Haven't You had Enough?
Lessons from Legends • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 4 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Jacob had to learn to relay on God
So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that night in the company.
And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two womenservants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok.
And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had.
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
Introduction
Introduction
This semester as a youth we have learned some lessons from some legends of the Bible. Not that the accounts in God’s Word that we looked at are fables but real living people and events that really took place. The men and women of the Bible were normal people with normal problems and shortcomings just as we have today. But through their faith and obedience God used them in their time for their generation. Tonight, I want to look at a man that is not really known for his great faith or even great obedience. But God lead him and taught that he could trust Him.
Jacob is that man known for getting himself into a problem of his own making. He wasn’t the type to just trust God. He had to learn the hard way so to speak. When we speak of Jacob we often speak of his deception, his lies, and his schemes. But tonight, if I may paint a little different picture of Jacob. Because in reality Jacob was a man not much different than many of us.
I believe Jacob knew he could trust God. He knew the stories of how God called his grandfather from his country and brought him to the land of promise and provided for him. He knew that Abraham completely trusted God even to the point of almost sacrificing his own son on the alter. Jacob knew he simply had to have faith and obey God at his Word. But he had to learn the reality of that. He had to learn the practice of faith. It is one thing to think that you can trust God and another to actually live out that faith.
A young girl, unaccustomed to traveling, was taking a train ride through the country, and it happened that in the course of the day her train was going to cross two branches of a river and several wide streams. The water seen in advance always awakened doubts and fears in her. She did not understand how it could safely cross. As they drew near the river, however, a bridge appeared, and furnished a way over two or three times the experience was repeated. Finally the child leaned back with a long breath of relief and confidence.
“Somebody has put bridges for us all the way!” she said in trusting content.
That is life. We fear so many evils, so many troubles look dark ahead, so many difficulties seen insurmountable as they loom before us; but as we advance we find that there is a way through them. God has built bridges for us all the way.
Maybe tonight, you are much like Jacob, maybe its stubbornness, maybe its fear, and maybe its a lack of faith in action. Although, like Jacob, you may know the stories of how God has worked and is still working in the lives of others the practice of faith is harder to put into action.
Maybe you are like a man who speak with John Wesley:
One day John Wesley was walking with a troubled man who expressed his doubt as to the goodness of God. He said, “I do not know what I shall do with all this worry and trouble.”
At the same moment Wesley saw a cow looking over a stone wall. “Do you know,” asked Wesley, “why that cow is looking over the wall?”
“No,” said the man who was worried.
Wesley said, “The cow is looking over the wall because she cannot see through it. That is what you must do with your wall of trouble—look over it and avoid it.”
Faith enables us to look past our circumstances and focus on Christ.
Tonight, I want to point your attend to the life of Jacob and how God brought him to the point of faith and obedience. Maybe you are wrestling with God but you are not giving in. You are trying to make your way over life’s trouble. But can I ask you, “Haven’t you had enough? Haven’t you had enough of making your own way? Have you been trying to figure your own way through the stone walls of life? Jacob learned the hard way, but he didn’t have to. And either do you?
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Maybe you are thinking, but I can’t have a great faith, I can’t just simply walk by faith and not by sight as 2 Corinthians 5:7 tells us. That is just not my nature to have complete trust. If we did the trust exercise with spouses up here tonight, how many would say I have complete faith in my spouse to not let me hit the floor? I just don’t have a great faith like that.
But here is the thing, God doesn’t ask you to have a big faith. Just look at what Christ tells His Disciples
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Let’s take a look for a few moments at Jacob as we learn that even through life’s difficulties just the smallest faith makes all the difference.
Obtaining the Blessing
Obtaining the Blessing
And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me.
And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me.
Although God promised to prosper him, Jacob decided to make sure he would obtain this blessing. Jacob reasoned that he could receive God’s promised blessing if he lied. So Jacob lied about his identity and actions. He even lied about the Lord.
Haven’t many of us done this. Not the lie, but knowing God promise to provide and take care of us, yet we do everything in our power to make sure that He does.
Maybe your like me. I don’t like not being in control. I remember just after my first was born, thinking that I have this little life, this precious innocent boy to take care of and provide for. I also knew that Ryan was a gift from God, that He would provide for us. But I did everything in my power to make sure that God would take care of my family. So I worked, and worked, and worked. Even to the point that I quit coming to church because my jobs demanded so much of me. There was a time that I thought I had to take care of my family so much that I was working two jobs at 13 hours a day and even most Saturday’s. Why? Because I was going to take care of my family. Not that working and taking care of your responsibilities is a bad thing. But I was trusting in myself to provide. I had not placed that faith in God as my families provider.
