Speaker 1: I mean, you can be seated.
Speaker 1: Good morning everyone.
Speaker 1: Man, I love baptisms, don't you?
Speaker 1: That's so great.
Speaker 1: I leaned over to Per and I just we were talking about rituals earlier in between gatherings these things that we do shape who we are, and so just know that the things that you do in life are actually impacting you in ways you probably don't even know and the unconscious or the subconscious, and so your habits, your rhythms, they begin to shape who you are and the kind of people you are.
Speaker 1: And so this is why we do things like confession and forgiveness and communion and baptism, these kinds of things, because they shape who we are.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, so I love it, I just love watching those.
Speaker 1: So, way to go, you guys, it's great.
Speaker 1: Okay, we are in our sermon series with how did we get here?
Speaker 1: Oh, let me get the sign out so you can see it.
Speaker 1: Look at that baby crying.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're fine, you're fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did we get here?
Speaker 1: And so we're going through the book of Genesis, which I love this book, and it's a book about all kinds of things, and it's sort of like this origin story for the people of God, the people of Israel and the Hebrew people.
Speaker 1: And how did they get where they were?
Speaker 1: And we talked about how Exodus opens with them enslaved in Egypt.
Speaker 1: And the question that's raised is how did we get here?
Speaker 1: So to understand that we have to rewind all the way back to Genesis, chapter 1.
Speaker 1: And Genesis 1 through 11 is this preamble to the main character in Genesis, the story of Abraham and Sarah.
Speaker 1: And God makes a covenant with Abraham and Sarah because up until then things were spiraling out of control.
Speaker 1: You remember from the story.
Speaker 1: And so God's like what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: So he chooses Abraham and Sarah.
Speaker 1: He's like I'm going to bless you so that you can be a blessing to all whom you encounter.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a whole bunch of children and grandchildren and so on down the line and bless them In and grandchildren and so on down the line and bless him.
Speaker 1: In fact, you saw this morning the beauty of, uh, family and legacy and passing down the faith one generation after the other, and uh, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful picture of kind of what I think the bible is sort of calling us to do and be.
Speaker 1: And so he blesses abraham and sarah.
Speaker 1: And none of these folks are superheroes when you read them, their, their faults and their, their, uh, shortcomings are quite evidently visible.
Speaker 1: So they're all just a bunch of normal, you know, shenaniganizers like you and me, and so it's good news for us, and so he blesses them in order they'd be blessing.
Speaker 1: So then, abraham and sarah have a in their old age, have a son called isaac.
Speaker 1: Isaac means laughter in the hebrew, because when they were super old they had no idea that god, she was barren for a long time and that god would bless him.
Speaker 1: And when it happens, like, what are you going to do when God sort of just shows up in that wonderful, miraculous way?
Speaker 1: They just laugh about it.
Speaker 1: And they have a son named Isaac, and from there God.
Speaker 1: Then, later, in this really weird story that I don't love, but now I love it, god asks Isaac to sacrifice, or God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but in doing so he flips the script, because the end of that story reveals that God this God anyway is not a God like all the other pagan gods who asks us to sacrifice our young ones, thank God.
Speaker 1: And so God provides in this beautiful, wonderful way.
Speaker 1: So you have Abraham and Isaac.
Speaker 1: Isaac has two sons named Jacob and Esau.
Speaker 1: You heard about them last week.
Speaker 1: One's a smooth-skinned mama's boy who loves to be at home, who's favored by his mom.
Speaker 1: The other's a hairy, outdoorsman, rugged you know he's like a Ted Nugent with sandals on that kind of a guy and he's favored by his father and his dad loves him.
Speaker 1: And these two have this sibling rivalry.
Speaker 1: By the way, the Bible's full of sibling rivalries and this is one of them.
Speaker 1: And Jacob the trickster steals his brother's blessing from the father when the father's going to die.
Speaker 1: He sneaks in there, pretends to be somebody's not, acting like something he's not, in order to get the blessing from his father he's so deeply and desperately craves.
Speaker 1: And it works.
Speaker 1: The father isaac gives him this blessing because the blessing in the ancient world was more than just oh, god bless, it's something substantive, it's this thing that can be stolen or given or not taken.
Speaker 1: And so Isaac gives it to the wrong son and he can't take it back.
