The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Quit LARPing & Be A Man - Pastor Jared Longshore

00:00:00.240 Greetings from Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.

00:00:04.960 I'm delighted to be here with you this morning to worship the Lord together with you.

00:00:11.060 The sermon text this morning is Genesis chapter 32, verse 24 through 32.

00:00:18.580 These are the words of God.

00:00:22.920 And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

00:00:29.700 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh,

00:00:34.720 and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him.

00:00:39.460 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh.

00:00:42.540 And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

00:00:46.820 And he said unto him, What is thy name?

00:00:50.080 And he said, Jacob.

00:00:52.600 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.

00:00:56.860 For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

00:01:03.540 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.

00:01:08.420 And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?

00:01:12.920 And he blessed him there.

00:01:15.220 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel,

00:01:18.260 for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

00:01:22.180 And as he passed over Penuel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

00:01:29.840 Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day,

00:01:36.980 because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank.

00:01:42.480 Let's pray.

00:01:43.700 Our Father, we thank you for your abundant kindness toward us.

00:01:47.440 We thank you that we can gather on this Lord's Day to worship you in spirit and in truth.

00:01:53.960 And we ask that you would speak to us now through your word and by your spirit,

00:02:00.000 that you would convict us where we need to be convicted.

00:02:02.480 You would encourage what needs to be encouraged.

00:02:04.660 We ask that you would strengthen our faith, that you would enlarge our hearts,

00:02:09.220 that you would help us to run in the way of your commands.

00:02:12.020 We pray all this in Jesus' name, and amen.

00:02:16.880 So Scripture tells us that we are more than conquerors, and everybody kind of likes that idea.

00:02:24.980 That's the kind of thing that we put on our coffee mugs.

00:02:28.700 And yet, being a conqueror means that there are things that are standing in our way.

00:02:38.900 This is something that troubles us a little bit.

00:02:41.680 We like the idea of being conquerors, but then when it comes to actually looking at the obstacles that are out there in front of us,

00:02:46.980 it can be discouraging, but it ought not to be discouraging.

00:02:51.620 We are victors after all, and what good are victors if they have nothing to vanquish?

00:02:58.440 Hebrews 11 says that there's this great cloud of witnesses.

00:03:04.180 Now, imagine some kind of sporting competition.

00:03:07.480 Your life is a sporting competition, and gathered around are the cloud of witnesses.

00:03:13.840 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob himself, who we have just heard about, who wrestled with the Lord.

00:03:20.380 Rahab, the other saints, they're gathered in the stadium to watch the contest of your life

00:03:27.920 as you are more than a conqueror, and you pause before the game begins and look at them

00:03:33.040 and say, just so you know, my strategy in life is to avoid the opposition at all costs.

00:03:42.640 They think, well, this is going to be kind of boring.

00:03:46.160 I thought we came to see a contest.

00:03:49.080 Say, no, no, but what I like to do is try to stay as far away from any kind of conflict,

00:03:54.660 any kind of struggle as possible.

00:03:56.840 And all of a sudden there's like Abraham scrolling on his phone

00:04:00.220 rather than paying attention to the game of your life.

00:04:03.040 Rahab's thinking about leaving and going and get some food because this is terribly boring.

00:04:08.760 It wasn't that way with Jacob when he wrestled with God.

00:04:13.920 I remember being a very small boy and having this particular story in one of those storybook Bible situations.

00:04:20.800 And of course, as a little boy, you're flipping through and then you see this story illustrated.

00:04:25.440 You're like, well, I think I'll look at that one.

00:04:28.940 And then I got done with it.

00:04:30.340 But I remember thinking, I'm going to have to go check with my parents on this story.

00:04:36.280 Something is terribly wrong.

00:04:38.860 First of all, there's a man wrestling with God.

00:04:43.100 What's going on there?

00:04:45.120 And then he won.

00:04:47.940 Dad and Mom, who edited this book?

00:04:50.420 I don't think that this is okay.

00:04:54.480 And yet that's what happened.

00:04:56.720 Jacob wrestled with the Lord.

00:04:57.860 Let's consider a survey of the text.

00:05:01.500 Jacob was headed back into the promised land after spending 20 years in Paddan Aram.

00:05:09.280 He was very wealthy, traveling with wives, servants, 11 sons, and abundant goods.

00:05:18.840 But he was soon to face his brother Esau, who, as far as Jacob knew, still had a score to settle with him.

00:05:27.020 After sending his family over a brook for the night,

00:05:29.580 Jacob was left alone and wrestled a man until daybreak.

00:05:33.140 That's verse 24 of the text.

00:05:36.000 This man was no mere man, but God himself.

00:05:40.960 A truth that's revealed to us in this passage and also in Hosea 12, verse 3.

00:05:46.760 There the prophet says, he took his brother by the heel in the womb,

00:05:51.200 of course talking about Jacob, and by his strength he had power with God.

00:05:56.020 So we know that Jacob is actually wrestling with God in the text.

00:06:01.440 When this man could not prevail over Jacob, he touched his hip socket, throwing his hip out.

00:06:06.900 And Jacob continued to wrestle even after having his hip thrown out.

00:06:11.440 That's verse 25.

00:06:13.760 Jacob would not let the man go unless he blessed him.

00:06:18.180 That's verse 26.

00:06:20.320 The man responded by asking Jacob's name and then changing his name to Israel.

00:06:24.220 For Jacob was a prince who had wrestled with God and men and had prevailed.

00:06:31.220 Verse 28, Jacob returned this question, what's your name?

00:06:37.140 But instead of getting an answer, he got a blessing.

00:06:39.940 That's verse 29.

00:06:42.160 Jacob called the place Peniel, for his life had been preserved even while seeing God face to face.

00:06:48.820 And Jacob passed on toward the promised land.

00:06:51.340 As he did so, the sun rose on him and he walked with a limp.

00:06:57.180 Verse 31.

00:06:58.760 The children of Israel remembered this encounter by not eating the sinew of the thigh.

00:07:03.520 Verse 32.

00:07:06.460 Now, what are you supposed to make of this story?

00:07:09.840 Well, it's got a very simple truth.