“God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.”—A. W. Tozer
This was Jacob’s mindset and if we are honest we often come here ourselves. Trying to just do what “We” can do to make it through whatever life throws at us. When we should lay in God’s hands and let God take control.
Running from the Problem
Running from the Problem
Jacob’s deception angered his brother and upset his father. But instead of changing his ways, Jacob schemed again. He left home on the pretext of finding a wife when was really attempting to escape his brother’s wrath.
This scheme just caused more problems than Jacob and his mother ever guessed.
And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.
And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee.
Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran;
And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother’s fury turn away;
Until thy brother’s anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day?
Jacob left home under a terrible cloud:he was reputed as a man not one could trust. Jacob traveled to Bethel where God repeated to Jacob each aspect of the covenant He had first made with Abraham and the passed on to Isaac.
Jacob vowed there at Bethel, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way… then shall the Lord be my God.”
And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,
So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God:
Jacob then received God’s promises, but he continued to live as though their fulfillment depended on his own abilities and scheming.
Sometimes when we face a problem or trouble in life we run away from it. As to say that if I am facing this difficulty God must not be in it. Therefore He is moving somewhere easier.
But If I may say, if you run from your problems, you will just take them with you. Paul Chappell said, “Never make a major decision in life while going through a trial.” Why? because you are acting on emotion and not trusting God. It may be that trial is there to grow your faith.
“God delights to increase the faith of His children. We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, no exercise for patience, to be willing to take them from God’s hand as a means. I say—and say it deliberately—trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats, are the very food of faith…We should take them out of His hands as evidences of His love and care for us in developing more and more that faith which He is seeking to strengthen in us.”—George Mueller
God, even reminds Jacob in the middle of his schemes of running from his problems that He is with him and His promise are still there for him to grab onto. Just as he does with us in the midst of a storm.
Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Trust in him at all times; ye people, Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.
When Jacob heard that Esau and his four hundred men were coming in 32:7. Jacob finally began to recognize his own helplessness. For the first time he confessed to God:
I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands.
The verse tells us that he also confesses that he feared Esau and he pleas for God’s deliverance. Yet even when are you think Jacob is at his lowest point that his only way to is let God have control. He schemes to protect his family by bribing Esau with gifts and sends his family over the brook.
But God had a different plan: the time had come for Jacob to see his need to depend totally on God. As the text we started with tonight shows that even in the moments that Jacob is face to face with God he doesn’t recognize him and fights against God.
We do this time and again as we cry out in anger or despair at God like it is His fault we didn’t trust Him from the beginning. But I can see God asking Jacob in those moments, “Haven’t you had enough?’
Tonight, haven’t you had enough fight against God because or your lack of faith? Won’t you just let go and give it to God?
Jacob finally relays his desperate need for God’s blessing and grabs on until God does so. Tonight, you are invited to come down to an old fashioned alter and grab a hold of God. Will you do so tonight?
Conclusion
Conclusion
Some of you may know that my family is going through a trial right now. I won’t say much but Dwight is in the hospital not in his right mind. But though the tests, and scans, and Doctors can’t figure out what is going on with him He keeps singing and quoting the Word of God. And the same song keeps coming out of all the delirium.
Here are the words:
“I care not today what the morrow may bring,
If shadow or sunshine or rain,
The Lord I know ruleth o’er everything,
And all of my worries are vain.”
Though tempests may blow and the storm clouds arise,
Obscuring the brightness of life,
I’m never alarmed at the overcast skies—
The Master looks on at the strife.”
“I know that He safely will carry me through,
No matter what evils betide;
Why should I then care though the tempest may blow,
If Jesus walks close to my side.”
“Living by faith in Jesus above,
Trusting, confiding in His great love;
From all harm safe in His sheltering arm,
I’m living by faith and feel no alarm.”
No Matter what life may be throwing your way God is with you and can help you walk through those storms. Don’t be like the worldly song that says, “I walk this lonely road, with no one here beside me. I walk alone.”
If you but grab a hold of Christ he will guide you through. He doesn’t promise it will be easy. But he does say that he will help you through. But haven’t you had enough of your own way?