Blessings | Find Your Way Home Week 4 | Anywhere Service

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads. My name is Hannah.

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- And I'm Kyle.

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- Today, our senior pastor, Brian, is going

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to help us with the things that we wrestle with.

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- That's exactly right.

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I know we both wrestled with things like shame

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and pride and maybe something more practical,

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like money and giving, you know?

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And I want to say, if that's you,

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this message is here to help, and so are we.

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- That's right. So with that, let's get started

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and go to Brian and hear about the story of Jacob.

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- We're all on a journey in life.

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Some people know where they're going.

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And some people don't.

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The difference?

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It's knowing your origin story

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and finding your way home.

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You have to know where you came from

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if you're going to know where you're going.

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We believe that there is a God,

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and He made you for a journey, a life of adventure.

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Crossroads exist to help you get there.

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We're going all the way back to the beginning

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of the story in Genesis

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to find our way home to blessings.

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- Hey, I'm Brian, Senior Pastor at Crossroads.

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You know, if you follow God,

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you're in the family, that's good news.

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I'll give you even better news.

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There's a blessing for being in the family.

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The Genesis story unlocks for us

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how you actually get that blessing.

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And part of it is I'm going some place right now.

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I'm actually in an anti friction machine.

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Everything about this is designed to minimize friction.

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Round wheels instead of square wheels,

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ball bearings everywhere,

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grease everywhere to minimize friction.

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The thing about our life is that

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our life is going to have friction,

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specifically if you're moving some place,

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if you're going some place,

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this thing is about going some place.

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And if you are going to try to go some place,

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you're going to have friction.

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Life is about movement, and the big word

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for today really is life is about hustling.

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It's about going some place.

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We're going to look at Jacob today because

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there's things in this ancient hero's story

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that help us understand God

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and help us understand our life.

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And if you've been in church before,

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you've heard sermons before,

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you've heard anything about

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this ancient character named Jacob,

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you're going to be really confused about

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what I'm going to talk about today

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because Jacob is normally the bad guy.

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He's normally seen as just a jerk.

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He's a person who's selfish,

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and that's really not the case at all.

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We misunderstand somebody who's moving some place.

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Now, Jacob is definitely not a pristine character.

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The Bible's heroes, especially Jacob,

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are not whitewashed.

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There's no diplomacy about showing these people's faults.

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And Jacob has a lot of faults, but he is used by God.

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He is incredibly blessed,

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and he should be a model for us.

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Let's start back beginning,

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the very beginning of his life.

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He's in the womb with his twin brother, Esau.

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His parents are named Isaac and Rebekah.

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They're having twins.

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And in the womb Jacob is trying to move some place.

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He's trying to move out of the birth canal,

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and he's actually trying to move out before Esau.

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So, he comes out holding onto his--

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holding on to his heel, grasping onto his heel.

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Some people look at this and go,

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"Look at Jacob, he's just trying to supplant

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what Esau has coming to him as the eldest,

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as the first born."

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There's the thing with this ancient culture,

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you had the the birthright.

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The Birthright was something

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that the oldest son would have.

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This is their cultural context.

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The older son had a birthright, which meant that

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he was to be the one that got the lion's share

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of the inheritance from dad and mom.

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He was the one who is supposed to manage the family.

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It was his birthright.

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And Jacob, he wants that position.

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He wants that birthright.

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It's like in his birth he's he's trying

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to beat his brother outside of the womb.

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But he doesn't.

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Some people who are misinformed would say that

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Jacob means one who supplants.

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He's not trying to supplant anything.

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There's no deception going on here at all.

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He's actually hustling. He's hustling.

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Two points for today.

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One is this: hustle, Jacob hustled.

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His name, Jacob, doesn't mean one who supplants

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or supplanter or deceiver.

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His name means one who grasps.

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He's grasping at the heel, he's grabbing the heel,

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which is why they called him that,

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trying to beat Esau getting out of the womb.

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Hustle is not a negative term.

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It can be, if you're hustling somebody,

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you're not being honest with somebody.