00:07:12.080 If you want to be blessed, and you should want to be blessed,

00:07:16.580 you have to wrestle with God.

00:07:17.840 there's simply no other way to receive blessing from the lord now that's an intimidating prospect

00:07:27.740 we would like to be blessed in another way and a lot of us don't actually think about

00:07:32.380 the requirement for us to walk under the blessing of god there's that particular problem we'll get

00:07:37.640 to some of that but once you say okay i gather that our father in heaven indeed does bless us

00:07:45.900 Psalm 103 tells us to forget not all his benefits.

00:07:48.780 We're actually to remember these benefits, these blessings that he's given us.

00:07:51.920 And we're to walk in those blessings and say, how am I going to get it?

00:07:55.980 The only way you're going to get it is to wrestle with God.

00:08:01.080 Jacob had to do that.

00:08:02.660 He did that, and he was remarkably blessed.

00:08:07.660 So what I want to do is unfold this text with four different headings.

00:08:12.160 We walked a survey of the text.

00:08:13.760 Now let's consider different themes, different headings of the text.

00:08:17.300 The first is this.

00:08:18.600 We need to know who we must wrestle with.

00:08:22.220 Who we must wrestle with.

00:08:24.540 Now, this is the kind of text that can get all jumbled up when you're doing your Bible study.

00:08:29.140 You know, there's certain texts that are just safer when you're doing Bible study.

00:08:33.600 You're in a Bible study and the text is do not steal.

00:08:38.000 You're gathered around.

00:08:40.040 Your evangelical Bible study, everybody's got their coffee.

00:08:44.060 And you're in a pretty safe spot.

00:08:47.480 The leader doesn't look around and go, I mean, what in the world could this text mean?

00:08:52.720 What does it mean to you?

00:08:54.720 I think it means do not steal is what I think it means.

00:09:00.240 But then all of a sudden you turn to this text.

00:09:02.480 You turn to Genesis 32 and Jacob's wrestling with God.

00:09:05.120 And it can get wild in that Bible study.

00:09:07.180 You know, you can find all sorts of things that people say that they're wrestling with

00:09:14.640 rather than simply wrestling with God.

00:09:20.460 Why do we avoid wrestling with God?

00:09:23.100 Well, it's an intimidating prospect if we're honest with ourselves.

00:09:27.100 This was a painful episode for Jacob and it can be a painful episode

00:09:31.700 and it is a painful episode to wrestle with the Lord.

00:09:35.360 So we want to wrestle with anything but God.

00:09:38.980 Think of some of the ways that we avoid wrestling with God, we wrestle with other things.

00:09:42.400 So people go to therapy to wrestle with their emotions.

00:09:48.040 I'm really wrestling with my anxiety.

00:09:50.720 I'm really wrestling with my depression.

00:09:53.640 And one of the things you need to know is that you need to stop that.

00:09:59.820 Don't wrestle with your anxiety.

00:10:02.100 Don't wrestle with your depression.

00:10:04.360 You wrestle with the Lord.

00:10:07.100 You kill depression.

00:10:08.720 You kill anxiety.

00:10:10.440 You kill those kinds of things.

00:10:12.480 But you don't focus on them and begin to wrestle with them. 0.84

00:10:16.880 You actually have to wrestle with God.

00:10:19.940 There's ivory tower theologians that talk about wrestling with the tensions in the text.

00:10:27.360 I'm really wrestling with the text.

00:10:30.360 And I understand that there's complicated things that are in the Bible.

00:10:33.680 We're told that about the Apostle Paul himself, that he writes some things that are hard.

00:10:37.240 So that's all right.

00:10:38.540 But what you realize is people start to wrestle abstractly with all of the different ideas in the text

00:10:44.720 rather than just looking at the Bible and saying, this is what it says, and I'm actually going to obey it.

00:10:49.540 I'm actually going to put it into practice.

00:10:51.220 We'd rather wrestle with the various ideas.

00:10:55.400 We definitely like to wrestle with other people on the Internet.

00:11:04.680 They're such easier targets than God.

00:11:08.380 What's my options?

00:11:09.400 Wrestle with God or wrestle with some guy on the Internet?

00:11:12.160 And I know more than he does.

00:11:13.980 I'll take the guy on the Internet.

00:11:17.080 Now, there's conflicts and have been in the body of Christ for a very long time,

00:11:21.140 and we're supposed to address those by all means.

00:11:24.300 But we say, well, I'd rather find some Arminian or some dispensationalist

00:11:29.080 or somebody to wrestle with rather than actually looking to Yahweh 0.90

00:11:33.060 face to face and dealing with him and dealing with my life as Jacob did. 0.66

00:11:42.720 Men wrestle with bitterness.

00:11:43.940 They wrestle with disappointments about their lives.

00:11:46.760 Why aren't their lives different?

00:11:48.080 They look to other people's lives and they see the kind of success that they've had,

00:11:52.420 see the blessings that they've enjoyed.

00:11:54.540 And rather than saying, OK, I'm going to emulate this.

00:11:57.780 I'm going to stay in the saddle.

00:11:59.580 I'm going to work hard, pray hard, trust the Lord,

00:12:02.740 follow people as they follow the Lord Jesus Christ,

00:12:05.160 they get all turned in on themselves,

00:12:07.460 and they start to wrestle with their own bitterness, their own failures,

00:12:11.740 some kind of self-loathing.

00:12:15.920 You say, well, I'm just a guy that likes to review the game film.

00:12:19.380 I'm serious about my personal holiness.

00:12:21.820 So I'd say, well, praise the Lord for reviewing the game film.

00:12:25.100 There's nothing wrong with reviewing the game film.

00:12:27.220 That's what you do when you confess your sin.

00:12:28.800 So you look at the last week and you figure out where it is that you missed the mark.

00:12:32.780 And then you confess that and you stand up from it.

00:12:35.200 You receive the assurance of pardon.

00:12:36.560 You move on.

00:12:37.740 But you have to be honest with yourself.

00:12:38.940 There's a difference between doing that and just spinning your wheels because you are wrestling with yourself, your past decisions, rather than simply getting up and moving on.