Speaker 1: And so Jacob has this blessing now and Esau finds out and is livid, like I'm sure you would be as well, and he vows I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 1: Once dad is dead, I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 1: And so Jacob takes this as a subtle hint that now is a good time to leave town and he rolls out and he goes into hiding for many, many years, with the help of his mom.
Speaker 1: Again, his mom helps him.
Speaker 1: She provides like a soft landing spot for him with his uncle, laban, laban's, her brother, and so Jacob, like many of us do, when we screw things up, he just rolls out and he goes into hiding.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing you can't hide from yourself, can you, like they say in AA, wherever you go, there you are and it turns out, jacob's the problem, not everybody else who maybe he's blaming or, you know, has bitterness towards.
Speaker 1: It's his deal and his doing so.
Speaker 1: On his way out of town he stops for the night.
Speaker 1: He's going to travel a long way to this place where Laban is, and on his way out there he takes a nap.
Speaker 1: One night he goes to sleep and in that night, in this certain place the text tells it's this certain place.
Speaker 1: It's actually just an ordinary place in which God seems to show up.
Speaker 1: By the way, god always seems to show up in the most ordinary, mundane places.
Speaker 1: I love this about the story of God, which means in that you don't have to wait to come here to hear from or receive from God.
Speaker 1: God can show up in your life in the most ordinary, random moments.
Speaker 1: I was telling Ben the other day that God spoke to me dramatically in the Kung Fu Panda movie about a decade ago.
Speaker 1: That is a true story, by the way.
Speaker 1: And so here God is, or or Jacob, in this certain place, and God shows up.
Speaker 1: He falls asleep and has this bizarre dream there's a ladder and angels going up and down and these divine beings are called the Elohim and it's like what the heck?
Speaker 1: But then he wakes up and he says this, which is oftentimes our maybe lament when we realize that God has shown up in this most ordinary place.
Speaker 1: He says God, surely God was in this place and I didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: You ever been somewhere?
Speaker 1: And God has shown up.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, god was always here, I just didn't know it.
Speaker 1: It's like Jacob suddenly is awake to God's presence in his life in this moment, and so he makes this vow with God.
Speaker 1: Here's what it says in the text Go ahead for me, sarah.
Speaker 1: It says God says to Jacob, after he wakes up and has this moment of like, this divine encounter, says I'm with you and we'll watch over you wherever you go.
Speaker 1: Remember that Jacob's running for his life.
Speaker 1: Esau's going to kill him.
Speaker 1: He left everything and everybody he knew he's by himself has nothing to show for it, except for this blessing that's sort of there that he stole and he's a trickster, a liar, and he's out there.
Speaker 1: And this is what God says to him I'm going to be with you and I'll watch over you wherever you go.
Speaker 1: Why would God do that?
Speaker 1: He doesn't deserve it.
Speaker 1: And I'll bring you back to this land.
Speaker 1: Uh-oh, he's going to have to come back.
Speaker 1: I will not leave you until I have done what I promised to you.
Speaker 1: God tells Jacob that's a powerful moment.
Speaker 1: And then Jacob says this Go ahead for me, sarah.
Speaker 1: Jacob makes a vow back to God.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, if God will be with me and watch over me on this journey that I'm taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear, sustain me, give me life flourishing, that I return safely to my father's house, then the Lord will be my God.
Speaker 1: Remember, he's from the promised line Abraham, and then Isaac and then Jacob, and so he's like one of the ones that God will bless the whole world through.
Speaker 1: And he's saying, hey, if you do take care of me, god, then you'll be my God and I'll be yours and we'll do this thing together.
Speaker 1: And he goes on.
Speaker 1: And now here's the deal.
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of time passes and decades later, jacob comes back to this spot where he has this dream.
Speaker 1: He calls it Bethel, which means the house of God, because God was there and dwelling in this place and he didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: He comes back decades later and when he does, he's like I want to build something to remind myself of this story.
Speaker 1: So he grabs some rocks that he finds nearby, I imagine, and they were perfectly squared, like these ones that I got from Home Depot.
Speaker 1: He's like I'm going to build something just to remind myself, like a memorial, a pillar, because these kinds of things in the ancient world were important.
Speaker 1: This moment, he wants to remember this house of God, this dream he had, and this promise, this covenant he makes with God, and he takes these stones, maybe like the ones you have in your hands, and he builds this thing, this pillar, and it becomes this altar, the place where God was, this certain place that he calls Bethel.