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That's not good.

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But hustle, according to Webster, also means

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obtaining by energetic activity.

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That's what he does, his whole life

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he's trying to obtain by energetic activity.

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In Genesis 25:28, it says:

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Part of the tension we're going to be seeing

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here in this story is that there is

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a lot of family dysfunction that's taking place.

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This combat that Esau and Jacob have in the womb

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is actually seen throughout the whole family

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because Esau is the one his dad likes.

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He's a manly man. He's the one who hunts.

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Jacob is the one his mom, Rebekah likes.

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He's the, you might say in today's vernacular for some,

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he's the girly man. He's the one who's not hunting.

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He's not doing the manly things.

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He's doing the cooking.

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Rebekah likes Jacob. Isaac likes Esau.

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There's some family tension that's going on between them.

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In the midst of this family tension

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we see a seminal story take place in their family tree.

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It goes like this in Genesis 25:29 and following:

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There's nothing wrong here at all. Nothing wrong.

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Christian-y, spiritual-y churchy types would say,

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"Oh, shouldn't Jacob have just given it to Esau?

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It's just be so much nicer to give, to give.

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We should give."

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I like giving, giving is

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a very important spiritual discipline.

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There's a time for giving, though,

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and a time for hustling.

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If you get a paycheck,

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you're doing exactly what Jacob did.

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It's a fair trade.

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You're saying to your employer,

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"I'm going to give you my time

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and you're going to give me money."

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Are you just giving your employer

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your time all the time?

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You might sometimes,

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but you can't pay the bills that way.

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If you own a business, are you just giving

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your widgets away or whatever?

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I don't even know the widget is.

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We talked about that in business class.

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Are you giving it away? No, you're trading it.

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If you're a counselor, are you just giving away

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your counsel to everybody?

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No, you've got to put food on the table.

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You're giving -- you're trading your counsel

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for a fee of one hundred bucks an hour,

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however good you are, based on how you can charge.

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There's nothing wrong with what Jacob's doing.

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He's just having a basic trade.

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In fact, that verse said that it was Esau

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who despised his birthright.

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He undervalued his birthright.

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And he's just a weak. He's weak.

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He says, "Oh, I'm about to die."

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You're not going to die.

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You have raw meat with you.

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You can eat raw meat if you're going to die.

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You're not far from the village, you're going to be fine.

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But man, Esau did not want to hustle.

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Esau could not handle friction.

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Esau could not handle difficulty.

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He would take the easy trade any day

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than hold out for something better.

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That's not the way it is with Jacob,

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and that can't be the way it is for you and I.

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We've got to hold out for better things.

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We've got to.

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We've got to think through how to get ahead.

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We've got to actually hustle.

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Now, Jacob does have problems, in fact,

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his whole family has problems.

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He's not pristine, clean here.

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This scenario goes down, years go by.

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The official blessing hasn't been given yet.

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The blessing as it goes to the person

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who has the birthright.

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The blessing happens --

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The blessing, the blessing, the blessing --

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Christmas vacation. Come on.

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I can quote movies that are 30 years old, can't I?

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The blessing.

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The blessing is when the father would officially

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bestow the birthright, put his hands on the eldest son

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and say the blessing.

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That hasn't happened yet.

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In this scene it does happen.

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Years and years have gone by,

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and Esau wants to get this blessing,

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even though he's fairly traded it to Jacob.

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And the mother, Rebekah,

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who again, Jacob is her favorite.

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Jacob is a momma's boy. She hears about this.

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She's like, "Hey, Jacob,

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your brother's trying to pull a fast one on you.

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Here's we're going to do.

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Your dad's getting older in age,

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that's why he's trying to do the blessing right now,

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he's trying to pass it on.

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He can't see very well.

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So, your brother is like a hairy manly man guy,

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hunter guy. He smells like wild game.

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He's hairy all over the place. You're not.

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We're going to have to get you smelling like a manly man,

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and we have to go get some goat skins,

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but some goat skins on you because your dad's losing it.

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Reach out and feel you, and he'll feel hair

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and he'll think he's your brother.

