We have a Bible this morning, and you'll turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter 32. It's where I'd like to take a reading today. Genesis chapter 32, and we'll likely reference the whole chapter or events throughout the whole chapter, but we'll confine our reading to verses 24 until the end of the chapter, which is verse 32. So Genesis 32. beginning in verse 24 and reading to the end of the chapter. It says this, And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said unto him, what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and has prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. As he passed over Peniel, the sun rose up upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day, because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh and the sinew that shrank. And that'll conclude our reading this morning. And if I could put a title on our message today, it would be Striving with God, Not Scheming as Men. Striving with God, Not Scheming as men. I want to be as direct as I can today about what I want to try to express overall. Up front, I guess, would be a better way to put it. I want to talk about prayer this morning. And I suppose of, and I say this almost every time I preach on prayer. There is a great mystery to me about prayer. And I confess to you this morning that there's so much about it that I do not understand. I can go through the Bible and point out qualities of what prayer is and But there's something of the mystery and sanctity. There seems to be a holiness about prayer, both as a big picture revealed in scripture and as experienced in my own life, that often seems to elude me. But this morning I wanna talk about that as perhaps a refocusing of the church. In the deacons meeting, I generally send them a list of things that we need to talk about, and sometimes we'll get input from various people just of things that are upcoming for the church. One of the things that I communicated to them was there are necessary periods of focus on things and they're not bad. Our building needed attention and so we've put a lot of time and devotion and money into our building and I want to commend everyone that's participated in that and everyone that's made sacrifices in order for that to happen. I think it will help future generations to spread the gospel and so this is not a, you know, backhanded way to say anything bad about that because it's good. I wanna get those things over with. I wanna get our building things settled and things in place and where we can have a habitable place to worship the Lord and to function as a church because there are higher things that I want us to be able to focus on. And I think you all agree with that. That's not something I think is debatable. And one of those things that I, really desperately want to impress upon you this morning is to press you about learning more to pray. All of us are in varying places of prayer life and prayer experience, and I don't mean this morning. Sometimes I regret, sometimes a tone that sounds chastening that I preach with, And I really deeply regret that sometimes as I've gone back on occasions and listened to sermons and felt that the tone that I expressed something was not the tone of my heart. And I don't want that to be the case this morning at all, at all, not even a little bit. I want to press you to higher ground for good reason. I want you to discover richer treasures than what you have found. I want God to be known in a way previously unknown to you. And I have felt the last year, and this was never a forethought, this is looking back in hindsight, for whatever reason, since we began the discipleship classes on Wednesday night, The Lord has oriented my heart over the last year towards teaching a lot. And there were many times throughout that year that I was confounded somewhat. And I would object to the Lord, if I'm being honest, that, Lord, I want to deal with more spiritual things. And I hope you'll give me grace in what I'm trying to explain this morning because I I could add a lot of explanation to a lot of things. I have second guessed at times how little evangelism that the Lord has allowed me to do in preaching to those that are lost when we have a great deal of lost people among us. And at times those thoughts become torturous to my own soul. And I've had to rest in trusting the Lord, that Lord, you know what you're doing. And from week to week, I would never claim infallibility. I would never claim to get things always right. But I'm aiming for that. I'm aiming for always. directing through the word of the Lord and where he guides me to your heart the right way. And over the last two or three months in my private prayer life, I have really wrestled with the Lord and I have begged the Lord that we could begin to orient as a church more towards the spiritual and less towards the instructional. I don't know what the will of the Lord is for the future, and I'm not making some claim that that's what he's doing at all. I don't know. I walk by faith just like you do. But certainly this morning, and over the last few weeks, my heart has been concerned with the spiritual things. And I only know that from this perspective as human beings, how central prayer is in the spiritual realm. I don't believe there will be regret in heaven at all. If there were, when I get there, of all things I think I will regret most is that I didn't spend more time in prayer. This chapter is, to be honest, it makes me laugh when you read it and you consider what's going on here. Me and Jacob have a lot alike. And perhaps you have a lot alike with Jacob. This story begins