From Paralysis to Progress

What has you stuck? Let's get moving from paralysis to progress.

Subscribe to enjoy all episodes of God’s Toolbox. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Today, our word comes from the book of Genesis, chapter 32, and we're gonna be reading from the New International Version Scriptures verses 22 through 28. Genesis 32, verses 22 through 28. And this is what the word says. That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Jabak. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip, so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, Let me go, for it is daybreak. But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me. The man asked him, What is your name? Jacob, he answered. Then the man said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. So our subject this afternoon for this noonday service is from paralysis to progress, from paralysis to progress. Paralysis is a condition of no movement when you can't move forward, you can't do anything. You're stuck in the same place, same position. But progress is movement, maybe not fast movement, but it is movement with the goal of doing better. This story of Jacob is one of the most telling stories of moving from paralysis to progress in all of the Bible. Jacob demonstrates for us that people can change, or rather, they can be transformed. Because the naysayers do have it right that we never really change from who we are, but with God we are transformed into someone better, someone who is yielding to God, someone who's yielding to God's will over their own will. What do you mean, preacher? What do you mean? You still probably have seen these toys called Transformers, and maybe some of you have seen the movie. Those instruments, people, cars, objects, they don't change from who they are or what they are, but they transform into something new and different depending on the circumstances. Well, when we look at the story of Jacob, we see that Jacob was a twin, born second, but holding on to the heel of his older brother Esau. Their mother Rebecca had been barren and unable to conceive a child, but her husband Isaac prayed for her. The word says God blessed her to conceive twins, and when the children struggled together within her, she inquired to the Lord about it. I'm sure she was concerned and she was worried about what was going on in her womb, but the Lord told her that she had two nations in her womb, one people stronger than the other. And oddly the older son would serve the younger. I'm sure that information was troubling. But undoubtedly Rebecca never forgot it. You see, the Lord knows us from our very conception, from our mother's womb, he knows who we are, who we will be, what we will become. The boys were born. Esau the oldest was born hairy, and it was a man of the field, the outdoor and outdoors, an outdoorsman, a skillful hunter, and he was favored by his father Isaac. Jacob was mild mannered, one who lived in tents like a shepherd, and he was loved by his mother Rebecca. And as the boys grew, Esau and Jacob, we see that things played out just as God had said. Jacob, being loved by his mother, became an excellent cook, while Esau, preferred by the father Isaac, became a skillful hunter. And one day famished from hunting he came home and wanted a bowl of delicious stew that Jacob had made. Jacob being shrewd. Remember, we said he was born holding on to his brother's heel. The Bible says he was a supplanter. That means someone who goes after something that belongs to someone else. And so Jacob told Esau, I'll give you this stew if you will sell me your birthright. What was the birthright? The birthright belonged to the oldest son as the head of the household who would take over after the father died, that he would inherit his father's estate and receive a double portion of whatever was passed down. Esau may have never even thought about it, never considered it. But Jacob had apparently considered all of this. But Esau being hungry at the time, gave up his birthright for a meal. And I want to remind you today to be careful about making a long term decision based on a short term circumstance or discomfort. I'm sure Esau could have gotten food. He was a hunter, he could have fixed it for himself. But he gave up his birthright, something that was important just for a bowl of stew. At the time it seemed more uh easy and he was willing to do it because he was hungry and he was tired. But it was a bad decision. And not only that, when the time came for Isaac to pronounce the blessing to Esau, the oldest son, he told Esau to go out in the field, hunt a game, and make a savory meal for him. And Isaac was old by now and in ill health. After all, he had been 60 years old when the twins were born. His eyesight was bad. And he wanted to bless Esau before he died. So that's what he told him to do. Go out and hunt, get something good, and come back and fix it, fix a meal, and I'm gonna give you the blessing. The blessing was perhaps even more important than the birthright in the life of the Jews at that time. The blessing was the transfer of the patriarchal inheritance and blessing of wealth and power to the eldest. And that's what he was gonna do for Esau. He was gonna bless him to go on and take over as the patriarch of the family. But Rebecca had heard it. And remember, she favored Jacob. She perhaps was the one who taught him how to cook. And she taught her son Jacob into deceiving the father in order that he would get the blessing. Perhaps she thought about what had been told her when the boys were in the womb, that the oldest would be under the younger, and that Jacob would rule Esau. And so she helped him decide to disguise himself in order to receive the blessing. And when Esau came and realized that he had not gotten the blessing, that Jacob had been blessed instead, he was bitter and set out to kill Jacob, calling him a supplanter, taking advantage of me, you took my birthright and now the blessing as well. And he was very angry. Rebecca was afraid for her son, so she sent him to live with her brother Laban. So Jacob ran from their home in Canaan and went to the land of Mesopotamia in a land called Patamoron to live with her his uncle Laban, his mother's brother. And for twenty years Jacob lived with Uncle Laban and worked for him. Laban himself was a master trickster. He tricked Jacob into working for two of his daughters. Jacob had wanted to marry Rachel, but Laban tricked him into marrying Leah first. He worked for her, he had worked for Rachel for seven years, and yet he was tricked into marrying Leah. And so Laban told Jacob, if you want Rachel, you have to work seven more years, which he did. He worked for 14 years and got two wives of Uncle Laban. He worked six years for the livestock. And during that time, Laban changed the rules and the price and everything ten times, trying to get ahead. But God blessed Jacob. And after twenty years, he was a rich man. He had two wives and eleven sons. And at that time, during those years, holding that mirror to his face, that mirror of Uncle Laban, he saw firsthand what it felt like to have someone treat you the way he had treated his brother. He saw how his brother Esau must have