritance, which was supposed to go to Esau the firstborn.

When Isaac (Abraham and Sarah’s boy) was on his deathbed he summoned Esau and asked him to bring in one last great game hunt from the wild open land. When Esau was out on his hunt, Jacob slipped in like a snake.

Jacob entered into the tent and approached his old, blind, and dying father. Isaac queried to whom was there and Jacob lied and said that he was Esau. Jacob coached by his mother Rebekah wore a disguise of older brother’s clothes laced with Esau’s heavy scent.

The old man Isaac believed it only after a serious moment of hesitation. Was Isaac that gullible? Or maybe he felt that Jacob would be better off with the blessing than Esau ever would be. Nevertheless, Jacob cheated and lied his way to a blessed life.

I wonder if Jacob believed his own lies? That is, I wonder if Jacob believed that success and happiness in life were justified by the means of lies and any false shortcut.

Jacob believed that a greatly desired profitable life was justified by any means of achieving it.

Jacob never blinked when he lied to his father or cheated his brother.

Jacob had no reservations about a policy of dishonest, as longs as it worked out for him in the end.

And it’s an amazing thing that God let Jacob get by so long that way. And it’s a hopeful thing, to me, that God worked in Jacob’s life despite Jacob’s lies and blind self- preservation. After all, the scripture says that we all have some Jacob and Sarah behavioral complex in us, but that God loves us still yet: “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5.8)

For a long time Jacob goes about a blessed life, but soon grows tired and longs to go home, and in order to do that he has to prepare to square things away with Esau, whom he is sure will be ready to kill him.

Squaring things up with Esau, for Jacob, is perhaps his way of finally squaring up (being honest) with his past.

Jacob is no longer staying out of the wrestling ring, he finally steps right into the middle of it and honestly faces his past for the first time in his life.

*Many of us, like Jacob, avoid being honest with God and ourselves, because we believe that such conflict seems needless when life has gone so well for so long; however, if we ever really want to know ourselves and truly know God we have to face ourselves and our past and present and admit that our attempts at self-preservation, while they might succeed in this world, they’re not fit for facing God and being true and genuine to others and ourselves.

Fredrick Buechner describes Jacob’s encounter with God eloquently:

“…Out of the deep of the night a stranger leaps. He hurls himself at Jacob, and they fall to the ground, their bodies lashing through the darkness. It is terrible enough not to see the attacker’s face, and his strength is more terrible still, the strength of more than a man. All the night though they struggle in silence until just before morning when it looks as though a miracle might happen. Jacob is winning. The stranger cries out to be set free before the sun rises. Then, suddenly, all is reversed.

He [the stranger] merely touches the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, and in a moment Jacob is lying there crippled and helpless. The sense we have, which Jacob must have had, that the whole battle was from the beginning fated to end this way, that the stranger had simply held back until now, letting Jacob exert all his strength and almost win so that when he was defeated, he would know that he was truly defeated; so that he would know that not all the shrewdness, will, brute force that he could muster were enough to get this. Jacob will not release his grip, only now not of violence but of need, like the grip of a drowning man.

The darkness has faded just enough so that for the first time he can dimly see his opponent’s face. And what he sees is something more terrible than the face of death-the face of love. It is vast and strong, half ruined with suffering and fierce with joy, the face a man flees down all the darkness of his days until at last he cries out, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me!” Not a blessing that he can have now by the strength of his cunning or the force of his will, but a blessing that he can have only as a gift.

Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are his who will fight for them hard enough; but peace, love, joy are only from God. And God is the enemy whom Jacob fought there by the river, of course, and whom in one way or another … all of us fight God, the beloved enemy. Our enemy because, before giving us everything, he demands of us everything; before giving us life, he demands our lives- our selves, our wills, our treasure…” (Frederick Buechnner, The Magnificent Defeat, 17-18)

I heard of a cowboy preacher in Ft. Worth who shares his testimony over a couple of hours as he gently breaks a wild horse. Throughout the struggle, he recounts of how God broke him.

There’s a miracle in being broke by God, in squaring up and exhausting all of our strength and efforts and coming short in life before God. When you’ve been broke like that, defeated like that, you never again choose to rely on your own strength, wits, or ability.

When you’ve faced God and your past and loose yourself to God, that is when you can really begin to live life.

There’s a sense where we can understand fighting with God as fighting against God; however, there’s another way of seeing the phrase of Fighting with God as in to fight alongside God.