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And then you can get the official prayer of blessing."

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"Great. We'll do that."

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They go and do that.

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Isaac prays the blessing on him.

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Not long after that, Esau comes in.

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He wants the blessing, and he cries out in anguish.

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"No, no bless me too. Give me the birthright."

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He can be blessed,

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but he can't have the birthright blessing.

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Who's at fault here?

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Everybody's at fault here. No one's clean here.

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Jacob shouldn't have been lying the way it was.

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It's just an out and out lie to deceive his dad.

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Rebekah shouldn't have been trying to deceive

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her husband and go behind his back.

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Mom and dad have always got to be like this, right?

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Esau, he already made a deal.

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He shouldn't have been like this.

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And on top of that, Isaac the father, him as well.

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He's in the wrong. Why is he and the wrong?

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He probably knew, he had to know

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that this event went down, and if he didn't,

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there were very clear instruction

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that had come to him and Rebecca from God

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that the older was to serve the younger.

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The blame here is very clearly put on Esau

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because it was him who despised his birthright,

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but the parents were trying to

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go against the plan of God.

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Actually, here's what they initially heard from God

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before all of this took place,

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before the boys were actually born.

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In Genesis 25:23, before this all happens,

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God tells Isaac and Rebecca

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the older will serve the younger.

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The older, the one who should get the birthright,

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is actually going to serve the younger.

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That's the way I want it.

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Some people look at that as God just predicting,

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prophesying what's going to happen in the future.

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It wasn't a prediction.

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It was instruction from God that

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this is the way I want it.

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I want the younger one to get the blessing.

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I want the younger one to get the birthright.

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In fact, in Romans 9, that's in the New Testament,

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looking back on this and makes it very, very clear.

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It says there again that this was the plan of God.

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The younger was to have the blessing and the birthright.

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And Isaac didn't care.

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He just wanted to go right by there.

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This is dysfunction junction,

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any way that you look at it.

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Just so you can hear everything about Jacob,

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we've got to appreciate him.

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Too many people don't appreciate him.

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I just wanted us to see that holistically here

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Jacob is the innocent one.

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The book of Hebrews in the New Testament.

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Hebrews is written to? Hebrews.

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Good. Very good job. Good. Good job.

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The Jewish people trying to actually help people

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of the Jewish faith understand

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the Old Testament scriptures in light of Jesus.

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That's what the Book of Hebrews is about.

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In Hebrews 12:16-17 in talking about this story it says:

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Who is immoral and unholy there? Esau, not Jacob.

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And he regretted it.

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He's crying to his dad, "I want it."

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"Sorry, dude. You made a decision way back when

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to take the easy path.

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You made the decision way back when not to hustle."

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And there's a certain blessing that comes to you

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when you hustle.

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You might not have hustled up to now,

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but starting right now, if you want a blessing,

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you've got to be up for some friction.

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You've got to start to hustle.

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Jacob hustles and Jacob wrestles.

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I'm about to tell you about one of Jacob's traits

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that inspires me maybe the most.

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Before we get into that one, another thing inspires me

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is that our church, Crossroads, hustles.

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Thanks for being a part of our church.

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Thanks for doing what you're doing.

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And if you give around here, you're part of us

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and you're going to be getting one of these in the mail.

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This is an annual report, and I love this.

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It is encouraging.

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Who needs some encouragement?

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Oh, I do. I do. I need encouragement.

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If you're on our online church and you're a giver,

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you're going to be getting one of these in the mail

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and you're going to find out that your church

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and you, we've been hustling for this whole last year.

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There's a lot of good stuff that's been taking place.

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Look for this.

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Thank you for being generous and helping us bless people

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and we trust that we're blessing you as well

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as I'm trying to do right now by helping you

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understand the life of Jacob.

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Jacob hustles and Jacob wrestles.

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Our world has always been fascinated by the idea

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of some sort of physical contact,

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some sort of wrestling, of grapping, of fighting.