00:12:51.960 If you've made bad decisions in the past, well, that's no reason to keep making bad decisions now.

00:12:56.020 You have to face up to the Lord.

00:13:02.400 Wives, it's far easier to wrestle with your husband than it is to wrestle with God. 0.99

00:13:09.980 And so wives fall into this trap. 0.81

00:13:13.580 Whatever it is that's out there in front of us, whatever decision that it is that needs to be made,

00:13:20.100 rather than taking it to the Lord, asking the Lord to bless it,

00:13:24.400 Wives begin to wrestle with their husbands.

00:13:27.120 And husbands know this.

00:13:28.080 They don't like this.

00:13:30.020 They begin to wrestle with their wives rather than wrestling with the Lord.

00:13:33.100 We've got husband and wife wrestling rather than both of them wrestling with the Lord.

00:13:36.660 This doesn't mean that you're not supposed to talk about decisions.

00:13:39.000 You're not supposed to have honest disagreements and work these things out when decisions are made.

00:13:43.240 By all means, you need to communicate about these kinds of things.

00:13:46.380 But you need to do it in faith, looking to the Lord, trusting the Lord.

00:13:51.440 We hear in 1 Peter about the holy women of old, like Sarah,

00:13:57.120 who put their hope in God and didn't fear what was frightening.

00:14:02.520 I tell several of the ladies at New St. Andrews College,

00:14:07.180 and people are getting to the end of their college,

00:14:10.200 and they're thinking about marriage.

00:14:11.360 Some of them getting engaged and going through marriage counseling.

00:14:15.220 You should be able to look at these young ladies and tell them,

00:14:17.800 it's an absolutely terrifying thing to get married.

00:14:20.620 When you're a Christian woman, you know, the Bible says I'm supposed to submit to him in all things.

00:14:26.260 And yes, I know if he tells me sin, I'm not supposed to do it.

00:14:29.640 But really, I'm going to have this head.

00:14:31.900 I'm going to be made a body.

00:14:33.120 I'm to submit to him.

00:14:33.880 And then you're looking at him and you're thinking, well, you know, my dad, for maybe the all the disagreements I've had over the years with my dad, he's probably 50s, late 40s, something like that.

00:14:48.760 He's seeming a lot wiser than this guy who's 22.

00:14:52.040 This guy.

00:14:53.520 So I'm about to have a shift.

00:14:55.580 Mm-hmm.

00:14:56.500 You are. 0.99

00:14:57.980 And how did the women of old deal with that?

00:15:01.600 How did they face up to things that were frightening?

00:15:03.560 Well, they put their hope in God.

00:15:05.500 And that is to say they wrestled with God.

00:15:06.960 They dealt with the Lord regarding his promises.

00:15:09.380 We see this kind of thing with Abigail. 1.00

00:15:11.640 How could Abigail act so appropriately when her husband was acting like a fool 0.99

00:15:18.500 and she absolutely did the right thing? 1.00

00:15:22.940 She didn't ask his permission when he was acting like a fool 1.00

00:15:26.000 and he was about to be killed by King David. 1.00

00:15:29.240 She intervened in just the right way.

00:15:32.820 But how did she have this courage to go face this king 0.99

00:15:35.700 king who was dead set on going to execute her foolish husband well she was holding on to the 0.98

00:15:42.840 promises of god she was actually wrestling with the lord she was dealing with the lord not just 0.99

00:15:47.460 there shaking the ball i mean think about how it could have gone if she would have decided not to 1.00

00:15:51.720 wrestle with the lord but rather to wrestle with her husband nabal why have you been such a fool 0.99

00:15:55.860 nabal don't you know what's going to happen nabal david is coming to get you nabal i can't believe 0.99

00:15:59.740 you've done this nabal this is what you need to do nabal go do this kind of thing

00:16:03.340 And the other thing, not truly wrestling with the Lord, 0.85

00:16:09.980 would be to just curl up in the corner and bite her fingernails.

00:16:17.040 Well, I want to be a godly wife, so I won't say anything to my husband.

00:16:21.560 Because I think I'm not supposed to.

00:16:24.820 So I'll just be afraid.

00:16:26.720 And I'll just let the bad things that I see coming happen.

00:16:31.300 She didn't do that either.

00:16:33.240 She went to David.

00:16:35.740 She sent those envoys before him.

00:16:39.240 She fell down on the ground. 1.00

00:16:41.420 She took responsibility while signaling that he is a fool. 0.99

00:16:45.680 She made very clear whose fault it really was, 1.00

00:16:48.380 and yet she took responsibility when her husband was acting a fool. 0.99

00:16:53.640 And then she reminded David of the promises of God. 0.99

00:16:58.980 She was wrestling with the Lord in such a way

00:17:00.600 that when David had forgotten the promises

00:17:02.600 and was soon to bring blood guilt upon himself,

00:17:05.200 she actually remembered those promises

00:17:07.100 and presented them to David, 0.98

00:17:09.520 diverting him away from making a foolish decision. 0.92

00:17:12.500 That's a woman who's wrestling with the Lord. 0.95

00:17:13.960 She's actually there plowing the field,

00:17:18.940 doing the work, trusting the Lord,

00:17:20.620 wrestling with the Lord,

00:17:21.920 and putting these things into practice.

00:17:24.440 we talk about victims who wrestle with systems rather than wrestling with the lord

00:17:34.380 of course there's the social justice movement there's black lives matter there's lgbtq victimhood

00:17:42.960 all the victims of intersectionality that certainly were a massive problem and certainly

00:17:49.760 are still a massive problem in our society but i imagine here in the heart of texas you're all

00:17:53.960 conservatives and you're pretty much you're pretty much can see the victim status the victim card

00:18:00.360 when you when you see one you can identify that kind of thing but turn it on yourself and

00:18:05.460 acknowledge that that kind of thing that is so flagrant in our culture now is something that

00:18:10.380 we can easily do we're in systems we're in organizations and institutions and when we find

00:18:17.780 that we're not getting everything that we think we ought to get do we complain

00:18:23.860 do we act like victims do we pout about it do we point to all of the reasons that we're not

00:18:34.220 experiencing the blessing that we ought to be experiencing because of the people who've gone

00:18:38.580 before us who didn't walk in enough faithfulness that have that faithfulness would have cascaded

00:18:43.220 down to us had i had better better people better fathers better grandfathers do we find ourselves

00:18:49.920 making the exact same complaints?

