Today we're Looking at page 17, our little sermon companion. If you need a sheet, if you don't have a book or didn't bring one, we've got just today's pages, if you'd like them. We're going to be looking at some passages in Genesis, chapter 32 about Jacob and his 12 sons. It's really the most about Jacob, but he wouldn't have been much of a forefather if he didn't have sons. And he had 12 of them and at least one daughter that we know of.

I bet he had more, but they didn't really tell us that.

It's a story that's a journey of. A journey of 20 years, but a lifetime of effect for 20 years. He has this thing with God that's been looming over him. And God's going to call him to account for it. And I'm going to call us at the end to kind of focus on that and to say, like, what is it that you have that you have maybe had some kind of a deal with God?

And I don't recommend that you make deals with God, but let's be honest, most of us have. You've bargained with him at some point. God, if you'll just heal my loved one, I'll do this. Some of the biggest leaders in the faith, like, I mean, I think it was. Was it Martin Luther that got caught out in a big storm, and he's like, God, if you just save me, I'll become a monk.

You know? And then he did. He's like, I guess I gotta go be a monk now, you know, and he thought, like, I'll never have any kids or anything. And then later he leaves, like, the monk stuff in the priesthood and gets married. And so, you know, he does.

But anyway, like, you know, some of those things, like, there's been people in the scriptures that kind of made a deal with God and it didn't turn out so well. Like, they promised something they shouldn't have you. And so, like, don't be that guy. But anyway, Jacob, he makes a bargain with God. And I'm going to talk about that in a second.

And first I want to read to you the verses that we're going to look at today. And somebody's looking at my little Bible up here, and they're like, that was almost evil, how small they made that print. And I was like, yeah, that's why I have my reading glasses for it. I used to be able to read these words and, you know, then I got older so we're Starting in Genesis 32, 9, just through the first, like, first part of chap of verse 13, and then skip down. Then Jacob prayed, oh, God of my father Abraham.

God of my father Isaac. Now remember, notice he doesn't say like my God yet. That's crucial. That's key. God of my father Abraham.

God of my father Isaac. Oh, Lord, you said to me, return to your land and to your relatives, and I will make you prosper. I'm not worthy of all the steadfast love, the faithful love. We talked about this a few weeks ago. Is this Hebrew word called hesed?

And it's this loyal, faithful love that God has for his people. He says, I'm not worthy of all the loyal love, the covenant faithful love that you have shown your servant. With only my walking stick, I crossed the Jordan River. But now I have become two camps of people. Rescue me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, as well as the mothers with their children.

But you said, I will certainly make you prosper, and I will make your descendants, like the sand on the seashore, too numerous to count. And then Jacob stayed there that night. Skip down to verse 22. During the night, Jacob quickly took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok River. He took them and sent them across the stream along with all his possessions.

So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he struck the socket of his hip so that the socket of Jacob's hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then the man said, let me go, for dawn is breaking. I will not let you go, Jacob replied, unless you bless me.

The man asked him, what is your name? He answered, jacob. And the man told him, you'll no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked, please tell me your name. Why do you ask my name?

The man replied, then he blessed Jacob there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, explaining, certainly I have seen God face to face and have survived. The sun rose over him as he crossed over Penuel, but he was limping because of his hip. That is why to this day, the Israelites do not eat the sinew which is attached to the socket of the hip, because he struck the socket of Jacob's hip near the attached sinew. I love that last little bit, by the way.

That really doesn't mean too much to us, but it's just kind of like, hey, have you ever wondered why the Israelites don't eat this on the animals? Because God touched Jacob there. So this whole thing, like, let me give you a little backstory with Jacob. Like, let's go back to in the womb. In the womb.

He is a twin with his brother Esau. And the babies are literally fighting in the womb. Some of you women had a baby that, like, kicked a lot or would give you, like, acid reflux or heartburn or for some reason, however, they're able to do that. Not so with them. They were fighting.