Speaker 1: God had two more.
Speaker 1: It's going to be big.
Speaker 1: The place where God was in a certain place that he calls Bethel.
Speaker 1: God had two more.
Speaker 1: It's going to be big and I imagine now, at this point, it's decades later and he shows back up.
Speaker 1: He's got a family now.
Speaker 1: He's got a couple of wives, some kids, and I imagine those kids are like Dad.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: If they're like my kids, who are like Dad?
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: What is dad up to?
Speaker 1: Again, right, dad, what's with the rocks?
Speaker 1: He's just oh, dad's such a crazy man, he's building all these rocks.
Speaker 1: And I imagine that Jacob begins to tell them the story of why he builds these rocks there.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what happened, kids.
Speaker 1: He probably says to them many years ago, I ran from your uncle Esau and Jacob runs and for decades he's gone.
Speaker 1: He goes to live with his uncle Laban and while he's there, the craziest thing happens that changes his life forever, which maybe happened to some of you young men.
Speaker 1: Jacob falls in love.
Speaker 1: They actually make this into a Hallmark movie many decades later.
Speaker 1: And just kidding, this is way too good for a Hallmark movie.
Speaker 1: Decades later.
Speaker 1: And just kidding, this is way too good for a Hallmark movie.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, that was also a joke.
Speaker 1: But he falls in love and, look, this changes everything for Jacob as often as the case for many of us.
Speaker 1: I would never encourage a young man who has some wayward ways or tendency or is a liar or trickster.
Speaker 1: I'd never encourage them to get married to fix their problems.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it does work.
Speaker 1: Just ask my wife.
Speaker 1: So Jacob Jacob falls in love and he's like I want to marry her.
Speaker 1: And so he makes a deal with Laban.
Speaker 1: It's Laban's daughter.
Speaker 1: And he makes a deal with Laban.
Speaker 1: He's like hey, I'll work for you for seven years if I can have the marriage, the hand of your daughter.
Speaker 1: And he's like cool, cool.
Speaker 1: So he works for seven years.
Speaker 1: And on the wedding night, jacob the smooth-skinned lying trickster.
Speaker 1: He's tricked and he gets his just desserts.
Speaker 1: When Laban tricks him and gives him the wrong daughter, he never indicated which daughter.
Speaker 1: So Laban just gives him a daughter.
Speaker 1: He's like yo, sorry man, you never said which one, I'll just here's one.
Speaker 1: And Jacob, I'm sure, is livid, but also probably like ugh, got what's coming to me, didn't I?
Speaker 1: And so Laban's like listen, dude, I'll make a deal with you, work for seven more years and I'll give you the one that you want.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the other daughter's like oh God, what am I?
Speaker 1: Chopped liver, you know.
Speaker 1: And here's what happens.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, jacob, the trickster liar, the one who's hiding out from everybody, who's ashamed of himself probably at this point he begins to grow up, he falls in love, he commits himself to a task.
Speaker 1: He works hard for now 14 years and even years beyond that.
Speaker 1: He begins to build a relationship.
Speaker 1: He has a couple of wives.
Speaker 1: Now they have children, he's raising a family and Jacob, the innocent, little, naive mama's boy trickster, begins to grow up and he fulfills his covenant and he's transformed from a little boy and he becomes a man.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: So he comes out of this whole thing with wives and kids and his wealth begins to grow.
Speaker 1: He's got all kinds of things now and lots more goats and coin, maybe some blessing from Laban and these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And it transforms Jacob.
Speaker 1: And then God says to him hey, buddy, it's time to go home.
Speaker 1: Here's what he says in the text.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, go back to the land of your fathers.
Speaker 1: Remember he told them he'd call them back there that night.
Speaker 1: He had that dream at Bethel and he's like, hey, you're going to go back.
Speaker 1: And so he calls them back to the land of your fathers and your relatives.
Speaker 1: And then God tells him I will be with you.
Speaker 1: Now here's the deal.
Speaker 1: What's waiting for him back there?
Speaker 1: He has to go back to revisit the past, his past mistakes, the wounds he's given and even the wounds he's received, his own shortcoming, his stealing of the blessing from his dying father, the shame that the whole family now probably has for him, and even his own brother who's vowed to kill him.
Speaker 1: I know it's 20 years on or so, but he's vowed to kill him and God wants him to go back to face all of that.