*We will never be able to fight alongside God until we have emptied ourselves of our pride, self-preservation, façade, and abilities.

Dr. David King, a retired Baptist missionary and one of my college professors, teared up one day in class and recounted how he looked out into the Mediterranean Sea from the shores of Lebanon and stood there utterly broke and stripped of any self-reliance or self-preservation. He knew that any strength or ability that would succeed in his life and on the mission field from that point on had to come from God alone.

What about you this day?

Have you avoided facing God openly and honestly in life?

Whose strength and wisdom do rely on in life and in your faith journey?

Have you ever been utterly emptied and broken before God?

Laughing With God

Laughing With God
-Having a Joyful Perspective-
Gen 21.1-7
DBC 10.15.06

Today we are in our second sermon of the Journey of Faith series. Last week started with Abraham as an example of faith as a journey.

We observed that a journey is a movement from one place to another; it has the connotation of adventure added to it. A journey implies that a transformation is underway. Many believers confuse faith as a static possession rather than understanding it as a dynamic and transformational journey.

Faith involves the dynamic movement of God in our lives and of our lives toward God. We could say it this way: God is dynamically working in our lives to transform us into the likeness of Christ and we are moving closer and closer to knowing God more fully.

Specifically, last week, we looked at Abraham’s faith and how that a faith journey is a conversational experience between God and the believer. Faith is a matter of talking with God and not just talking at God.

Today, we observe another part of Abraham’s story that will teach us how to laugh with God and the importance of having a joyful perspective and attitude in our journey of faith with God.

Abraham was 75 when God called him and told him what he intended on doing in Abraham’s life. The occasion of the scripture text today was 25 years later (God wasn’t in a big rush!).

1 And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken. 2 For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. 3 And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac. 4 Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.” 7 She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age [90 yrs old *Gen 17.17].” (Gen 21.1-8)

Prior to this miraculous occasion, Sarah and Abraham laughed at God concerning the seemingly impossible promise that God had made (17.17 and 18.1-15). Look back at before Sarah actually gave birth to Isaac and see how she reacted to the prospect of having a child at her advanced age:

9 Then they [three messengers of God] said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” So he said, “Here, in the tent.” 10 And He said, “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” 13 And the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh!” (Gen 18.9-15)

But now Sarah is laughing with God instead of at God. Sarah is of great interest to me; to be quite honest, I don’t really like her and maybe that’s because I can regrettably relate to some of her bad attitudes and resentful actions.

Sarah had a hard time of letting go of things that were out of her ability to control and she wanted to take things into her own hands instead of having faith in what God had promised he would bring to pass in her life.

Children were so important in ancient biblical times because they were promise of the family lineage continuing and they were of a great practical help and security for aging parents (and children are still so in many regions of the world for the same reasons as they were in the biblical era).

The promise of a child to Sarah and Abraham not only meant that God was fulfilling his great promise to Abraham (to make him the father of many nations), but it was also a blessing of personal completion and maternal fulfillment to Sarah.

Even though Sarah had God’s promise (an offspring) early on, she still took matters into her own hands by giving Abraham her Egyptian maidservant Hagar.

So many believers today struggle with a Sarah behavioral complex; that is, many believers today want to take life into our hands and obsess over things that are out of our control and belong in the hands of God alone. We are tempted to feel that we just can’t let go of some things. Or we feel like some things will not happen unless we alone make them happen.

I had a meeting with St. Anonymous this week and said saint left me with an important thought and illustrative story.

*St. Anonymous asked me: What happens when joy is squeezed out of faith? Legalism is the result of joy being squeezed out of faith. In part, legalism is the behavioral complex that involves the idea that a person alone can control and deal with all that life throws one’s way. Legalism, in part, is the practice of taking and thinking that life can be lived independently from God and others.

There were two monks on a journey. They were in the process of a vow of silence to be observed during the daytime. Early one morning as they were starting out on their journey, in silence, they came across a beautiful young woman dressed in a silk gown. She was stuck on one side of a river and needed to cross it.

So one of the silent monks gestured toward the young woman and carried her over and through the waist deep river to the other side. She was grateful and went about her way.
The two monks continued their journey throughout the remainder of the day. When the sun had set, one of the monks broke silence and in disgust turned to the other monk and proceeded to lecture him on the scandalous action of helping the young maiden.