It was a cage match, you know, like, this is like MMA in the womb for them, and they're cage matching inside with of their mother's, you know, womb. And she goes to God and she's like, why is this happening? Because, you know, that was her doctor. People just had faith and God did things for them, you know, he still heals us, by the way. Anyway, she.

God says it's because you have two nations within you. Like, each of your sons is going to become the father of a nation. And they're. They're fighting for dominance, for their place. And so when they are born, Esau comes out first.

He is now going to have the honor of the firstborn son. He'll have twice the inheritance. He'll inherit twice of his, Twice the amount of his father's stuff. Double portion so that he can continue the legacy of his father. And Jacob was jealous of that his whole life.

Even at the moment that they're being born, his hand is grabbing the heel of his brother as they're going through the birth canal. Like, he's. He's trying. It's like this time where we were at a pastor's retreat and we were racing go karts. Pastors get brutal when they're competing with each other, it turns out.

And I was put in the slow go cart in, like, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near Gatlinburg. And I remember going up next to somebody, my cart just would not go. I never lifted, like, not for a second, you know, just foot down the whole time. And I couldn't pass anyone, not even the bad drivers. And so I grabbed.

I grabbed a cart next to me, like, on the bar and just tried to pull them behind me, like, tried to use their cart to pull me forward. That's the only help I had, hope I had for any help or leverage on it, you know. And Jacob was trying to do the same thing. He's grabbing at his brother trying to like slide past him. It's not going to happen.

And so his name becomes Jacob or Yaakov. Heel grabber is what it means. It's like a term for a deceiver. Somebody that's grabbing the heel and trying to get ahead. And he lives his whole life according to his name.

That's why you see, when God is wrestling with him, we believe this is the pre incarnate Jesus Christ. This is Jesus Christ coming down for a time to do a certain thing. That was one of his roles that he would do before he was born into this world through Mary and Jacob. Or he asked Jacob, what is your name? It's almost like confessional time.

He has to admit who he is. My whole life I've been the deceiver, I've been the heel grabber. I've been trying to pull others down so I can get ahead. That's been him his whole life. We'll look at that in a second.

And then after he changes his name, he says, now you're Israel, the one who wrestles with God and overcomes. Now that doesn't mean he beat God. It means he wrestled with the objections he had to who God is. He wrestled with his objection to living in faithfulness to God and he wrestled with that. And then he overcame his own objections because God ends up beating him.

He doesn't beat him in the wrestling match. Like, I'm not good. I don't know how they score these things. But he, he didn't win by any of the traditional means. He just kind of won by saying, I'll let you go, but your walk is going to be different from here on out.

I'm literally going to make you every step you're going to remember this occurrence. And so Jacob says, well, tell me your name. And he says, why do you ask my name? And he doesn't tell him. See, when you had somebody's name, you actually have the ability to somehow have a form of power over them.

If you give someone a name, you have ownership over them. Who are the first people? Adam and Eve. God names Adam. Adam names Eve.

Interesting. Adam names the animals. Interesting. And when you name someone, you have some type of authority or ownership over their lives. And Jacob is trying to get God's name.

And God says, I'm not going to do that. You don't own me. Like you're not the one that controls me. You don't have say so over God. How many times do we try to live where we manipulate God and say, okay, God I'm going to do.

I'm going to do this thing over here so that you have to act on my behalf. So Jacob wants to do. He's done that with everyone else in his life, and now he's trying to do it with God. And God doesn't play that way. He's like, no, I'm not going to do it.

So Jacob, what he did, in a nutshell, or as brief as I can tell you, he. He liked to stay inside, like, indoors. They didn't have air conditioning, but he liked to stay in the tent while his brother was a red man and hairy. Like, I don't know if he's red from a constant sunburn or he just came out looking all red, but he was. He was a man of the soil.

And he goes out. He's not like. Not like a farmer, but just being out in the dirt, being out in the nature. And he would go out and he would hunt. He was a hunter, and he would go out like it.