with, obviously, long before this, when Jacob and Esau had an odd against each other. And it was a pretty sharp one, and it had a great cost. It invoked great division among them. And this chapter begins with Jacob terrified because he had sown those seeds of division and deception towards his brother. And now it appears as though his brother has the upper hand. 400 men are headed under Esau's command towards the camp of Jacob and everything that Jacob has acquired over these last 25 years, however long it was. So Jacob has all of his possessions, all of his servants, his 12 sons at least, his daughter, his two wives, I guess he'd say his four wives, because they had two servants. All that is valuable to him is right there. And somebody who he had angered with 400 men soldiers are headed his direction. That's where chapter 32 begins. Now, the only way that we can understand what's going on here is if the Holy Spirit enlightens our hearts, and I pray that will happen this morning. That the Lord would give you just a slim insight to what desperate conditions that Jacob was in. So Jacob begins to plan. Normal for all of us right normal for all of our situations and if certain personalities more than others Perhaps you're excessively risk-averse And so in every situation what you see is risk and danger and perhaps you grew up in a setting where those risks and dangers were less than considered and often put you in positions that left you feeling insecure or resulted in you feeling pain. And you became distrusting of people, thinking if a little more foresight would have been used, if a little more effort would have been put in ahead of time, all of this trouble and pain would have been prevented. And we see here that Jacob, this, from the beginning, who has been a schemer and a planner, he is still, despite his heart being changed towards the good and the godly, he is still trying to plan and prepare. And I am not faulting, and nowhere in the scriptures in this situation in verse 32 does it says that Jacob does anything wrong. And I'll pause the narrative for a moment and I'll point out that throughout my childhood and into my teenage years, I think that the churches that I was a member of lacked very much Biblical decisive planning. That what was portrayed to me is that the Holy Spirit is always spontaneous and descends like Pentecost. And frankly, that is false. That is not true. The Holy Spirit is not limited to extemporaneous speaking or spontaneity. He is certainly able and has on many occasions, both in the Bible and in the present day, acted in that form and that nature. But oftentimes I think that is used as an excuse to carry the cross daily, to seek God's enlightenment daily, to seek God in prayer daily, to go through the mundane with a heart still oriented towards the Lord. I think very often My childhood, I've told you all before, we had 120, 140 at vacation Bible school and less than 10 of those are still actively in church today. Some of that is likely due to poor management of law souls on our part. That if more care would have been given to instruction, if more forethought would have been given to obeying biblical commands about discipleship, If more confrontation of sin would have occurred, if more accountability would have had, if more investment into those people who were on the fringes would have been made, then perhaps a lot of pain, a lot of people leaving could have been avoided and perhaps their life could have now been in a place where it glorified the Lord within the structure of His church. And I still to this day feel pain over those things. And no doubt that much of my mind as your pastor is affected about those things. And when I look at the makeup of our church today and the future of where we're going, I would not deny that my heart is very impacted by those things before and making sure that history doesn't repeat itself. because the pain that you all feel with your children or with your brothers in the flesh, your little biological brothers and sisters that are not present with us today, I want to avoid the next generation experience that, and I know you do too. So I think cultivating in ourselves, the Bible teaches us that human instrumentality and becoming co-laborers with God is something that is part of God's redemptive plan. Certainly God can just out of nowhere allow the gospel to reach somebody, not through His church. He can do miraculous things, but those things are exceptions. Those things are narratives. They're not normatives whereby God tends to work. God has a means by which He works, and that is through the Lord's church. and he has made us responsible. We've talked extensively on Wednesday night and gone probably further than what I've ever even dreamt of going teaching-wise about how we need to cultivate in ourselves and in our brothers and sisters the spirit of following Christ and engaging our talents and our times and our diligence and our collaboration, sometimes in a coordinated fashion, in order to complete an objective the scriptures give us, and I will never back down from the need from those things. Our Sunday school classes and our enterprises that we do as a church matter, and the effort we put into those of our own strength matters. I hope if you are in those positions, you recognize, and I don't say this in a fear-mongering way, just as an acknowledgement, God has entrusted you with a great stewardship. any age group, from the young to the old, you have been made responsible. And he says in the New Testament, be not many teachers, for they shall receive the greater condemnation. And so we know putting