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Every single culture has some version of wrestling,

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whether it is sumo wrestling, Greco-Roman,

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Olympic freestyle, Brazilian, jiu jitsu, Judo, MMA,

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WWE, I think that counts.

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But that place exists and people go

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because we are drawn to wrestling.

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It's a good thing that we're drawn to it

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because we're in a fight.

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Fighting and wrestling, it never stops.

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This annual report, it's a report of hard church work,

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wrestling through ministry is a form of fighting.

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It's wrestling.

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If you're a parent, that is a fight,

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it's a form of wrestling.

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When you're a hard financial place,

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it is a form of wrestling to get to a better place.

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When you get a bad diagnosis, it's a form of wrestling.

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We're never going to get away from

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the fight inside of our life.

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But Jacob learns that his fight

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that he's been dealing with and is going to deal with

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is going to actually lead him to a blessing.

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Jacob has this attribute of hustling, of wrestling.

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And I think that's actually part of why God uses him

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and why God has a plan for him.

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And also part of why maybe God was choosing

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Jacob over Esau, because Esau was a bit lazy.

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Esau was a bit passive.

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You saw was, "Okay, take my birth. Take my birthright.

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Take the stew. Okay, I'll do the easy thing."

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He's hustling and he's wrestling.

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Now when Jacob gets to his campsite

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he thinks he's going to just be having some me time,

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some time alone with him, but instead

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he's going to realize he's going to be in for

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the most significant wrestling match of his life.

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He's actually going to wrestle God.

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God is going to come to him in the form of a human,

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and Jacob is going to wrestle God himself.

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Let's read it in Genesis 32:24:

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Jacob is going to be way outside of his weight class here.

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I one time wrestled in a backyard

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an older friend of my friend.

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He was two years older than me

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and it was the hardest wrestle I ever had.

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And I can't remember why we were wrestling.

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There was something that got us fighting.

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We actually wrestled so long we tired each other out.

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And I can still remember lying on wet grass

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in a stalemate with Jim Waggoner

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lying on my inner thigh.

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And we ended up actually becoming friends because

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we were just tired and trying to recover.

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Neither one wanted to let go of the other.

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This is kind of what happened with Jacob and God.

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They're wrestling all night.

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But Jacob, I think he probably knows

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that he's our classed and he's wrestling against

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someone or something that's just tamping down his power.

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God's obviously not going full out,

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but Jacob is like holding on.

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He realizes something is going on here.

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He's like, "Oh, bless me, bless me."

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He's clinging on to him, despite the fact that God

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has just touched his hip and knocked it out of socket.

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And yet he's holding on.

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This is part of the beauty of Jacob.

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He not only hustles, he wrestles, and he just hangs on.

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Sometimes that's the best you can do is just hang on.

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I know some of us have had a great last couple of years,

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but a lot of us have not.

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And it's really difficult when you're wrestling

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against things that you can't beat.

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Whatever you think about COVID,

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whatever you think about the government,

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or whatever you think about our racial issues

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in our country, whatever you think about vaccines,

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whatever, just about everybody's upset.

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Just about everybody is.

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And there's nothing you can do about it.

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There's nothing you can do to get people

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to stop wearing masks or make you wear masks.

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There's nothing you can do about getting people

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to have a vaccine if you think they should,

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or you not having a vaccine

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if your employer requires you to.

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I guess you can now, because the courts

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have kind of ruled on that,

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at least as of the taping.

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But there are so many things that are just beyond it,

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we can't win, we can't win. You can't win.

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So the best thing we can do right now,

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and maybe the best thing you can do,

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is you just hang on.

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You try not to lose your mind.

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You try not to lose your character.

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You try not to lose your heart.

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Sometimes the best you can do is just hang on.

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It's an honorable thing to hang on.

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In Genesis 32:27, here's what God says to Jacob:

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Jacob's holding on, holding on.

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God says, "What's your name?"

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And when he says his name, Jacob,

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he's saying, "I'm the one who strives.

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I'm the one who hustles.

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That's why I'm not giving up.

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That's why I'm still hanging on here."

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And God uniquely blesses him.