Like, I used to go deer hunting, and we would go up to a cabin that my grandparents owned in the northern part of Michigan, and every morning we'd set an alarm. We'd get up real early, and we'd go outside with our little hunting rifles, and we'd sit on a stump or a chunk of wood or whatever we'd put out there, and we would wait. We weren't good hunters, by the way. Like, we didn't have, like, dough, urine, and all this dumb stuff we would do. And little horn, you know, antlers, or you clack them together.

I don't know how to do all that stuff. I was not a good hunter. But he's the kind of hunter that goes out and he, like, becomes one with the forest and he hangs out there. He's probably got, like, the streaks on his face that he'd rub some dirt on there to mat. To blend in with the trees, like camouflage.

And he's. He's ready, and he's ready to hunt something, and he's good at it. Except one day when he wasn't so good, and he doesn't find anything, and he's been out maybe for days, and he comes back and he's hungry, he is famished, and he comes back in, and Jacob has been cooking. Now, I'm not mocking that. Like, some of the best food I've eaten was made by men that were good at their craft.

So it's like, you know, women, you got to step it up. Like, women used to be the cooks and Now I know so many men that are just awesome at it. Ladies, you got to step it up, okay? I don't know what it is. Maybe we'll have a battle of the sexes cook off thing and see once and for all where we're at.

I don't know. But. But like Jacob, he makes some good food, and it's good enough because his brother is willing to sell his birthright. Like, you know, the firstborn, the double portion thing, he's willing to sell that for a bowl of what he calls that red stuff, some kind of red stew that Jacob has made. And his brother Esau is like, can I have a bowl of that literally, for everything?

Like, I will give you my birthright for that. How many times have we. Like, how many times have each one of us, like, whatever that bowl is, whatever that thing is, you're willing to trade all of the good things in your life that God has in store for you for that one thing, that one moment. Sometimes guys. Sometimes it was a girl, Girls.

Sometimes it was a guy. Sometimes it was a drug, a drink, a new car, a job, moving somewhere, buying something, whatever it might be. You think this thing. I don't care what the consequences are. I want that thing.

And you take it. And then later you find out that wasn't everything. But you got to live with that consequence. Now, God still blesses Esau despite all of this. In fact, he ends up becoming richer than he could ever dream.

The birthright didn't matter so much is what it turns out. But Jacob, he makes him swear an oath that he would have his birthright. Then later, when his father is getting old, he says, you know what? It's time for the blessing. I'm going to pass on this, this fatherly blessing to my sons.

And so he's going to call in Esau, and he's like, hey, I want you to go out. I love the. The food that you cook when you. When you shoot an animal, you cook it just right and over a fire. I love that.

Can you go cook some wild game for me the way I like it? And Esau says, you got it, pops. I'm on it. And he goes out to the woods. He gets all his gear, paints his face up, wears his ghillie suit, all this stuff, and he's ready to go hunting.

And meanwhile, Rebecca is ready to, like, play a game. She's like, oh, not my boy. Jacob was kind of a mama's boy, you know, like. And so she's like, not my boy. He's the one that's gonna get the blessing.

So she's like, listen, Jacob, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have you steal your brother's blessing. And he says, I don't know if you've noticed this, Mom. Esau's really hairy. She's like, yeah, I know, like, a lot.

How am I gonna fake that? She's like, well, we'll just take some goat skins and we'll tie them around your arms and your hands. Like his hands were hairy, okay? Like, we'll tie them around your hands like an animal. And your dad will touch that and be like, oh, yeah, that's Esau.

He was as hairy as a goat. Okay. That's really hairy. Like, some of some guys were like, hey, you know, I'm like, kind of an embarrassment at the pool, you know? But, like, he was like.

He was an animal, okay? And so anyway, so he. He. He does that. They cook some food up, probably the goat that they slaughtered for the skins.

I don't know. And they bring the food into Isaac. And he says, here you go, dad. He's like that. That sounds like Jacob.

He can't see by the way. He's getting blind. He's like, that sounds like Jacob. He's like, come here, my boy. He's like, oh, you smell like the earth.