Speaker 1: He's got to face it Because unconfessed guilt is one of the most tragic things in life.
Speaker 1: Are you with me?
Speaker 1: I encourage this morning, if I could, if you have unconfessed guilt, find somebody to confess it to.
Speaker 1: It's tragic.
Speaker 1: It's why the book of which book is it, sarah?
Speaker 1: Remind me.
Speaker 1: There we go, james.
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember for a second.
Speaker 1: James says confess our sins to each other.
Speaker 1: It's really a gift to be able to confess.
Speaker 1: And so now Jacob has a chance to go back home and, I guess, to maybe make things right.
Speaker 1: See, this is what it means to be a flourishing, mature adult, to not let the past define you but to revisit it, to get healing and to seek a new way forward.
Speaker 1: And it isn't easy.
Speaker 1: Jacob knows what's at stake.
Speaker 1: His own life is at stake.
Speaker 1: But he has to go back there and revisit it.
Speaker 1: He has to allow God to transform his wounds because if not, jacob undoubtedly will transmit those wounds to others.
Speaker 1: And you and I are no different friends.
Speaker 1: Like the great Franciscan priest says, if we don't let God transform our past wounds, we will give them out to other people all the time.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of us have done that.
Speaker 1: If we don't let God transform our pain and our wounds and our sorrows, we will transmit them to other people if we're not careful.
Speaker 1: So Jacob packs up his things his new life, his family, his wives, his kids, all his wealth he's amassed over the last couple of decades says goodbye and he goes back home.
Speaker 1: What's back there?
Speaker 1: Well, esau home.
Speaker 1: What's back there?
Speaker 1: Well, esau's brother's back there, ready and waiting for him.
Speaker 1: So Jacob knows what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: He's going to probably try to come out and I'm sure Esau will take his life.
Speaker 1: He's owed that.
Speaker 1: He told him.
Speaker 1: He swore an oath.
Speaker 1: He's I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 1: So Jacob's like what can I do to soften the blow?
Speaker 1: Ever the angle man.
Speaker 1: He sends word to esau and said uh, send some gifts to him and try to like pacify esau a little bit, try to help him soften this blow.
Speaker 1: And esau hears about it.
Speaker 1: And esau comes to meet jacob with 400 of his homies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh-oh, as they say it's on, or as I say, it's on like popcorn.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that laughter of encouragement and my daughter would say Dad, nobody says it like that anymore, dude, but it's on right.
Speaker 1: Like he comes out, him and his 400 of his gym bros come out there to meet Jacob, all gym broed out, with the weight belts on the knee sleeves, the headband, the glistening tan Am I right?
Speaker 1: You know some gym bros?
Speaker 1: It's like my son, but with a spear and some creatine.
Speaker 1: It's on, it's go time.
Speaker 1: I mean, if revenge is a dish best served cold, this one's ice cold 20 years on, and we're looking at a fight that's like a two-hit fight, like just esau hitting jacob and jacob hitting the ground.
Speaker 1: It's that kind of a fight.
Speaker 1: The odds are not good, not in jacob's favor, 400 plus one against Jacob and his family.
Speaker 1: But he goes back and here it is, this mama's boy against the hunter.
Speaker 1: Jacob goes to meet him and he's terrified.
Speaker 1: Of course he would be.
Speaker 1: He's frightened.
Speaker 1: The text says he was greatly distressed and afraid because Esau, his brother, is going to kill him, because Jacob stole what didn't belong to him.
Speaker 1: So again he sends these gifts.
Speaker 1: Hopefully had him to pacify Esau.
Speaker 1: Or one time years ago, when I was just out of high school, I was at a party actually Katie was there and uh almost got into this huge fight.
Speaker 1: It would have been a disaster for me.
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm there, like maybe five, six, seven of my friends and then this whole group of dudes that wanted to fight, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: We're there, we're trying to look all tough because we don't want to get intimidated.
Speaker 1: And my buddy Will I hear him as we're trying to be tough and look tough and promote this image of just tough guys, my buddy Will goes.
Speaker 1: He says to this guy across the way that wanted to fight us.
Speaker 1: He goes hey man, why don't we get some hot cocoa and go inside and talk this out?
Speaker 1: Shut up, dude, what are you talking?
Speaker 1: We're trying to be tough guys.
Speaker 1: Now, he was a Canadian, so that makes sense.