00:18:54.480 You know what that's doing.

00:18:55.800 We're wrestling with the system.

00:18:58.240 Wrestling with the way things are

00:19:00.380 rather than actually wrestling with God.

00:19:02.840 How's the blessing going to come to us?

00:19:04.360 The blessing's going to come to us when we wrestle with God.

00:19:07.120 But we're expending all of this other energy

00:19:09.160 wrestling with other things

00:19:10.940 rather than actually wrestling with the Lord.

00:19:16.180 Young men particularly.

00:19:18.140 Those of you who are starting to count the cost and thinking about venturing out on your own,

00:19:24.600 here's the simple truth of the way it works.

00:19:27.680 You have to hustle and you have to wrestle with the Lord.

00:19:34.220 There's planting and there's watering, but who brings the growth?

00:19:39.000 God does.

00:19:40.800 And if you've worked a little bit and you're concerned that there hasn't been enough growth,

00:19:45.040 who are you supposed to talk to about that?

00:19:47.520 you say well my dad my boss the market my politician at the end of the day who's in charge

00:19:59.020 god is at the end of the day who made goshen a place of blessing amid the plagues of egypt

00:20:06.120 god did and where you see another person blessed you thank god for it

00:20:10.900 and where you are lacking that blessing you're not seeing the fruit you have to deal

00:20:16.680 with the Lord at the end of the day why are things the way that they are the answer is God

00:20:22.820 we see this hesitation to actually deal with the Lord in C.S. Lewis's silver chair this

00:20:30.060 moment when Jill sees this lovely stream and she's dying of thirst and she would go drink

00:20:36.680 from this stream but there's just one problem the lion Aslan's in the way this is how Lewis

00:20:43.820 recounts that particular episode. The lion says, are you not thirsty? I'm dying of thirst, said Jill.

00:20:52.360 Then drink, said the lion. May I? Could I? Would you mind going away while I do, said Jill. The lion

00:21:01.340 answered this only by a look and a very low growl. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was

00:21:07.980 driving her nearly frantic. I dare not come and drink, said Jill. Then you will die of thirst,

00:21:14.780 said the lion. Oh dear, said Jill, coming another step nearer. I suppose I must go and look for

00:21:20.680 another stream then. There is no other stream, said the lion. There is absolutely no other stream

00:21:30.400 of blessing and life other than God himself and his son Jesus Christ. You must come to him. You

00:21:39.380 must come to him. That first time you came to him, you remember that terrifying moment where you

00:21:45.040 realize that you're a sinner, a wretched sinner, and that you deserve hell. That's exactly what's 1.00

00:21:50.980 coming. And the only way you would be saved would be coming to the one whose wrath will burn in hell. 0.92

00:21:56.840 coming to the one whom you've sinned against,

00:22:01.660 fessing up to your very creator who made you upright

00:22:05.420 before we burned it all down in our father Adam,

00:22:08.840 that terrifying moment and that freeing and liberating moment

00:22:11.960 when you came to Aslan, when you came to the lion himself

00:22:15.640 and you found forgiveness and mercy and grace and blessing and favor.

00:22:23.100 Now, having begun by the spirit, would you be perfected by the flesh?

00:22:26.840 Having begun by the Spirit, would you be perfected by politicians, by people with power?

00:22:33.780 No, you're perfected in the exact same way you began.

00:22:38.240 You will experience blessing as you actually deal with that God,

00:22:41.780 the one to whom you first came and received justification and received regeneration,

00:22:48.980 received the power of the Spirit.

00:22:51.400 You must deal with him. 0.74

00:22:53.820 Interestingly, the Christian who wrestles with God

00:22:56.380 is the one who's not always tied up in knots.

00:23:00.040 You ever met the person who's just always frantic?

00:23:02.180 It's just always something.

00:23:03.400 They're like a tangled up electrical cord.

00:23:08.300 And it's always in the wrong place.

00:23:10.340 It's been like stuck in the linen closet.

00:23:12.180 I have seven kids.

00:23:13.060 What's a tangled up electrical cord doing in a linen closet?

00:23:16.820 That's what this person's inner life is like. 0.92

00:23:20.020 You say, why is she like that?

00:23:21.920 Why is he like that?

00:23:23.220 Because he's not actually wrestling with God.

00:23:25.000 It's the one who wrestles with God that has genuine peace.

00:23:29.620 So who must we wrestle with?

00:23:30.960 That's the first heading.

00:23:31.700 The answer is God.

00:23:32.740 Second heading.

00:23:34.180 Where must we wrestle with God?

00:23:38.440 If the first maneuver is to avoid wrestling with God by wrestling with other things,

00:23:44.400 then the second way to escape truly wrestling with God is to pretend to wrestle with him.

00:23:51.920 But this was no abstract wrestling match for Jacob.

00:23:55.540 This was not fisticuffs in the cloud.

00:23:58.460 Everything seems to be in the cloud,

00:24:00.420 and so we just decide that that's how we're going to live our Christianity.

00:24:03.220 We'll live our Christianity in the cloud.

00:24:05.000 We'll wrestle with the Lord in the cloud.

00:24:08.560 This was not a simulated boxing match.

00:24:11.820 It was not a video game.

00:24:14.340 Real wrestling is wonderfully tangible.

00:24:17.320 It has a marvelous way of focusing the mind.

00:24:21.740 Imagine having Jacob here with us, and we could say,

00:24:24.860 what was it like to wrestle with God, Jacob?

00:24:26.820 And I imagine he'd say something like, you know, I don't really remember.

00:24:29.000 I was just working so hard not to get choked out.

00:24:32.840 That's what it was about. 1.00

00:24:36.040 One of the reasons Christians get so whizzed up about all of the wrong things 1.00

00:24:39.260 is because they have way too much energy. 0.91

00:24:41.760 They wouldn't have all of that energy if they were actually wrestling with the Lord.

