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Three Angels Fellowship SDA Church

Wrestling with God

Garhett Morgan

01 Wrestling with God

02 Wrestling with God

03 Wrestling with God

04 Wrestling with God

Father, in heaven, we come to you with open hands and open hearts.

Lord, this world is a catastrophe, and we see that more and more in our culture and in the world around us.

Lord, today we're looking at a story in the Bible that is, it's just so deep.

And Lord, I pray that I wouldn't mess it up with my human lips and tongue.

You've said it perfectly, and may that message come across today crystal clear.

I want to give a little bit of a precursor here before I begin this morning.

The message that I want to share today is 1 I'm a little bit nervous to do so because some of the things that might be said might not necessarily be popular.

And there's a huge risk that I misunderstood in this message.

There are some things that I'll mention that as soon as you hear them, you might disagree with, you might struggle with, you might flat out disagree.

He might be tempted to walk out, I don't know.

But just stay with me, because I believe It will all come full circle at the end.

You know, 1 of hot topics and 1 of the things that our young people are really becoming more literate in is mental health.

We'll be talking a little bit about mental health here this morning through the eyes of 1 of the Bible's patriarchs, Jacob.

I do want to mention that I support everyone getting the help that they need with their mental health journey.

If you're going to a counselor, praise the Lord.

If you are getting medication from your doctor, praise the Lord.

These are things that my church supports.

We need to get the help that we need, amen?

And I'm not trying to downplay that whatsoever.

There are amazing counselors out there that do an amazing job and have skills that pastors do not, and I am the first to recognize that.

However, Today I'm gonna be talking about a few things that deal with the mental health realm a little bit and dealing with the side that we often don't talk about from a biblical perspective.

I'm not a counselor, that's not my area of expertise, but I try to know a thing or 2 about the Bible and what the Bible is trying to say.

And I believe that the Bible has some amazing tools for our mental health.

Turns out they call him a wonderful counselor.

So we're gonna be talking about Him in the life of the story that we've been looking at for the last few weeks.

So please forgive me, but also listen to what the Word of God has to say this morning.

We've been taking a look at the story of Jacob, and Jacob is 1 of those people, and probably the person in the Bible, the greatest example of someone that lives a very full life, and God seems to bless, like we'll see here in just a few minutes, but Jacob never fully surrenders his life to Jesus, at least up to this point of his life that we've covered.

The last few weeks we've taken a look at the life, and I just want to give you a brief recap before we jump in.

So if you're visiting or this is your first time with us, you'll know where we are.

Jacob was born, and Jacob's name means a couple different things.

Number 1, it means heel grabber, which is quite fitting, and this is going to play an important part into our message today, because when Jacob was born, he had a twin brother who was, I don't even want to say a few minutes older than him because they were practically delivered at the same time.

Esau's face was seen first as he was taken out of his mother's womb, but as Esau was delivered and they were pulling him into his new life, Jacob was right there holding the heel of his brother.

So They were both delivered practically at the same time, and that's what Jacob's name means, heel grabber.

It also has another translation, deceiver.

And Jacob would live up to both of the meanings of his name.

Esau, his older brother, was given a few special things, as was the culture of the time.

He was to be given a special blessing by his father, as well as the birthright, which Jacob wanted.

Jacob did not necessarily trust the timing or the plan of God, so decided to scheme, as Jacob did best, into getting those things for himself in his own time through deception.

He found his brother Esau in a very vulnerable situation, coming back from the wilderness and hunting, And as his brother Esau comes in and he is famished to the point that he's about ready to die, the Bible says, he asked his brother Jacob, who happens to be cooking some lentil stew, give me some of that food because my body is literally about ready to shut down.

And Jacob said, sure, but what's in it for me?

I'll give you all the food that you want if you give me your birthright.

Esau, not thinking clearly because of food deprivation, says, what good does a birthright Do me if I'm not alive tomorrow to see it.

Jacob gets the birthright and wrestles it from his brother's hand with deception and not brotherly love.

But to make matters worse, their father, Jacob and Esau's father, Isaac, was getting old.

He couldn't see, he was now blind, and he recognized that he was on his deathbed, and so he summoned his son, Esau, to receive his blessing.

This would have been customary at the time.

The father would have given all of his children blessings, but he started in birth order, so he had a blessing specific for Esau, the oldest.

He had a blessing, I'm positive, as well for Jacob as well, except Jacob didn't want the second son's blessing, he wanted the first.

And so, as Isaac told his son, go out and get me some food, go out and get me some meat, and then come back and cook it, as his brother was out hunting, Jacob went into his father Isaac, who couldn't see.

His brother was hairier, his brother smelled a little bit different, the Bible tells us.

He put on his brother's clothes so that he would smell like his brother.

And Jacob was smooth-skinned, he didn't have any hair on his arms or his neck, and so his mother made him some different skins of animals that had coarser hair, and he put it on his neck and on his forearms so that if his father reached out to touch him and to feel him, he would not be alarmed because he could feel the hair of his oldest son, Esau.

Jacob goes into the patriarch of Israel, he goes into Isaac, and he says, Dad, I'm here for my blessing.

And Isaac says, you sound a lot like Jacob, not my oldest Esau.

Jacob, to his dying father who could not see, says, you're mistaken, I am Esau.

Jacob knelt down there before his father, and Isaac touched and says, "'You smell like my son Esau.

You feel like my son Esau, but your voice is the voice of Jacob.

Nevertheless, I will bless you, for you surely must be Esau.

And by the way, how were you able to go out and hunt and bring this food in so quickly?" And Jacob says, well, God was with me.

Jacob lies to his father, his older brother, and his mother.

Well, when his brother comes back and arrives, he's not happy, so much so that he tells his father, next time I see Jacob, he's dead.

And so his father, Isaac, tells Jacob, you need to go for your own safety.

Jacob goes, he gets his wife, which is a whole other story.

On the night of his wedding, He probably had a little bit too much to drink.

So he goes to his now father-in-law and says, what are you doing?

And the Bible tells us that the father basically said, yeah, and I'm not saying this, the Bible says this, I gave you my uglier daughter.

Work another 7 years and then you can have the 1 that you want.

In this process of about 20 years that Jacob is in Laban's house, Jacob not only has 2 wives which was not the plan of the Lord, but he has children, and he begins to grow in wealth.

He has flocks, he has herds, He has hired hands.

But there's something still rattling around in the back of his head that he hasn't taken care of, and that's what he had done 20 years prior, something he had not asked forgiveness for, not from God and not from his older brother Esau.

I'm sure that the moments that Jacob had to himself and to his own mind that Jacob probably looked back and wondered how his father had died.

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Series

Wrestling with God

04 Wrestling with God

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Rethinking Mental Health In Evangelism

54m

Breakouts

Why I Don’t get the Gospel

1h 2m

The Day of Atonement

03 When You Don’t Understand

1h 4m

Closing Arguments

1h 10m

Plenary

One with God’s Purpose

1h 22m

Do you Want to be Made Well?

1h 16m

Lessons from the Life of Daniel

Lessons from the Life of Daniel - Part 4

37m

The Gospel Will Prevail

49m

Sound Doctrine