Speaker 1: That does make sense.
Speaker 1: Ever the pacifist?
Speaker 1: Well, shut up.
Speaker 1: So Jacob tries to pacify, tries to soften the blow to allow Esau to let him have some grace.
Speaker 1: And they're going out there and the confrontation's coming.
Speaker 1: But before he gets there, to where his brother is, there's a river blocking the way.
Speaker 1: It's the Jabbok River.
Speaker 1: And so Jacob camps there.
Speaker 1: He sends his family, his wives and his children and all their stuff across the river, this mythical river, this boundary that now is blocking him from his homeland, his brother, reconciliation, all that's in the past.
Speaker 1: There's this mythical river that he has to go through to get to it, and he sends everyone across.
Speaker 1: Now this is the river, this is the Jabbok River, and it's in the Near East and it's a prominent river in this part of the world and it connects with the Jordan River about 20 miles north of the Dead Sea.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine where that is in Israel.
Speaker 1: And to get across this was no easy feat.
Speaker 1: You had to find a shallow place when the river was low, you could walk across some stones or you could put some timber across it and walk across it.
Speaker 1: It was dangerous, especially at night.
Speaker 1: So Jacob sends them all across and he stays on this side of the river and he spends the night and camps out at the edge of the river.
Speaker 1: Now I imagine he makes himself a little fire and begins to reminisce about what he had done all those years ago and what it will mean to go and face his brother, his mistakes, his past and all these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: What now?
Speaker 1: What do you do now?
Speaker 1: How do you handle this?
Speaker 1: He's all alone.
Speaker 1: I believe, embedded in this part of the story is this invitation for jacob an invitation to die, to die before he dies with his brother.
Speaker 1: You know, this is what baptism really is baptism an invitation to die before you die, to let go of all the things that don't matter, things that we cling to so desperately for life, that cannot give us life.
Speaker 1: And Jacob is invited to die before he dies.
Speaker 1: Kent Dobson says this in his commentary.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: He says this is an essential dimension to the human experience of seeking God.
Speaker 1: When we seek God, these are the moments we kind of have.
Speaker 1: So if you've had this, you'll kind of recognize it.
Speaker 1: We all have a dark night of the soul, a lonely, solitude, anguish, kind of a night where you wrestle with all these things.
Speaker 1: We have a past, we all have broken relationships, we stand alone on the shore and we all desire to come home.
Speaker 1: And then the text says some dude out of nowhere comes out and wrestles Jacob all night long.
Speaker 1: Wait what?
Speaker 1: Here it is, I'll show you.
Speaker 1: It's in the text.
Speaker 1: This is crazy.
Speaker 1: This is one of the most bizarre stories we have in all of the Bible, I think.
Speaker 1: I think we have it, don't we have it there?
Speaker 1: It is Like what Out of nowhere, like, oh, just some dude comes out, like this is totally normal for the ancient near east.
Speaker 1: Some guy just hanging out by the river and he rustles, like happens to you when you go camping.
Speaker 1: Sometimes some guy just comes out and wrestles him until daybreak.
Speaker 1: I have some.
Speaker 1: We found some footage in these ancient, you know bible.
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, you know, you know, here we go.
Speaker 1: Here's a picture of it that we found on.
Speaker 1: I think google earth found this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have another one from this ancient bible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yo, what is going on in the story?
Speaker 1: We were having a bible story.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, like a mortal combat episode, game broke out and they wrestle each other all night long.
Speaker 1: I love it, the bible.
Speaker 1: Actually in the original hebrew it's like they call it a dust up.
Speaker 1: In the original it's like this, like there's some kind of a scuffle all night long.
Speaker 1: And then the man, this mysterious being who came out of nowhere, who wrestles Jacob and we're never told really what's really going on.
Speaker 1: But this is what he says the sun's coming up and the man says this hey, let me go, for it's almost daybreak.
Speaker 1: Oh what?
Speaker 1: Like hey, the sun's about to come up, I got to go home.
Speaker 1: The sun's coming up, let me go.
Speaker 1: Like what is he?
Speaker 1: Some kind of a vampire?
Speaker 1: You can't be up when the sun's up.
Speaker 1: Or maybe he's a parent volunteer.
Speaker 1: At the all-night grad party on Thursday night down in Monticello, which me and Katie were a part of, I came rolling out of that place like at 4 am, just couldn't hardly walk my eyes.