00:24:45.140 You know the situations I'm talking about.

00:24:47.100 They say, did you see what she posted on Facebook?

00:24:51.340 Did you see? I can't believe that she posted that on Facebook.

00:24:54.660 I'm going to send that to my sister on the text message stream.

00:24:57.200 That's going on the family message chat. Can you believe that she did this?

00:25:00.460 I know why she did this. Do you want me to tell you why she did this? I know why. 0.78

00:25:05.440 You say, why in the world do you have so much energy?

00:25:09.120 If you're wrestling with the Lord, and then you'd say,

00:25:13.380 Hey, I'll tell you what. Let's go talk to her about it.

00:25:17.920 Well, you know, I'm going to pray about it.

00:25:21.780 I'm going to think about that.

00:25:23.500 I'll pray.

00:25:24.340 I'll wrestle with the Lord in the cloud about it.

00:25:27.800 Ask him to do it.

00:25:28.500 Well, why don't you wrestle with the Lord

00:25:29.440 like right here on the ground? 1.00

00:25:30.560 Let's go talk to her and see what the Lord will do.

00:25:32.960 He might do something.

00:25:35.340 Somebody might actually get a hit put out of place

00:25:37.380 and we could get some advancement of the kingdom of God

00:25:39.720 if we deal with this matter.

00:25:41.300 The Lord's down here with us, right?

00:25:43.160 Never leave us or forsake us.

00:25:44.520 We don't just have to escape purely to the prayer closet

00:25:47.320 and ask the Lord to do something about it.

00:25:51.580 How do you know if you are LARPing

00:25:55.980 rather than actually wrestling with the Lord?

00:25:59.280 Let me give you some examples.

00:26:00.720 Parents claim to wrestle with the Lord over their children,

00:26:04.340 but if they are not sacrificing for the welfare of those children,

00:26:08.180 then they are not really wrestling with God.

00:26:12.900 So if you pray, Lord, bless my children to a thousand generations,

00:26:16.660 bless them. Make your face shine upon them, Lord. May they do greater works than we have done.

00:26:21.820 You start to get that generational blessing going. But if you're not tangibly sacrificing for them,

00:26:28.860 if you're not paying close attention to them and their shortcomings and their lack of virtue and

00:26:34.540 their virtuous deeds, if you're not actually there at the plow working it, then you're just LARPing.

00:26:42.400 It's not real work.

00:26:46.340 This means sacrificing for their education.

00:26:49.480 It means money, resources.

00:26:52.680 It means sacrificing so that they would find healthy spouses, blessed spouses.

00:27:00.440 It means sacrificing by having people in your home and demonstrating to them

00:27:03.520 the practical virtues of how to greet people and welcome people

00:27:07.280 and how to cook meals.

00:27:09.160 that routine patience of actually seeing that the jobs that they're given in the home are

00:27:14.640 actually executed and when they're not executed how to patiently and kindly tee it back up again

00:27:19.320 and give it another shot if you're not in the grind actually doing those things and it's LARPing

00:27:24.980 my father was a general contractor in Florida worked on homes in Florida swinging a hammer and

00:27:32.900 from third grade to tenth grade he would take me out every summer to work with him to sweat with

00:27:38.200 him. And I hated it and I didn't want to go. And I'm sure I put up such a fight that if you were

00:27:43.880 to see videotape of me, I'd be embarrassed by not wanting to do this particular activity. And yet

00:27:49.340 he put up with my stubbornness and said, no, here we go. Let's go do it again. And I learned how to

00:27:55.340 work hard. I learned a work ethic. He didn't just pray, Lord, give him a work ethic. He actually

00:27:59.640 dealt with all of the setbacks that I caused, all of those difficulties in order to establish this

00:28:05.340 kind of work ethic in me that's the way we have to do it as parents that's actually wrestling with

00:28:10.520 the lord another example young men pretend to wrestle with the lord over their pornography

00:28:16.220 but it's all larping if they don't have the kind of accountability that really hurts

00:28:21.800 so you as a teenage old teenage guy meeting with three other teenage guys at a coffee shop to talk

00:28:32.580 about how you all failed again this last week is not accountability. It's you drowning together.

00:28:39.760 You have to have real accountability. You tell a father who can actually do something in your life.

00:28:45.840 You tell elders and have accountability from elders and pastors who actually have authority

00:28:50.660 to make your life remarkably uncomfortable if you continue in that particular lazy, self-centered

00:28:57.320 sin. Young ladies, pretend to wrestle with the Lord over obtaining a godly husband, 1.00

00:29:05.460 but if they're not taking the practical measures to become a lovely woman, one who a godly man 0.98

00:29:09.460 would want to marry, then they're really LARPing. They're complaining. Oh, there's so few men out

00:29:16.280 there today, aren't there? Well, yes, there are. There are just so few. These men have become such

00:29:21.000 scoundrels. It wasn't like this back in the day. Where's the next 1950s meme that I can look at? 0.96

00:29:32.000 Now, here's the problem with all of these things. 0.74

00:29:36.220 Is it a tough landscape out there, ladies? Absolutely it is.

00:29:40.260 Okay? So I grant you that. But what are we going to do about it, right? Let's just face up. Like,

00:29:46.100 what do you want your young ladies to do? That means you really need to go after it. You need 1.00

00:29:50.280 to go for the gold, okay? Look at Proverbs 31, study that lady carefully, and be the best Proverbs

00:29:57.520 31 lady you can be. And we're going to pray. God's going to provide. We're not going to give into

00:30:01.940 anxiety. We're going to trust the Lord. I'm going to intercede for you as a father. His father's

00:30:05.900 coming along. But the last thing we're going to do is complain. The last thing we're going to do

00:30:11.280 is give us some kind of lazy unbelief that's going to result in no blessing coming upon us.

00:30:17.280 We have to wrestle with the Lord about these things.

00:30:22.520 Disgruntled conversations about the present state of things,

00:30:26.480 about the downfall of our nation, this is a hallmark.

00:30:30.340 This is a hallmark.

00:30:32.220 So I could touch a nerve here, probably.