Oh, your hair. Yeah, that's Esau. And he's thinking. Makes sense. Can't fake that.

Well, you can. And Jacob is being deceitful. Like he's lived his whole life. He's grabbing at his brother's heel, still just wanting to get ahead at the expense of pulling others down. So Isaac blesses Jacob with the blessing that he was.

That was due to Esau. Now, the interesting thing is God knew this would happen. And he has said, I have actually chosen Jacob over Esau. There are times in the scriptures where even though somebody was born first, that wasn't the order in which God had chosen to use them or to bless them. And this is one of those times.

It doesn't mean what Jacob did was right, but it does mean that God had intentions for the life of Jacob. Now, here's the problem with it. His brother is furious when he finds out what has happened. He realizes his brother has gotten ahead of him. Finally he's tricked him, and he's furious about it.

And so he. He vows that he's going to wait until his parents die, and then he's just going to murder his brother. Like, I'll get him out of my way. So they find out about this. And Rebecca says.

His mother says, you know what? I don't like the men or the women that your brother has married. His brother had married some women that were foreigners. And she didn't like that. And so she says, I want you to go to my kindred's household, go to my brother's household and find a wife there.

Now, this is a man. We saw this a couple weeks ago with Abraham, like his wife was his half sister. I don't get it, but I guess it was fine for them. We're not there. Thank you, Lord.

But he goes to, you know, he goes to his. Basically, his uncle's house, finds a first cousin, and wants to marry her again. We're not going to go there. I say second cousins are okay to date, not marry, as long as they look really attractive. Second cousins, not first cousins.

You know, like, if you want to do that for a generation, you can. I'm not going to be too, like, it wasn't for me. I didn't do it. But if you want to, I'm not going to judge that too much. But first cousins is off.

You know, it's off limits. Don't do, you know, don't go there. Well, Jacob, the night that he runs away from home, fleeing for his life from the actions that he has done, he. Well, it's not necessarily that night, but one of the first few nights away from home, he lays his head down on a rock, not very comfy. You know, he's.

He's laying on this hard surface, and he has this vision where he sees heaven open up and there's a ladder and there's angels and going between heaven and earth at this point. And he says this. This is the place where God dwells. Right here. Wow.

So he sets up that stone. That was his pillar. He sets it up as, like a monument somehow. And he has a word with God and he says, God, if you will bring me back safely on my journey, on my mission back to this place, then you'll be my God. Twenty years later, he crosses back into this land.

In those 20 years, he's married two women. That was a little bit of an interesting story because he wanted to marry one of them. He thought she was beautiful. Again, his cousin, he actually marries two of his first cousins. So it gets real weird.

He marries his cousin. The first one that he marries or that he wants to marry is Rachel, the beautiful one. But her older sister Leah is. Well, the Bible says either she has weak eyes or she looked like a cow. So I don't know which it is.

It's hard to translate. She just wasn't like, when the Bible says you're ugly, you're probably ugly. You know what I mean? And so he works, he says, he says, laban, dad, I'll work for you for seven years if I can marry your daughter Rachel. He's like, okay, sounds good.

And then like I, I told Amy I wasn't going to get into detail about this. Somehow or another, he spends the night with Leah and doesn't recognize that it's Leah. And then in the morning he wakes up, he's like, oh, and that's not really good, you know, like on the night of your, the morning of your honeymoon, you know, for your husband to be like, ah, you know, that's just not a good sign for where your marriage is starting out. And the interesting thing was now the deceiver, the heel grabber, has been deceived by Laban, his father in law, and Leah, who played a part in this, like she had to play along with this lie. There's a whole lot more.

We could talk about all this, but time is running out. And so, so then he's like, okay, Laban, what's going on? And he says, well, you know, we've got this custom where we don't just let the older, the younger daughter get married first. He's like, well, you could have told me, you know, and so like I would have found some schmuck to marry her, whatever. And so he's like, how about this?