Speaker 1: The sun's coming up, like Maybe he had a coffee meeting to get to at Dunbar's.
Speaker 1: But the guy's like hey, let me go, it's almost daybreak, I've got to go.
Speaker 1: And Jacob says this Jacob, the fair, smooth-skinned mama's boy.
Speaker 1: He says this hey, I'm not going to let you go until you bless me.
Speaker 1: Remember, jacob?
Speaker 1: This is the guy that longed so desperately deep in his soul for his father's blessing.
Speaker 1: He wanted to have someone look at him and say I see you, young man, I see you just as you are.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 1: You're unique.
Speaker 1: There's nobody like you.
Speaker 1: I love you for no reason.
Speaker 1: That kid now he wrestles this strange, mysterious being.
Speaker 1: He's like I'm not gonna let you go.
Speaker 1: He holds on for dear life, as it were.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let you go until you bless me.
Speaker 1: He still craves this blessing.
Speaker 1: So this man who's sort of being defeated by Jacob.
Speaker 1: I got to get out of here.
Speaker 1: I got somewhere to go.
Speaker 1: I got a date with the Bible study crew at Denny's.
Speaker 1: In about an hour he touches Jacob in the hip and Jacob, it says, is permanently disabled.
Speaker 1: He can't walk.
Speaker 1: He limps from that day forward.
Speaker 1: So I imagine when folks would meet him like yo dude, why are you limping?
Speaker 1: He tells this story about wrestling this strange man by the side of the Jabbok River and this man says hey, I'm going to change your name, which in the ancient world was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And he said your name is no longer Jacob, which is a great name.
Speaker 1: Jacob's still back there.
Speaker 1: It means heel grabber.
Speaker 1: Your name is no longer heel grabber, your name is now going to be Israel.
Speaker 1: Yisrael, which means one who wrestles with God.
Speaker 1: And we begin to get a clearer picture.
Speaker 1: Who was this man that came out of nowhere?
Speaker 1: In one of the prophets it's called an angel, in this text it's called a man, but somehow it's maybe something like this guy.
Speaker 1: Jacob wrestles with God.
Speaker 1: What is it like to wrestle with God all night long.
Speaker 1: In fact, jacob seems to be winning and he won't let go until this man maybe it's God blesses him.
Speaker 1: The great Pete Enns says this about this story.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: He says this hey, whatever else this story means and the flow of the narrative, it's used to prepare Jacob for his inevitable meeting with Esau.
Speaker 1: He has to wrestle with this being before he goes to meet his brother.
Speaker 1: He's grown up in this struggle with God and now he acts like a man.
Speaker 1: Before his encounter with God, he was a coward who sends gifts to pacify his angry brother.
Speaker 1: Now he courageously moves from the back to the front of his entourage and he meets his brother face to face.
Speaker 1: And when he gets there, he bows before Esau seven times, a son of total submission known in ancient cultures.
Speaker 1: Now he's ready.
Speaker 1: He's grown up, he's wrestled with his past, all these things.
Speaker 1: He's ready to go and meet his brother Esau.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to wrestle with God?
Speaker 1: What is it like to be one who wrestles with god?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I imagine it means something like this wrestling with your past, these things back there that are lingering, that maybe you haven't dealt with past wounds that you've caused, or that you've received past lies.
Speaker 1: You've believed past relationships that have been broken, things that didn't work out the way they should have, maybe disappointments or fears or doubts or shortcomings these things we call sin, that keep tripping you up hurdles you can't get over, ways you keep failing again and again, ways you've been a disappointment, maybe to somebody in your life.
Speaker 1: It's wrestling, maybe, with even yourself, that shadow part of you that jung says like is this part of you that you just don't know about?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to wrestle with god and your past in order to cross that river and go back home?
Speaker 1: Like I told you last week, I was in a camping trip a year ago and out there.
Speaker 1: We were out there for five days in this wilderness area of Michigan and there was about eight of us and Kent Dobson was the leader of this trip.
Speaker 1: It was incredible.
Speaker 1: It's one of those thin places where you're exhausted, you're fasting, you're out in the woods by yourself, things get very thin and you can kind of experience the divine in these unique and powerful ways.
Speaker 1: And we were talking about it because at one point we had to go out into the woods and find a solo camping spot and I wanted to get as far away from everybody as I could.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like totally alone.