real, thoughtful, prayerful effort and study into the disseminating of God's word within the confines of the Lord's church, which is the vehicle to which he disciples and gets the gospel out, is something that rests upon those of us that preach the gospel and teach the gospel here at Old Union Church and should never be done lightly, and I'm not accusing you that it is. I don't think it is at all. What I'm trying to say is I don't think that planning and preparing is a bad thing. I don't think. You know, I see people, I remember, I was probably 18 when I realized this. There was a young lady that was about my age, and she was a very good manager of people. You could see that. that spirit in her, that she had a really good ability to, even with younger kids, immediately perceive how to organize and arrange group of people to accomplish a task. I remember, I don't remember what the incident was, but there was an incident at her church where an opportunity presented itself, and I don't wanna misrepresent this, there may be more to the story, and I'll concede that point, where things like that needed to be done. And for various reasons, the church squelched that in her. No, we just want the Lord to lead. And I thought, well, there's sometimes not a difference between the Lord leading and Satan leading. You know, that you can sometimes just leaving it to a vacuum and whatever happens happening can just not end up good. And predictably, bigger personalities begin to insert themselves. And the thing that was anticipated with great hope became deferred and it made this young lady's heart sick. And so I watched her reorient that talent God had given her and begin to employ it with people who wanted it in the world. Now I was amazed years later when I was studying the book of Ephesians that I came to learn that in the King James it says in Let's see, it'd be Ephesians chapter 4, I think verse 12, where it says that they're given the gift of ruling. I always thought that was some elder thing. It's not. The gift of ruling translated into our language today is the gift of managing. So at Vacation Bible School, we've seen Sister Mary Johns do an excellent job managing all the various things that are involved with anything from appealing to the public and setting up crafts to calling teachers and writing curriculum, and that's a gift that God has given. And praise God, God has equipped his church here at Old Union with a vast number of gifts that are to be employed for his cause. And I hope as a church that when we come together, we're looking, especially the leaders of the church, are looking for ways to employ the gifts of the body in a way that would edify, as Brother Gerald said this morning, all of the body and would orient people, including the world and our brothers and sisters, towards Christ and the Gospel. And I think we ought to invest both individually, ourselves, with as much effort as we can, the cultivation of our gifts for the cause of Jesus Christ. And I think as a church, what we're doing this week, sending them down to DoReMi is a worthy endeavor. I'm less concerned with their ability to sing harmony, and I'm more concerned with cultivating a love for singing for Jesus Christ to edify and encourage other people. Remember even David was called as a boy, remember that? He was called as a boy to a king who was troubled, that it might ease the king's heart. And did you know that song, have you ever heard? I remember our pastor, one of my pastors, Bruce Adamson, still has a wonderful ability to sing and play the guitar. And there have been many times where my heart had been laden with burdens. that I'll go back to COVID whenever he was producing videos, and I'll pull up those videos to listen to the songs, and they bring a soothing effect upon my soul, and they relieve the burdens. And as I see us investing in our children in that way, I say, let's continue to do that, and let's all the while point in their hearts We're sending you here not for a week of fun, not because shape music is an idol, but because we want you to use those gifts as the way to serve the Lord and love your brothers and sisters. Cultivating talent, wonderful thing. Jacob, all he does, he does is planning. The bad guys are coming, in his mind. So first thing I'm gonna do, and really his plan is really smart. I'm gonna divide us into two camps. So if one camp is killed, the others of us, we can run. Then, as Esau comes and meets this last camp, is the way I understand, they may have included both. Each way, I think three or four times, I'm gonna give gifts." And if you ever read what the gifts were, in today's money they were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars every single step. And it was a way of Jacob trying to appease Esau's anger. Then he is mindful of the spiritual for a moment. So, you look at verses 9-12 and you see Jacob says, OK, I've divided the two. I've got gifts lined up. OK, now I've got to get the spiritual thing. So, now in verses 9-12, he goes and he prays for a few minutes. And he reminds the Lord of the Lord's promises to him. Lord, you promised me that my offspring will be as the sand on the shore. Thus, it's almost like he was trying to tell God, Lord, You have to keep your promise. You said I would have offspring beyond that. So I'm making these arrangements just in case bad things go. But Lord, you don't forget your promise. He gets done praying in verse 12. And he's not satisfied. So he keeps planning and scheming. He says, okay, now what I wanna do is I'm gonna put in the two groups the most valuable assets in the most protected place. So who are the most valuable