I'll work seven more years, but I want Rachel. He's like, okay, well finish out the marriage week. They had like a whole week long ceremony thing. Finish out the week with her and then you can have like wedding number two right away. So Lee is like, this isn't great, you know.

And so then he marries Rachel and everything's going, you know, great as far as he cares. And then after he finishes the second set of seven years, he's worked 14 years just to have the privilege of marrying two women. One that he wanted to and one that he didn't. And his father in law says, well, it's not right that you work for free what should be your wages? And he says, well, I'll tell you what, I've been taking care of your flocks.

How about this? I'll take all the junk sheep that nobody wants, the ones that don't have like a pure colored wool that are speckled or spotted or striped, and those will be my wages. So if you want to go through the flocks right now and separate the pure white ones, the pure black ones from the ones that are, that are speckled and spotted and striped. Then I'll take those, and those will be my wages. And anytime, if you want to check me out, do a little bit of a, you know, research and make sure my flocks are as they're supposed to be.

You come through and I'll pay the price for any that appear to be stolen. Sound good? He's like, that sounds good. He does that for six years and God prospers. Everything that Jacob does, he gives him just an increase.

Meanwhile, Laban, his father in law, his flocks are like shrinking because the blessing of God is upon Jacob. Well, at one point, Jacob, his wives recognize that their father has kind of like gotten a little bit angry at Jacob and that he might disown all of them. So they say, you know what? This land holds nothing for me. And he says, okay, what do you want to do?

And they said, let's leave. Let's pick up and move. So God had called him to move back to his home country where his family was from. And on his way back, first of all, Laban, his father in law, chases after him. They had a three day head start, but they're moving slower because they got flocks and kids and all this stuff.

Anybody knows if you've been on a road trip with children, it takes a whole lot longer than if you're just doing it yourself, you know, like twice as long. It's crazy how much longer it takes. Anyway, I've never seen somebody have to pee on the side of the road so many times because we're miles and miles from the next stop. It's like, I have to go now. It's like, what?

Oh, my goodness. And Emma does it too, sometimes. No, I'm just kidding.

Anyway, sorry. Has anybody ever driven through North Carolina? Some of you lived there. As soon as I would come over from Tennessee into North Carolina when I lived up there, it was like within five miles, there was somebody peeing or pooping on the side of the interstate, like it always happened without fail. And I thought, there's no way.

But my buddy Adam, he had a cabin in North Carolina, his grandfather did. And we're going there. He's like, I guarantee you, within five miles, somebody will be peeing or pooping on the side of this road. And he was right. It was like he knew the guy would be there or something.

Anyway, you could give directions by, you know, like, okay, enter North Carolina. And then when he sees somebody peeing on the side of the road, turn at the next exit. I don't know. Anyway, I digress. So Jacob, he.

He's traveling with the kids and his father in law catches up to him. He's like, what are you doing? Why are you leaving? He's like, well, you know, I just thought maybe you were going to chase us down and kill us. He's like, it's what it looks like.

He's like, yeah, okay, fair point. Can I at least hug my, my daughters and my grandkids goodbye? He's like, yeah, that's fine. So he does that. And he's like, hey, there's this one other thing.

Why did you have to steal my idols, my household gods? He's like, we didn't do that. He didn't know his favorite wife, Rachel, had done that. And remember when I say sometimes we bargain with God in ways that we shouldn't? Well, he bargained with Laban.

He says, listen, if you find them with anybody here, then whoever it is, they get put to death. He just signed the death warrant, unknowingly for his favorite wife, by the way. By this time, his wives have had this competition about who can have the most sons for their husband. And it doesn't work very well for the favorite wife. But Leah has a bunch of kids.

They then Rachel has a kid, and then they both give their servants to him, much like Sarah had done with Abraham. And so they're like, here, have my servant girl, have kids with her, you know, and then I'll provide sons for you through my servant girl again. Marrying cousins, sisters, it all gets really weird back then, but that's how they did it. Let's just move on. So, so he's got all these wives, you know, he's got all these kids.