Speaker 1: So I hiked way out into the and one of the people in the trip that she goes oh, I couldn't do that, I'd be too afraid.
Speaker 1: I'm like what are you afraid of?
Speaker 1: It's like like, well, what's out there?
Speaker 1: I go.
Speaker 1: Whatever's out there should be afraid of me.
Speaker 1: I'm a tough guy, remember.
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid of what's out there.
Speaker 1: Whatever's out there should be afraid of me.
Speaker 1: You break into my house, you should be afraid of me.
Speaker 1: And we all had a laugh and chuckled.
Speaker 1: Then later on we're talking and having this conversation and Kent and the people began to know my story, my story of growing up without a father and a single mother who raised me and getting involved in all kinds of shenanigans and things I shouldn't have been doing at a young age and kind of finding my way through life and just being a knucklehead.
Speaker 1: And, yeah, kent goes.
Speaker 1: We were talking and Kent was like mentioning this, he goes hey, good for you, ryan, good for you.
Speaker 1: They should be afraid of you out there, whatever's out there, they should be afraid of you.
Speaker 1: Because you did it, man, you got out of the house.
Speaker 1: The house you grew up in was on fire.
Speaker 1: Metaphorically it was on fire.
Speaker 1: You did it.
Speaker 1: Good job, good for you.
Speaker 1: You made it out of the front lawn, you survived and you built a little family out there.
Speaker 1: Good for you, buddy.
Speaker 1: But he says there's only one problem Little boy Ryan is still in the house and you have to go back in there and get him Start bawling.
Speaker 1: I'm sobbing again.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to wrestle with God?
Speaker 1: Something like that?
Speaker 1: The last year I'm not going to go into detail the last year year, I've spent time with my wife and my therapist going back into the house to find a little boy and to rescue him and to wrestle with God myself.
Speaker 1: My past, the wounds I've given, wounds I've received these kinds of things To die before I die.
Speaker 1: Years ago we hired Ben Carruthers.
Speaker 1: You probably know Ben and when I got his resume or his application, I did a little bit of Googling and it turns out that Ben, as he shared with you all very publicly.
Speaker 1: He made a huge mistake in a ministry job several years prior.
Speaker 1: That got him fired from this job and there were all kinds of consequences.
Speaker 1: Well, his resume comes across my desk, and this was right.
Speaker 1: When I was taking over for Paul, it was like my first hire and I'm like I can't hire this guy.
Speaker 1: This would be a huge risk, the guy who had done these dramatically inappropriate things.
Speaker 1: But I owe him a call, you know.
Speaker 1: So I called Ben and interviewed him for about an hour or so and I was super impressed with him, but I had to tell him at the end of the interview I got I was super impressed with him, but I had to tell him at the end of the interview I got Ben.
Speaker 1: This was great man.
Speaker 1: I really feel like God has a calling in your life and you should explore it more, but you can't do it with me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't hire you, dude, I just can't.
Speaker 1: He's like no, I get it.
Speaker 1: That's okay, man, I understand it's going to be a part of that.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't do it though.
Speaker 1: Man, it's my first hire.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 1: But listen, I'd love to interview you one more time with Sonia, just for you to have some experience.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, yeah, cool, cool.
Speaker 1: So we did another interview and called him back and we were done.
Speaker 1: We were both like, man, he's pretty great, maybe we should look more.
Speaker 1: And I called his references and, lo and behold, ben had done all the things he was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: This one guy's like yeah, he meets with me every week, we talk about all the things, we unpack all the mistakes he made, the decisions he had, you know, wrongly made, the accountability that wasn't there.
Speaker 1: By the way, ben got married, had a couple of kids.
Speaker 1: He's really grown up.
Speaker 1: He's matured in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: He's wrestling with God in this way.
Speaker 1: I was like super impressed with the man that Ben had become.
Speaker 1: All right, fine, I'll interview him again.
Speaker 1: We had him come out.
Speaker 1: And then, lo and behold, here we are all these years later, because Ben had wrestled with his past.
Speaker 1: He didn't bury it.
Speaker 1: He could have buried it, he didn't.
Speaker 1: He wrestled with God and his past and mistakes and, lo and behold, he grew up because of it.
Speaker 1: And here he is.
Speaker 1: I have another friend who's grew up in the church, has a deep faith, but also he has his incredibly intense doubts and moments of doubt where he's just not always sure.