00:30:35.560 The Richmond, North of Richmond song.

00:30:39.160 Now, I'm from Florida, Central Florida, real Florida.

00:30:42.240 It's basically Texas, Florida.

00:30:44.200 It's identical.

00:30:45.260 Oaks, brushes, cattle, rattlesnakes, okay?

00:30:50.080 So, yes, I tapped my foot to that song.

00:30:52.100 I like that song.

00:30:54.920 But let's face it.

00:30:56.620 Stop complaining.

00:30:59.520 Stop complaining.

00:31:02.300 Just stop it.

00:31:04.620 Man up.

00:31:05.800 Do your work.

00:31:08.680 Stop doing drugs or whatever it is that's going on.

00:31:12.220 Provide for your family.

00:31:13.480 trust the Lord, be a man, have courage, do your job. You serve the living God.

00:31:22.400 The living God is the one who dispenses these blessings. So stop complaining. We are in a time

00:31:28.640 where the conservatives in our nation can't help but watch another round of Fox News,

00:31:34.380 or they've probably given up on that. So now they're watching another round of Tucker on X,

00:31:38.280 or now they're watching the Daily Wire as young people, and they get done and they ring their

00:31:43.420 hands and they're grumpy until dinner, until bed, then they go to sleep and they wake up the next

00:31:47.980 morning and they do it all again and they have no idea why they're so tied up in knots. It's

00:31:53.660 because you're not actually living it. If you raise your family in the nurture and admonition

00:31:59.000 of the Lord, if you're pouring in sacrificially to some form of their education, if you were

00:32:03.580 spending yourselves and being spent for the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you're set right

00:32:09.480 and you're joyful and you can sing, you can rejoice, you can be glad, and you can be thankful.

00:32:15.160 And that will set you apart from the grumpy, disgruntled conservatives of our land who are

00:32:21.700 simply saying, get off my lawn. Now, is it bad? Yes, it's bad. But that's right where we need the

00:32:28.580 church of God to actually wrestle with the Lord practically, tangibly, and not just watch whatever

00:32:35.040 comes next in the news and then say we're going to go and pray about it you actually have to

00:32:41.220 engage in the real world so a little assessment to examine whether you are you LARPing

00:32:50.160 with the Lord are you wrestling with the Lord that's the question and every one of you need

00:32:55.740 to set this before your life and say okay let's let me do a little self-examination am I LARPing

00:33:00.200 with the Lord, or am I actually wrestling with the Lord? And this can be a tricky question to ask.

00:33:06.920 It's even a bit dangerous, but it's necessary nonetheless. Here's what I want to tell you.

00:33:11.120 Reading the Bible is essential. If you're not reading the Bible, then you're not wrestling

00:33:15.420 with the Lord. That much is clear. Praying is essential. If you're not praying, then you are

00:33:21.460 not actually wrestling with the Lord. That is essential. But here's the catch. You can be

00:33:25.900 reading your Bible and praying and still not wrestling with the Lord.

00:33:30.380 The Pharisees did that. They searched the Bible continually.

00:33:33.740 But they weren't wrestling with the Lord. They prayed all the time.

00:33:37.980 But they weren't wrestling with the Lord. How do you know if you're really wrestling with the Lord?

00:33:41.460 Here's a simple test. Do you walk with a limp?

00:33:46.740 Do you walk with the limp of obedience?

00:33:50.340 Jacob walked with a limp. Jacob knew he wrestled with the Lord.

00:33:53.640 That's why he was hobbling.

00:33:56.460 Can you look at your life and say, I sacrificed there to obey the Lord, and it was costly.

00:34:01.600 I sacrificed there to obey the Lord, and it was costly.

00:34:05.140 I remember what it cost me.

00:34:06.700 It might have cost me relationships.

00:34:08.120 It might have cost me money.

00:34:09.480 It might have cost me my reputation.

00:34:11.380 It might have cost me my time.

00:34:13.220 It certainly cost me my time.

00:34:15.180 It cost me my vacation.

00:34:19.560 Let me tally up the costs.

00:34:22.600 Now, this doesn't mean that we go and do this like radical.

00:34:29.160 You don't take a sermon like this and say, oh, I'll show you a cost.

00:34:32.160 I'll go empty out my bank account.

00:34:33.820 No, don't do something like that.

00:34:36.100 But routine sacrifices for the Lord and for the welfare of your people.

00:34:43.540 Actually making those sacrifices and then walking with that limb.

00:34:49.700 The third heading.

00:34:50.240 we've considered who we're wrestling with God where we're wrestling with the Lord right here

00:34:56.660 on the ground not up in the cloud third just how tough is this wrestling that's the third heading

00:35:02.380 first I said earlier that Jacob was trying to not get choked out and someone's going to think

00:35:08.920 now now God would not really choke Jacob out and to that I say oh yes he would

00:35:15.500 oh yes he would you have to get this understanding quickly god plays hardball with his people

00:35:24.620 this is the god who looked at the meekest man who's ever walked the earth

00:35:29.240 moses faithful moses and he said something like this to moses yes moses i love you yes moses you

00:35:36.940 have served me faithfully in many ways and no you may not go into the promised land because you did

00:35:41.300 not uphold me as holy when you struck the rock no the no was hard the no was clear the no hurt

00:35:49.820 the no was not something that moses wanted

00:35:53.480 this is the god who looked at the man who was a faithful man a man after his own heart david

00:36:03.540 and he said yes i love you yes you are king of israel yes people will be singing your psalms

00:36:09.440 till the Lord Jesus Christ comes in the end

00:36:14.100 but the sword's not going to depart your house

00:36:17.620 and what you have done privately 0.99

00:36:19.500 I'm going to do to you in the sight of all Israel 0.97

00:36:21.740 is Absalom your son is going to sleep 1.00

00:36:24.320 with all of your wives' concubines. 1.00

00:36:29.200 The child's going to die. 0.92

00:36:33.460 God certainly wouldn't kill a child.