And then he just signed the death warrant for his favorite one of all of them. And she tricks her own father and says, well, I'm having my monthly time and so I can't stand up. Well, she was sitting on the idol. She packed him in the saddle of the camel she's sitting on. And so she got away with her life and her father's idols.

Later on in Genesis 35, Jacob's going to have this moment where he tells his family, like he knows that they have idols. And he says, I want you to put away the idols that you have among you. I want you to put away the foreign gods that you have among you. And so he's been all this time running from his past. He's been Running from Esau.

He's been running now from Laban, and mostly he's been running from God. And Jacob's doing all this, and he's almost back home, and he gets word, and I don't know what kind of a spy network they had. I like to think it was pretty. Pretty awesome because somehow Esau gets word that his brother's coming back. Like, they've got, like, these, like, people, like, these tripwires, you know, where it's like somebody goes somewhere, and you're like, who's there?

They check it out. He's like, that's your brother coming. And so esau gets, like, 400 guys, I think it is, together that are ready to fight. And Jacob is scared for his life and his family's life. So what's he do?

He sends his family on ahead of him. I don't understand that tactic. But anyway, he's like, yeah, you guys go first. I'll just see how it goes with you. And if I got to run the other way, I will.

Well, instead of being able to do any of that, he meets, I believe, Jesus, and Jesus wrestles with him. And I want to tell you right now that some of you are wrestling with Jesus. Some of you are saying, jesus, no, thanks. I'm good. Well, you're here, so you must not know that.

That. You must know that that's not correct. Some of you are wrestling with Jesus because he's telling you to do something. And you're like, I'm not so sure about that. I don't want to do that because of what it'll cost me.

I don't want to do that because I'm not ready to give up, like, my autonomy, my life right now. Some of you are wrestling with Jesus because you're like, I just don't know that I believe in you or trust you that much. Some are wrestling with Jesus because you've been told there's no way to have faith in somebody like that, that there's no way that he is who he says he is, and whatever it might be. Many of us wrestle with Jesus in many different ways. Sometimes through his Holy Spirit, he's calling you to stop a certain type of sin or a certain area of your life that you're focused on.

And he's trying to refocus your life in a new way, and you refuse to do it. And so whatever it is, we all find ourselves somewhat where Jacob is. I don't know if you've ever spent a whole night just awake wrestling with God. Maybe you have and you didn't know it. You said, I slept terrible and I had a restless night.

Maybe God was trying to get ahold of you and you were just even fighting, like, listening to him. You wouldn't even say. You're like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I don't hear it. So Jacob has all these things he's been running from.

It's been 20 years since he left his home country. And now as he's about to cross over this Jabbok river, he's. He's not at the same exact place where he had met with God earlier. He goes back there in Genesis 35, when he tells his family to put his foreign gods away. But he's about to step over that river and into the land that he had come from.

And he knows that God's about to call him on his commitment he had made. Remember, if you give me success on my mission, on my journey. His journey was just to find a wife. He got so much more, like four wives, 11 sons, a 12th coming soon, a daughter and. And all these herds and flocks, like God has overly and abundantly blessed him.

And he said, if you will give me success on my journey until I come back to this place, then you will be my God. Oh. All of a sudden, it makes sense what he was doing, what he was fighting against. See, God is coming to him and saying, you promised. You said, I kept up my end of the deal.

So much more than you ever could have imagined. Now it's your turn. You said, I will be your God. You said, you'll follow me. You'll serve me.

I have a mission and a plan for you. Are you going to do it now, Jacob? Because I can wrestle with you. Not just tonight. I can keep going.

So Jacob says at daybreak, he's like, time to let me go. In other words, I say, uncle, I give up. I tap out. And before he let him go, he says, I want you to bless me. He's like, yeah, I'll bless you.

All right. You've been blessed. And I'm also going to remember. Boom. You're going to remember every step of this moment, of this day.