The other monk spoke back and said, “I set the young girl down this morning and you’ve been carrying her all day!”

Some people are like that, they can’t let go of things and they can’t stop obsessing about life and its circumstances; such is the Sarah behavioral complex.

How about you, Do you have and joyful perspective and attitude in your life and faith this morning?

Are there things that you refuse to let go of?

I’m always inspired and amazed when I meet and see people in dire moments in life who have joy and peace despite such uncontrollable prospects and circumstances. I’ve met people like that throughout my ministry and just this past week in hospitals facing difficult and critical surgeries.

It’s the occasional and graceful smile on the child’s face (suffering from cancer) I see sometimes in the St. Jude’s commercials. It’s not that they are happy about the circumstances, but it’s that they have a peace and joy that the cancer can’t touch.

It was the smile and warmness that I received from several of the Katrina survivors that I met at North East Baptist Hospital and Kelly USA AFB last year. It’s not that they were happy about the circumstances, but it’s that they were joyful about God presence with them through and past the hurricane storm.

*I think, and I pray, that part of having joy with God (laughing with God) and being at peace in the midst of uncontrollable chaos is realizing the fact that all things will pass.

David the great Hebrew king and Psalmist wrote under duress that, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30.5)

Centuries ago, there was a Persian king that kindly and gracefully ruled his kingdom. His son was to succeed him to the throne and the king greatly desired to leave his son a bit of wisdom that would help guide and inspire his son. He ordered his wise men to search the world over and find the greatest of all wisdom and to inscribe it on a gold ring for his boy to wear when he became king. This is what they found and inscribed on the ring: “Even this shall pass away.” That is, that all bad things will come and go and even also all good things will come and go. (Paul Powell, Joy Comes in the Morning, 10.)

*There is a great joy and release when we realize that our faith and life are in God’s care.

There is great laughter with God and peace of mind when let go of that, which is not meant for us to handle alone.

There was no way, outside of God, that Abraham would become a great father to many nations. And there was no way that Sarah could accomplish in her own strength and wits that which God alone was able to do.

So how do we let go of burdens and things out of our control?

*Having joy in our faith and laughing with God is a matter of the focus and direction of our attitude and how and what we think upon.

Jesus talked about being blessed:

3 “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed means happy; the English word for “happy” comes from the Old English word “Happenstance.” The Believer’s God-given joy (laughter), however, is not based on physical circumstance but on an inner joy. (Bob Utley, Matthew 5 Commentary)


*The journey of faith includes joy. We also know that (at the same time as having joy in our faith and life) there is a balance. There is a time to weep and a time to rejoice, there is a time to mourn and there is a time to dance and wisdom is knowing which is the proper time for each (Eccl 3.4).

Is there joy in your faith today?

What do you need to release and give to God?

What are you obsessing about?

What are facing that is out of your control?

How can you let go and trust God with your life today?

I talk often about being broken by what grieves God; I must say today that God also wants us to find and live out hope, faith, and love against all of the sadness and darkness that threatens to envelope the world.

*Such joyful hope, faith, and love is light that is able to rescue and inspire those in darkness.

Talking With God

Talking With God
-Journey of Faith-
Genesis 12.1-4; Hebrews 11.8
DBC 10.8.06

We are embarking on a journey of faith sermon series over the next two months:

1. Oct. 8th Talking with God (Abraham)
2. Oct. 15th Laughing with God (Abraham, Sara, and Isaac)
3. Oct. 22nd Fighting With God (Jacob)
4. Nov. 5th Reconciling with God (Jacob)
5. Nov. 12th Dreaming with God (Joseph)
6. Nov. 19th Waking With God (Mosses)
7. Nov. 26th Suffering With God (Job)

A journey is a movement from one place to another; it has the connotation of adventure added to it. You might take a mere trip from one place to another, but a journey implies a transformation is underway.

So we could say a journey of faith involves the dynamic movement of God in our lives and of our lives toward God. We could say it this way: God is dynamically working in our lives to transform us into the likeness of Christ and we are moving closer and closer to knowing God more fully.

At this point Abraham serves as a great example of a journey of faith and how that journey is a conversational experience between God and the believer.

-The Call of Abram-

“The LORD had said to Abram [Ab meaning father and ram meaning lofty, “lofty father”], "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.”