felt, and yet he stayed all those years with Laban because he was afraid to go back home, afraid for his life. But God told him, It's time for you to go back to your father's land. Remember, we talked about transformation, living in the provision and grace of Almighty God during those twenty years. Perhaps Jacob didn't realize himself that he was being transformed. If we look at Romans 12, 1 and 2 from the Amplified Bible, it says, Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies, dedicate yourself, set apart yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your rational, logical, your intelligent act of worship. And do not be conformed to this world any longer with its superficial values and customs, but be transformed and progressively changed as you mature spiritually by the renewing of your mind, focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes, so that you may prove for yourself what the will of God is, which is good and acceptable and perfect in his plan and purpose for you. So finally, Jacob leaves Laban and he does all he knows to do. You have to go and read it for yourself, all the details of what he does to try to protect his family from Esau. And that night, before he meets up with Esau, he is alone with God and wrestles with God. Some people say that the man that came and wrestled with Jesus was an angel of God. Some say it was God, but most theologians generally agree that it was a theophany, which is the presence of Jesus in the Old Testament. We know that Jesus was born in the New Testament, grew up. We know he became Savior of the world. All of that happened in the New Testament, but we know that God has always been in the beginning, was God. And so Jesus existed even before he became a man here on earth. And so most theologians think that who Jacob wrestled with was really God in the flesh, it was Jesus. And he wrestled with them. Jacob wrestled with God. How many times have you wrestled with God? Saying to God in the end, not my will, Lord, but your will be done. And basically, that's what was happening when Jacob was wrestling with God. He wanted it his way. He didn't want to have to face Esau. He didn't want to have to go back and repent for what he had done and feel sorry for it, or to face Jacob in the face and look at him and say to him, to admit that he was wrong. But in the end, God won. He always wins. Even if he has to do something to reduce us. Because Jacob was winning. But it says the angel of God, God himself, touched him in the hollow of his hip. And Jacob was forever disabled, walked with a limp. After that, sometimes God has to humble us in a way that disables us so that we can really see who He is in our lives. And at that point, he told Jacob, Let me go. It was nearly daybreak, but Jacob says, I'm not going to let you go until you bless me. And that should be us. We're not going to let go of God until we get what we need from Him, until He blesses us, until He transforms us into the person that we should be. So that's how it is that Jacob was changed and transformed from the supplanter and the trickster of a man into a great man of God in the Christian faith. We hear about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because Jacob was transformed. He went from paralysis to progress. And the next morning he was able to meet with his brother, and they reconcile their differences and went about their separate ways. So how do we do it? How do we go from paralysis to progress? How do we get from the stuck place, the dry place where we are? Well the first thing is to offer yourself to God. When Jacob got alone with God and wrestled with God, it had been twenty years that he had been in that position, knowing that his brother wanted to kill him, knowing that he had not done the right thing by his brother, and he had not even asked God to forgive him. But as he wrestled with God, all of that came about. And the second thing was he he when he met with him, he made, he tried to make amends with his brother. He gave him gifts of cattle and livestock and other things. And let him know that he was so grateful that his brother was willing to meet with him in peace. We need to forgive others, and we need to offer forgiveness to them and ask for their forgiveness of us when we've done wrong. And then we don't need to strive for perfection, but progress. Jacob wasn't all he was gonna be at that moment, but he was better. He was moving, he wasn't in a stuck place, he was moving. He had moved from Mesopotamia with his uncle Laban, and he was going back to his home to settle and to be the person that God would have him to be. And the fourth thing is he needed to anticipate his future self. The Bible says, call those things that are not as though they were. We're not who we are going to be, but thank God we're not what we used to be. That should be our prayer. Lord help me move from where I am to be better. We're not going to be perfect until God comes back, until Jesus comes back again. But we need to be striving for perfection. We need to stop comparing and measuring ourselves with others. Trying to get what somebody else has. As Jacob was holding on to his brother's heel, trying to get his brother's birthright, which he did, trying to get his brother's blessing. Stop trying to get what belongs to others. But what God has for you is for you. Be real and authentic. That's who we need to be. So today, as we look at the story of Esau and Jacob, we see Jacob moving from paralysis to progress. Not being who he was gonna be, but moving towards that person. And that's what we need to do. We need to do today. We need to stop being paralyzed and stuck, but to move into who God wants us to be. From paralysis to progress. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for this word on today that shows us step by step that sometimes, Lord, we're stuck because we refuse to acknowledge you, to yield our way to your way. We refuse to forgive our brother and ask for forgiveness, Lord. But when we do those things, you will transform us from the person that we think we should be into who you would have us to be. We thank you, Lord, for the step-by-step process that day by day we are better than we were the day before. We thank you. We praise you. We ask you, Lord, to grow us up and take us off the milk of the word and put us on the meat that we may be able to understand the deep things of you so that we can be conformed into your image, Lord, each and every day of our lives. We thank you, we praise you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen, everybody, amen, and thank you again for joining us today. We hope that you are enjoying the season of Lent and that you're praying and asking God each day to make you stronger as we go into and towards Easter Resurrection Sunday, and we praise God for the work that He has done for us, dying on the cross for each one of us, that we might have the right to the tree of life, everlasting life with our Lord and Savior. So let us repeat our benediction now unto him who's able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power both now and forevermore. Let us all say, Amen. I love you and you can't do a thing about it. Now go and be great for God.