00:36:35.640 that's exactly what he did

00:36:39.500 that's exactly what he did

00:36:41.840 then he must only do that to pagans

00:36:44.660 nope

00:36:46.440 this God disciplines those whom he loves

00:36:51.860 the hip socket was minor

00:36:56.420 compared to what happened to Moses

00:36:59.440 what happened to David

00:37:00.820 God will judge his people

00:37:03.800 take this to heart when you consider the sins that you're dabbling around with

00:37:10.560 secret sins that you're allowing or some kind of LARPing this is the thing this is the kindness of

00:37:16.260 God God doesn't let us go on wrestling those other things he makes us wrestle him Aslan says

00:37:23.820 there's no other stream and you're gonna come he loves us enough to do that and when we start

00:37:31.220 LARPing. He's like, I'm not going to let him LARP.

00:37:33.380 And if you say, no, no, I'm going to keep LARPing,

00:37:35.860 he won't let you. I'm telling you,

00:37:37.460 you better wrestle him now. Turn and face

00:37:39.440 him now. You don't want him to turn.

00:37:41.540 He's going to turn you.

00:37:43.740 The longer you LARP with

00:37:45.380 him, the longer you don't get

00:37:47.300 those feet down to pavement, he is going

00:37:49.240 to put them down to pavement with authority

00:37:51.400 because he loves you.

00:37:56.300 How difficult is this

00:37:57.300 wrestling? A second, just

00:37:59.240 because you have worshipped the Lord,

00:38:01.220 and set up remembrance of his promises.

00:38:03.300 That doesn't mean that the wrestling is all behind you.

00:38:06.780 Some people would say that this wrestling is a conversion moment.

00:38:09.580 That would be just like kind of American Christianity,

00:38:12.040 to think that this is a conversion moment for Jacob,

00:38:14.580 but it's manifestly not a conversion moment.

00:38:17.680 Twenty years earlier, Jacob was in the promised land,

00:38:21.480 before he went to Paddan Aram.

00:38:24.160 You remember Jacob's ladder?

00:38:25.980 He has this glorious dream, angels descending and ascending on the ladder.

00:38:30.620 This is the very house of God.

00:38:32.440 Jacob is remembering all of that.

00:38:33.740 He actually was sleeping on a stone, and he takes that stone,

00:38:37.480 and he pours oil on the stone as a remembrance of this glorious meeting with God.

00:38:42.720 And it's 20 years later, Jacob is alone,

00:38:46.360 and God comes on him in the night to assault him.

00:38:51.920 I think of like our evangelical youth culture.

00:38:56.780 You've got some kind of youth retreat.

00:38:58.260 You have this mountaintop experience with the Lord.

00:39:01.000 You're around the campfire, and you set up your own Ebenezer, your own pillar to the Lord.

00:39:06.260 And then you come to find out that 40 years later, you're 60,

00:39:09.720 and God's still wrestling with you and putting your hip out of socket.

00:39:13.720 Like, but Lord, I poured oil on a rock 20 years ago.

00:39:19.660 Aren't we past these moments?

00:39:22.000 Haven't we had a moment together, Lord?

00:39:24.340 And God says, oh, yeah, we're going to have another one right now. 0.78

00:39:29.100 I'm going to sanctify this bride.

00:39:31.220 I'm going to keep working on this bride. 0.55

00:39:35.200 God appears to carry on this wrestling with his children. 0.91

00:39:38.380 So we can actually determine how old Jacob is when he's wrestling with the Lord.

00:39:42.880 The text doesn't tell us in actual Genesis 32,

00:39:46.360 but we can triangulate his actual age by considering various texts.

00:39:52.200 I won't take you to all the texts, but you basically can average this out.

00:39:58.260 And you discover that he went to Paddan Aram to serve Laban when he was 77.

00:40:04.540 He stayed 20 years.

00:40:06.740 He's 97 years old when he wrestles with the Lord.

00:40:12.540 You say, no wonder his hip went out.

00:40:18.380 97?

00:40:20.980 If you're like middle age, you think, all right, now I'm in the grind.

00:40:24.100 I'm wrestling with the Lord.

00:40:25.100 But really, am I going to be wrestling with the Lord in that same way over these same kind of sins and problems and issues, weeds growing in the garden for my children and for my grandchildren?

00:40:36.280 You mean I'm going to stay in the saddle that long? Absolutely.

00:40:40.340 And this is an encouragement to us.

00:40:42.020 think of the fact that many of you are still wrestling with various sins

00:40:51.100 pride, lust, greed, bitterness, envy, anxiety, depression, whatever it is

00:41:02.120 if you're still wrestling with that late in your life

00:41:05.820 remember that God loves you

00:41:08.020 that's why you're wrestling with him over that particular sin that's why he's dealing with you

00:41:15.120 that's why you're here worshiping the lord as his people confessing those sins receiving the

00:41:21.040 assurance of pardon and the encouragement is this is exactly what it means to be a christian

00:41:25.700 don't don't get into that place where you think oh because i'm still dealing with things obviously

00:41:32.720 i must not be the real deal no you're still dealing with them and that's exactly what god does

00:41:38.140 You are his people.

00:41:39.300 He loves you.

00:41:40.380 That's why things are this way.

00:41:43.340 And so give thanks for that.

00:41:45.260 Trust him.

00:41:46.400 Rejoice that he's still dealing with you and you are still dealing with him.

00:41:53.660 I mentioned earlier that those who wrestle with God are the ones that are quite calm.

00:41:58.300 They're actually not all tied up in knots.

00:42:01.080 And the same kind of thing is true here.

00:42:03.220 Those who wrestle long with God over the years, they're actually the ones with more energy, not less.

00:42:11.420 Do you recognize that?

00:42:12.860 You wrestle with yourself.

00:42:14.100 You wrestle with all of these other things rather than wrestling with the Lord.

00:42:17.160 You get tied up in knots and you get exhausted.

00:42:20.100 But the man, the woman who wrestles with God, he or she straightened out and he or she finds that their youth is renewed like the eagles.

00:42:29.440 Still pressing on.

00:42:30.400 I mean, aches and pains, walking with a limp, but there's joy, there's gladness, there's a twinkle in the eye.

00:42:36.640 There's a song on the lips and in the heart.