Speaker 1: He works as a scientist with boston scientific and he loves science and so he has this constant tension sometimes about you know, the bible and theology and science and the world and god and things you can't explain that are mysterious and mystical and ethereal and looking under a lab microscope how do you reconcile all these things?
Speaker 1: But he refuses to let go and he's holding on for dear life, wrestling with God, because he doesn't want to let go of his faith and not let go of science and that kind of thing either.
Speaker 1: So he wrestles with God.
Speaker 1: What does it mean for us to wrestle with God and our unbelief or our doubts or our mistakes?
Speaker 1: Or to go back into the house and rescue the little boy or the little girl, because good for you, you made it out and great you're here, good for you.
Speaker 1: But there's things to revisit.
Speaker 1: Back there, are you with me?
Speaker 1: Jacob crosses the river, and I'll end with this.
Speaker 1: He crosses the river, and I'll end with this.
Speaker 1: He crosses the river and he meets his brother and here's what happens.
Speaker 1: He doesn't come, esau, with a sword or a gun.
Speaker 1: Here's what he does Esau runs to meet Jacob.
Speaker 1: By the way, years later, jesus tells a story about a father and a son and the son leaves and betrays the father and comes back.
Speaker 1: The father sees him a long, a long ways away and he runs to meet the son Very similar and Jacob embraces, or Esau embraces him, he throws his arms around his neck and he kisses him, he blesses him, he weeps and then Jacob says hey, man, did you get those gifts I sent you?
Speaker 1: I want you to have them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want you to have them.
Speaker 1: And he's like I don't want them.
Speaker 1: I got plenty, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's introducing them to his wife and his kids.
Speaker 1: And then Jacob's like no, please, this is what he says.
Speaker 1: Jacob says this.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, please take them.
Speaker 1: If favor in your eyes, take this gift.
Speaker 1: The word for gift in the Hebrew is actually more akin to the word go ahead.
Speaker 1: For me one more blessing.
Speaker 1: He wants to return what he stole to his brother.
Speaker 1: And you have this moment of just reconciliation and grace.
Speaker 1: Take your little pebble, your rock.
Speaker 1: Many of us this morning, I think, are being invited to wrestle with God and that can be anything for you.
Speaker 1: I don't want to presume what it means for you To go back into your past, maybe to go and make reconciliation with a friend who you've betrayed or has betrayed you.
Speaker 1: Whatever the thing is, you know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's probably coming up already.
Speaker 1: Take this stone and let this be your memorial stone.
Speaker 1: I imagine when Jacob shows up years after this with his kids and his wife, and Esau and him are friends now and they're back in.
Speaker 1: The blessing of God keeps going through these brothers that have now reconciled.
Speaker 1: They're like dad.
Speaker 1: What are you doing with these rocks?
Speaker 1: You know this is important, guys.
Speaker 1: He tells his kids You've got to know these stories.
Speaker 1: This is a covenant, I mean with God, and God promised to deliver me and he was with me and he was.
Speaker 1: And my brother, you know your uncle, esau.
Speaker 1: We're.
Speaker 1: We're friends again.
Speaker 1: We weren't, he was going to kill me, now we're.
Speaker 1: Look what God has done.
Speaker 1: So take your rock and this week, what is the thing that God is asking of you to do?
Speaker 1: And memorialize it.
Speaker 1: Put that stone somewhere, do something, say a prayer and put it on your dashboard in your car or in your windowsill, or in your windowsill or in your Bible, if it fits, or just put it in your pocket and anytime you see it or touch it, remember that you're wrestling with God.
Speaker 1: That's the invitation this morning, central.
Speaker 1: May you know that God is with you, that God wants to bless you so you can bless others.
Speaker 1: That's what we're here for to be a conduit of the blessing.
Speaker 1: And may you can bless others.
Speaker 1: That's what we're here for.
Speaker 1: To be a conduit of the blessing.
Speaker 1: And may you wrestle with God.
Speaker 1: May you wrestle with your past, your shadow, those broken relationships, your past wounds that you've given out or received.
Speaker 1: May you go back into the house if you need to and rescue that little boy, that little girl.
Speaker 1: May you own up to your past mistakes and sins and shortcomings and confess them to somebody and find freedom.
Speaker 1: This morning in Central, may you wrestle with God, amen.