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He gives him a new name.

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He gives him the name Israel.

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It's arguably the greatest name

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He could give a human being.

00:21:41

This is the name of His chosen people.

00:21:44

He names His chosen people after Jacob.

00:21:49

It's hard to say exactly what this means.

00:21:51

Some say, like, it's translated, like,

00:21:53

I just read with you one who strives with God.

00:21:56

Maybe.

00:21:58

I think a better idea is one who is God's fighter,

00:22:02

God's fighter.

00:22:04

This is a complimentary name, to be very, very clear,

00:22:07

complimentary, or else the nation of Israel

00:22:09

wouldn't be called this.

00:22:12

I like the idea of God's fighter, because both of us,

00:22:17

all of us, should be God's fighter.

00:22:19

God has put you in places where He wants you to fight.

00:22:23

Not physically beat somebody up,

00:22:24

not subvert and put your power and push people down.

00:22:28

But there are things that come across our radar

00:22:31

that we've got to grab, we've got to wrestle.

00:22:34

And these things normally are not fixed with one punch.

00:22:41

It's things that are arduous, backbreaking,

00:22:45

patient, long suffering, forbearing, just hanging on.

00:22:51

But I'm hanging on and I'm wrestling.

00:22:56

Sometimes that's it, it is wrestling with God.

00:22:59

God, why are you allowing this to happen to me?

00:23:03

God, why are you not allowing this to happen to me,

00:23:07

when I'm seeing it happen to other people

00:23:08

who seem to be less qualified for a blessing than I am?

00:23:13

God, why is it that you haven't given me this?

00:23:16

God, why is it that you've given me this?

00:23:20

There is the wrestling with God, the holding on.

00:23:24

Every great person that God uses

00:23:27

will go through wrestling matches with God.

00:23:29

And it's not just the one.

00:23:31

It's going to happen again and again and again in life.

00:23:34

These things qualify us for the real fights

00:23:36

that God wants us in,

00:23:38

and they strengthen us spiritually.

00:23:41

Jacob has more than his share of problems,

00:23:44

and has more of his share of outages.

00:23:47

We've talked about some of those today.

00:23:50

But he's used by God, he's loved by God

00:23:53

because he's a fighter and he will always remember

00:23:56

the day that he fought with God because he limps.

00:24:00

Some of us have a limp

00:24:02

and the limp might be an annoyance,

00:24:04

but the limp that you have, the pain that you have,

00:24:08

the remorse that you have over some certain loss,

00:24:12

every step that Jacob took, he was reminded

00:24:17

of how close he was with God

00:24:18

and how close he is with God.

00:24:20

Because not many people get to wrestle with God.

00:24:23

I try to think of that

00:24:26

when my joints are out of socket,

00:24:29

when I don't feel I can hang on anymore,

00:24:32

when I'm just tired of it.

00:24:35

I think, "I'm learning something about God right now

00:24:39

that I won't learn when I'm on a chair at the beach."

00:24:45

God has a special place in His heart

00:24:48

for people who wrestle with Him

00:24:50

and wrestle with the assignment that He gives us.

00:24:56

Because He's there,

00:24:57

because when you're wrestling with Him, He's there.

00:25:01

He's here with you right now. He is.

00:25:05

Jesus is here with you right now.

00:25:07

Actually, in all likelihood, this was

00:25:10

a prefiguration of Jesus Himself

00:25:15

who's actually wrestling with Jacob.

00:25:18

I believe Jesus was there.

00:25:22

And right now, as you wrestle,

00:25:26

as you feel like you can't hang on any longer,

00:25:28

as someone is lying on top of you on the moist ground,

00:25:32

as your muscles are cramping up

00:25:33

and you don't know you can do it any longer,

00:25:37

a blessing may be right around the corner

00:25:41

in the very next minute or the next hour,

00:25:44

the next day, the next week, or the next year.

00:25:47

God is with you and Jesus is here.

00:25:50

We're going to sing right now.

00:25:52

And I know for a lot of us,

00:25:53

singing is a wrestling match.