00:42:40.240 Why?

00:42:41.320 Because I'm dealing with the Lord.

00:42:43.540 It's actually a refreshing experience.

00:42:46.140 The sun rose on Jacob, the text says.

00:42:50.360 And so the sun rises upon those who wrestle with the Lord.

00:42:55.080 Fourth and final point, what are we wrestling for?

00:42:58.560 We've seen who we're wrestling with, where we're wrestling,

00:43:00.920 how difficult this wrestling match can be.

00:43:03.020 But we have to remember what we're actually wrestling for.

00:43:07.300 Take special notice of the context.

00:43:09.600 Jacob is heading back into the promised land,

00:43:12.980 and he's doing so at God's word.

00:43:16.120 God is the one who 20 years ago told him,

00:43:19.000 I'm going to give you this land, Jacob.

00:43:21.400 It was a covenant promise that God made to him.

00:43:25.740 God is the one who told Jacob to leave Paddan Aram and go back to the promised land.

00:43:31.920 God said it. 0.79

00:43:33.680 What is he wrestling for?

00:43:35.160 He's wrestling for the fruition of God's covenant blessings

00:43:39.680 that God himself has vouchsafed to Jacob by the blood of Jesus Christ.

00:43:46.940 Think about this for a moment.

00:43:48.540 God has made blessings to you, promises to you, covenant blessings,

00:43:53.400 benefits that are sworn to you by the blood of Jesus Christ.

00:43:56.240 This is exactly how he operated in the Old Testament

00:43:58.060 with Moses in the book of Deuteronomy.

00:44:00.580 The covenant people were assembled

00:44:01.940 and God set before them blessings and curses.

00:44:04.460 If you trust me, if you walk in covenant renewal with me,

00:44:08.040 if you take me at my word and you obey me

00:44:09.980 and you wrestle with me,

00:44:11.160 then all of these blessings are going to come.

00:44:12.940 Your wives are going to have children.

00:44:14.540 Your flocks are going to increase.

00:44:16.260 Plague and pestilence will not come upon you.

00:44:19.240 And if you don't walk in covenant renewal with me

00:44:21.760 and you turn your back on me and you don't gather and worship me,

00:44:25.000 you don't trust me and take me at my word,

00:44:26.960 then all of these curses are going to come upon you.

00:44:28.720 The exact opposite.

00:44:30.160 These things are going to happen to you.

00:44:32.480 Well, nothing has changed in that regard.

00:44:34.600 Here we are as God's covenant people gathered together to worship him

00:44:37.880 and he's setting before us those same blessings that are received by faith,

00:44:42.240 that manifest themselves by faith.

00:44:44.400 What are you actually laboring for?

00:44:46.620 You're laboring for the blessing.

00:44:49.220 You're laboring for the fruition of God's promises.

00:44:51.760 For those of you who are here at the conference, Chris Wiley said this very thing.

00:44:56.460 There's two ways that mothers say that they're going to pray for their children who might be in a little bit of trouble. 0.51

00:45:01.160 The first is to manipulate them and passive-aggressively say, I'm praying for you.

00:45:07.400 The other way is to actually look at the blessings that God has promised and be praying for the manifestation of those blessings in their lives.

00:45:16.000 So you're praying for the child in a way that the child would actually want.

00:45:19.980 We don't want to see you walking in strength and godliness and blessing in the fruition of his promises.

00:45:25.240 That's exactly what Jacob's doing.

00:45:27.040 He's wrestling with the Lord as he's entering into the promised land that God himself has promised to him.

00:45:35.900 So you must grasp these blessings.

00:45:39.620 Psalm 128 says,

00:45:49.980 And you say, Father, I want to see those.

00:45:53.220 I long to see those blessings.

00:45:55.420 And if people begin to stray, if any of the covenant people begin to stray, what do we do?

00:46:00.220 Well, we go and wrestle with the Lord about it.

00:46:02.400 Saying, God, you've made promises, and we're asking that you would bring him back.

00:46:06.660 You might have a prodigal son situation.

00:46:08.920 Father, you've made promises, and we're actually wrestling with you about the manifestation of those promises.

00:46:16.420 We want to see them come to pass.

00:46:18.020 You've made promises about your kingdom, and we thank you for what we are seeing.

00:46:22.580 Look at this glorious work that is in our midst, and we're asking for you to manifest it even more.

00:46:28.620 We're asking for more to be gathered in to this particular flock.

00:46:32.660 We're asking you to sanctify us as your people.

00:46:35.480 We want to see your glorious promises come to pass.

00:46:40.820 And where is our security as we wrestle with him for those promises?

00:46:44.880 It is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:46:47.440 Every single promise is yes and amen in him.

00:46:52.400 Our faith is faith in all that God has promised us,

00:46:55.700 and it is all yes and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:46:59.100 He is the author and the perfecter of our faith,

00:47:03.400 who for the joy that was set before him,

00:47:05.480 just like the joy that was set before Jacob as he was entering into the promised land,

00:47:09.100 the joy that was set before Christ, for that joy he endured the cross.

00:47:14.200 He wrestled with the Lord.

00:47:16.340 We will wrestle with the Lord in the same way

00:47:18.660 as we look to that glorious Savior, Jesus Christ.

00:47:22.760 Let's pray.

00:47:23.520 Father, we thank you for your word to us.

00:47:26.080 We thank you for your covenant promises.

00:47:28.600 We thank you that you call us to deal with you,

00:47:32.060 to actually enter into the ring

00:47:33.920 and to wrestle with you face to face.

00:47:36.200 We thank you for the privilege of doing so.

00:47:38.080 We confess that very often we are distracted.

00:47:41.280 We turn away from dealing with you

00:47:42.940 and decide to deal with all sorts of other things.

00:47:45.360 Forgive us for those things and help us to see the joy and the blessing

00:47:49.160 and the glory of dealing with you as Jacob did.

00:47:53.720 Please help us to hold fast to you, be able to say with Jacob

00:47:57.060 that we won't let you go until you bless us.

00:47:59.940 We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The NXR Podcast - November 12, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Quit LARPing & Be A Man - Pastor Jared Longshore

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