Please Touch Series, Week 3
“Don’t let go, unless …” 3/18/18
I think this is the best message of the series, so far. If you missed it, I really encourage you to watch it and follow along with the notes:
Main Thought: I was thinking about our journey with God. When was the last time we were so aware that we’d miss out on something SPECIAL if God moved without us? When’s the last time we were so hungry, desperate for God, or in need of God that we said, GOD – “DON’T GO, DON’T MOVE, DON’T PASS UNLESS I EXPERIENCE YOU.” Today, I want to teach how to touch God in a way that we don’t let go until He doesn’t something in us and for us.
TEXT: Genesis 32:24-28 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that 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. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. 28 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.”
TRANSITION: The application for us in this story is that JACOB, now ISRAEL, DOES NOT LET GO UNLESS. I see the application of this story as a prayer we must pray, as a song we must sing, as a lifestyle we must live. When we are wrestling with God, we cannot let God, we cannot stop pursuing Him, we cannot stop seeking Him, we cannot stop asking – UNLESS OR UNTIL –>
Don’t let go, unless …
*God marks you
-“he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.”
-This marking is significant, because Jacob always moved at his own pace, by his own will. When God marks us, when God touches us, no longer can we move at our own pace or by our own will anymore – we move at His pace and by His will.
-The mark of God can slow us down while speeding us up at the same time. We stop striving for our own successes and start relying on Him for true satisfaction and a power for living.
–The mark of God we must ask for goes like this:
-quicken me to hear your voice and make me alive
-teach me new things
-lead me to new places and keep me from wrong places
-convict me of my sin
-make me Holy, take away a desire for the world
-help me be spiritually minded (thinking of things from an eternal perspective)
-make me aware of the internal conflict of flesh and spirit and help me choose life
-help me LOVE without limits and without selfishness
-give me a desire to pray
-power to conquer struggles and to lead others toward the Kingdom
–Acts 1:8a “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”
—
*God blesses you
-“But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
–I’m convinced that God’s deepest BLESSINGS comes from a human wrestling.
-There’s something powerful about praying a prayer more than once, it’s why our persistence mixed with God’s providence is a recipe for the miraculous.
-John 14:13-14 “13 You can ask for anything in my name [my will], and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. 14 Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!
—
*God changes you
-“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.”
-Remember, Jacob was a deceiver, this was his identity. As Jacob holds on, God changes him and gives him a new name, a new identity (2 Corinithians 5:17). Israel is God’s people, His nation. He moves from orphan to child of God!
-Frederick Buechner says, “This moment is a magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God. It’s in Jacob’s story we can easily recognize our own elements of struggle: fears, darkness, loneliness, vulnerabilities, empty feelings of powerlessness, exhaustion and relentless pain.”
-Our constant prayer must be – God change me continually, refine me, renew me, restore me, and give me a new identity that MOST reflects you.
—
*God becomes your God
-“Yahweh was standing there beside him, saying, “I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac…” (Genesis 28:13).
-“Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my grandfather Abraham, and God of my father, Isaac—O Lord, you told me, ‘Return to your own land and to your relatives.’ And you promised me, ‘I will treat you kindly’ (Genesis 32:9).
-“If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, certainly now you would have sent me off empty-handed… (Genesis 31:42).
-There is a common thread throughout these passages: God is the God of Abraham. God is the God of Isaac. But, it does not say that God is the God of Israel until after he wrestled with God.
-After he wrestled, :And he set up an altar there and called it “God, the God of Israel” (Genesis 33:20).
–Why do we need to go wrestle/touch God? Because until we do, God is just a theory, when He was always meant to be an experience.