00:25:54

You don't like to do it.

00:25:55

Some of you just turn it off right now.

00:25:57

"Forgot it. I'm doing the singing thing."

00:25:59

I know a lot of people who are into that.

00:26:01

It's not a good call, because singing is a way

00:26:03

that we wrestle with God, especially for those of us

00:26:06

who don't like the sound of our voice

00:26:07

or don't like the process.

00:26:09

It's a difficult thing to sing out loud

00:26:12

and to participate,

00:26:13

just like it's difficult to wrestle with God.

00:26:16

And we're going to sing When Jesus is Here.

00:28:48

- I think the reason why Jacob is so misunderstood

00:28:52

is because in America, the culture of spirituality

00:28:56

or the culture of church-ianity

00:29:00

doesn't know what to make of Jacob.

00:29:03

It's like in church work we think

00:29:05

it's our responsibility to reprogram people to be nice,

00:29:11

like, whoever they are, whatever drive they have,

00:29:13

let's just tamp that down.

00:29:14

Let's just reprogram you to be nice.

00:29:18

Being timid and nice is not a godly combo.

00:29:22

Maybe nice is.

00:29:23

I mean, we need more of us being nice,

00:29:25

quite frankly in our culture,

00:29:26

more people need to be kind.

00:29:27

But I'm talking about the niceness

00:29:29

that's just, like, surface-y

00:29:30

and it's just like hoping and assuming

00:29:33

that things are going to go your way.

00:29:35

No, no, no, things are not just going to go your way.

00:29:37

No, no. We need to learn from Jacob.

00:29:39

We need to get back home to his life and say,

00:29:42

"What is it that God wants from me?"

00:29:44

And I've got to exert some energy

00:29:46

and some action, overcome some friction

00:29:50

to get that blessing.

00:29:51

We need more feisty followers who have a vision,

00:29:53

they're going after something.

00:29:55

Don't be lulled into complacency

00:29:57

like so many people are.

00:29:58

You're not entitled to have a blessing

00:30:00

just because you're alive and God loves you.

00:30:02

You're not entitled.

00:30:04

You'll get them, because God is incredibly generous.

00:30:07

But there's a level of living, a level of blessing

00:30:09

that only comes for those of us who go the way of Jacob.

00:30:13

Keep hustling, keep wrestling.

00:30:17

Blessing may just be coming your way.

00:30:26

- That was a super clear message, right?

00:30:28

God wants you to wrestle with Him

00:30:29

and God wants you to hustle.

00:30:30

- That's exactly right. It sounds crazy,

00:30:32

but there was something in Jacob

00:30:33

that I think we can all learn from.

00:30:35

- Absolutely. I want to just say

00:30:37

that Crossroads is donor funded.

00:30:39

We're able to put together episodes like these

00:30:41

and do this kind of thing

00:30:42

because of people just like you.

00:30:44

- And if giving is something that you're interested in,

00:30:46

you can go to the Crossroads app right now

00:30:49

or go to Crossroads.net/give.

00:30:52

We'll see you next week on Crossroads.

00:30:55

- How can the story of Noah and the Flood be true

00:30:58

and God be the loving Father

00:31:00

we'd actually want to come home to?

00:31:03

Well, to get the answer, we're going to tackle

00:31:05

the hardest questions surrounding the story head on.

00:31:08

And I believe, if you hang with us,

00:31:10

you'll see this story in a new light

00:31:12

that helps you find your way closer to home.

00:31:24

- Do you know where you're going?

00:31:26

To get different results in life

00:31:28

you're going to have to do some different things.

00:31:32

And if you're up for adventure this year,

00:31:35

do the Bible Challenge with me.

00:31:37

Read every day, get inspired,

00:31:40

and see what others are saying.

00:31:42

I believe the Bible is more than a book

00:31:45

that's meant to sit on a shelf and just collect dust.

00:31:49

It's meant to take you somewhere in life.

00:31:52

What about you? Where are you going?

00:31:54

Download the Crossroads App

00:31:56

and do the Bible Challenge today.

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