And it's like every step he took, every time he would take a step, it would remind him that he had committed to living with Jesus Christ. He had committed to following God. And it might be painful. I don't know if his limp hurt or if he just had that limp. Some of us are like, you know, every step I take hurts, too.

Maybe every time you Take a painful step. Remember that God has called you to something. Every time you feel a little bit of pain that doesn't seem to go away, perhaps it's to say, okay, God, feel that. I remember that you've called me. I remember that you want me to serve you.

Jacob's sons would later have to learn to submit to God. Their story, it ain't pretty. They get involved in a lot of things. Their sister gets sorry, there's a young one in the room earlier. Their sister gets taken advantage of in the worst of ways.

They avenge that by slaughtering a whole village of guys. Jacob's like, oh, my goodness, they're going to kill me now. But they don't because it says where they traveled. God put the fear of God on Jacob and his whole family so that nobody would touch them.

His sons do lots of things. They're jealous of Joseph, the favorite son. These favorites don't work too well, by the way. They get jealous of the favorite son and they decide they're going to kill him. Well, instead of killing him, they decide to make money off of him.

They sell him as a slave and just write him off as dead. Convince their father, they lie to their dad that their brother was dead. And they do all these things. They do all of this stuff, and it's like all the ways that Jacob had been living, his wives picked up on it, his sons picked up on it, and they all start living all the deceitful ways that Jacob had lived in his earlier life, but God called him to something new. He says, you're no longer Jacob.

Like. Like, you are no longer the person that you once were. Do you hear the message of Jesus Christ in this? Jesus Christ says, I'm saving you. Like, like all the things in your past.

I'm calling you to leave that you're no longer that person. You're no longer known by all of the things that you once have done. I think I plan on saying something somewhere in this message, but I don't follow my notes very well. I don't even know why I write them sometimes. There might be some people in this room, might be some people listening online.

They have something from a long time ago that you're worried that it's going to catch up to you. Like. Like, I don't know, maybe. Maybe you lied on your taxes one year and you're like, they're going to get me for that someday. They're going to.

It's going to. They're going to figure it out. You know, maybe you committed a Crime of some kind. Maybe you were driving one night and hit somebody and nobody saw it and you just kept going. Maybe you were involved in some type of fraud or crime.

Maybe you just hurt somebody and they don't even know who did it, but you do. And I think about the way those things chase after us in our minds. You might get away with it. You might have gotten away with it for decades. And yet we know that God knows.

And Jacob, I think, was living with that all this whole time, knowing that he had done these things to his brother. And now his brother is coming for him and he's worried about it. But God says, there's something more important. I need you to deal with me. You said that I would be your God and you would be my follower.

Folks, Jesus Christ has looked at all of the things that are hidden in our past. The things that you feel are chasing you down, keeping you awake at night, you're looking over your shoulder for them. And he says, I got this. I can forgive that and I can give you a new life. Jacob truly had a new walk after that.

Literally, I think, like, his steps probably looked different if you were tracking him. They knew where Jacob had been because they could see his walk.

Some of us, God is calling to a new walk right now. He's calling you to a new type of following Him. He says, I want you to walk differently from this point. I want you to serve me, but I'm going to be your God and I'm going to bring you forgiveness. I'm going to bring you grace.

I'm going to bring you blessing that you couldn't have even imagined. You just have to allow him to win. You have to decide. I'm done wrestling with him. The sun is coming up on a new day.

Are you going to allow Christ to be the one that rules your life, or are you going to keep trying it on your own efforts and on your own plans and on your own merits?

I put in our notes today to look over some key moments in your life. What areas have you fought against God? What times have you promised him something and you haven't yet come come up fulfilling your end of the promise. And lastly, is there a call on your life, something that God has called you to do? He says, you're my servant.

I want you to serve me. I want you to live for me in this way. But you haven't done it. Today, I think, is a day for us to follow. Like Jacob did say, I'm not done wrestling with God because I know there's some things that he's going to keep pushing on.

But I'm done fighting against him. I'm done telling God. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. Today is the day to follow God. Amen.