Abram was not a complicated man. In fact, he was rather simple and primitive by our standards. His people were nomads and they worked the fields wherever they were. The beginning of God’s conversation with Abram is simply a word for Abram “to go”- and leave everything Abram was comfortable with and everything he knew as a way of life; he is told to leave his country, people, family and go somewhere new where he had never been. Why would God do this (a way of increasing dependence upon God, a test of obedience and faith, change of scenery)?

Perhaps sometimes we have to change our scenery and outlook to see something new. We can get too comfortable and complacent when we’ve been in one place and phase of mind for a long time (Abram was 75 at this time).

Faith is a journey; it’s diligently seeking after God (Heb 11.6). I fear that most believers reassure themselves of where they are and what they already know (about God). Many believers confuse faith as a static possession rather than understanding it as a dynamic and transformational journey.

Faith is an ongoing growth and knowledge of God; it is a conversational experience with God.
God was calling Abram out from everything he knew and trusted in. God was calling him into a mystery. God was growing and changing Abram. God was challenging and stretching Abram’s faith.

"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.

4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him;
and Lot went with him.
Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran."

Abram’s faith was a conversational faith with God; God spoke with him and he spoke to God. In fact all faith starts like that.

There is a difference between talking at God and talking with God.
Have you ever noticed the paradox of the biblical example of a confident and blind faith (2 Tim 1.12 & Hebrews 11.8)?

Hebrew 11.8 “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”

It seems to me that we believe in God (most of the time) based upon what God has done in the past. That is to say that God has a track record. But we are not only called upon to remember what God has done in our past we are called upon to believe that God is moving us forward into the future as well.

Perhaps the future is where blind faith comes into practice. We might know where he is calling us, but we don’t know how it will unfold. We might not know where he is calling us to but we know the character of whom it is that is calling, prompting, and guiding us.

For instance you might sense that God is calling you into the ministry; however, you have no way of knowing how you’re going to end up being a minister and where that ministry will take place . . . but you know that the one who called you into the ministry is faithful and good. Or you sense that God might have called you to start this ministry or go to this place; blind faith would be stepping out and head in that direction knowing that he who called you is faithful.

You might sense that God is leading you to some action or toward a radical change in your life, job, family, faith, or whatever (and it shouldn’t surprise us that faith in a miraculous God would result in miraculous, radical and seemingly impossible tasks and changes in the lives of such believers and churches); however, you might be puzzled and unsure of how that action or change will take place … but you know that the one who called you into that change and commitment is faithful and good.

So among the first lessons that we need to know in talking with God and a journey of faith is that the task, calling, change, journey, and commitment toward God is not always clear, but that the character of the one we have faith in is good and faithful.

I was thinking about the other day how silly I most look to other drivers when I’m in my car singing or talking-- and there’s no one else in the car with me. I was also thinking how weird it must sound to people who don’t believe in God to hear people who do believe in God to say that they talk to God and that God talks to them. And I was thinking that the notion that I talk with God on a regular basis is weird; I mean it’s weird in the sense that it’s not like any other conversation I have; it’s weird in the sense that it’s not natural, it’s supernatural.

And I was thinking of how easy it is to talk about talking with God at church and in Sunday school, but it is (can be) really a hard thing to do outside of church. It can be hard when you pray and pray and you seemingly hear nothing. When you pour out your heart and you don’t feel that your prayers and cries make it past the ceiling, like when the psalmist cried out, “Where are you God and don’t turn a deaf ear on me?”

I can relate with the angst of the Psalmist; but I want to leave you with some assurance that while it does get tough and painful in this life—God is with you. God is present in your pain, suffering, dilemmas, struggles and challenges; and while we may not know what or where life is taking us we can know that God goes and is with us wherever and in whatever circumstances that we find ourselves in. He is our shield (Gen 15.1).

working on sermons

Sorry for not posting here more regularly. I've been posting poems and such here.

I'm working on a series of Journey in faith sermons for October and November:

1. October 8th Talking with God (Abraham)
2. Oct. 15th Laughing with God (Abraham, Sara, and Issac)
3. Oct.22nd Fighting With God (Jacob)

4. Novemeber 5th Reconciling with God (Jacob)
5. Nov.12th Dreaming with God (Joseph)

6. Nov. 19th Waking With God (Mosses)
7. Novemeber 26th Suffering With God (Job)

Have you ever read Why bad things happen to good people by Harold S. Kushner?