assets? Well, he has 12 sons, he has a daughter at least, he has four wives, but one of his wives and one of his daughters, excuse me, one of his sons is his favorites. So he takes Rachel and he takes Joseph, and he puts them in a place that is the single most protected of all the places. And then... Jacob gets in front of them, just in case, so that if Esau slaughters people all along the way, and if he takes the gifts and it doesn't appease his anger all along the way, that the final intermediary between him and Jacob's most valuable assets, here Jacob is, and maybe, just maybe, he can talk his brother off the ledge. And so you look at all the planning and scheming that Esau does and you say, you know what, it's gonna be hard to come up with a better plan than that. And I want you to know this morning that very often, and I confess to this sin right here, and many of you probably struggle with this, our own minds can become the very thing that destroys a heart of faith in God. that because you have been given a sharp mind, and listen, this church has people who are very gifted in each of your professions, in each of your personal lives. You all, many of you have very sound minds. You're able to analyze things. You've prospered in the world, perhaps, or you've prospered in your personal life, in part because of these gifts that God has given you. And I think they can be employed with great use for God's cause to further the Gospel and help your fellow man, but they can also be used by Satan to destroy your own soul. One by one, brick by brick, the thoughts of man can destroy his heart and his faith in God. And how many nights, how many days, how many protracted seasons has my own thoughts being carried away with what I think are thoughts that are gonna bring about security, are actual thoughts that build a wall, not from those things that are coming after me, but a wall from God himself. This situation is referenced. I wanna slow down and calm down here for a moment, but these things are referenced. in Hosea chapter 12. And in Hosea chapter 12, that's during the time of Isaiah, so the Assyrians are gonna come and they're going to attack. And Hosea's a prophet and he's prophesying to those people in Israel, so the northern kingdom, those in Samaria, and he begins to tell them, listen, you're trusting in Egypt. You're looking to them for your help. And then he references back here to Jacob and he tells us that it was through tears and through prayer and through wrestling with God that Jacob, who was once the deceiver, found protection. Not from all the enemies, excuse me, not from all the, all the friends and companions that you can make with other nations, and he is exhorting Israel, don't look to these contracts and these agreements with other nations for your protection. You need to turn back to the Lord. What a reminder. This morning I wanna pivot in a moment, but sum this part up by saying this. Cultivating our gifts as a church, discipling people and doing everything within our strength is not a bad thing as long as we realize this, that is ultimately not where victory will come from. I wanna add this to you young parents. Being a good parent does not make disciples of Jesus Christ. You need to be a good parent. You need to teach your kids the Bible. You need to try to disciple them. You need to discipline them in a godly fashion. You need to try to shape their character and shape their behavior in a way that is God-pleasing because it is going to be a vessel God uses to produce a disciple. But those tactics of perfect parenting alone do not lead to godly children. Only God can shape that type of vessel. So, here's what I wanna be able to do. Lord, I am pouring all of myself into these children that I possibly can. I am trying to teach them the scriptures. I am trying, and the Bible teaches us that when Paul is exhorting Timothy in the second book that he writes to him, he says to him, look, you have the faith that descends from your grandmother and your mother, and obviously they had sought to fashion Timothy in a way, and that had had an impact upon Timothy and it made him a vessel that was easily transitioned into being a disciple and a preacher and a pastor and a teacher. And so I'm not discounting those things, but it is not those things alone. So then what does it? What makes children into followers of Jesus Christ that love him? God alone. That's it. Only God can. I think often, you know, This week I had to discipline a child. It wasn't physical, it was verbal. It was one of those long talks that you get into. Heavy. One that is apparent, you're just kind of afraid. You know? There are certain qualities that are not coming out the best and you want to steer them the right direction. And saying too much can lead to problems, and not saying enough can lead to problems, and I don't pretend to have that figured out whatsoever. But in those moments, what I'm reminded of as my child leaves the room is this, Lord, his heart is gonna be softened and receptive. You must intervene in his heart. You have to. You have to, Lord. You have to intervene. as I consider our lost children that are here at the church. Friends, let's continue to put forth as much effort as we can in the day to day. My goodness, let's pray. Let's pray. We have so many kids at this church that need the Lord. And every day, Every day they are in peril. They stand condemned already. And no matter how many successive days we put together where God gives them breath, it assures us nothing for tomorrow. Nothing is assured for tomorrow. We have a group, and I've laid great emphasis on this the last year and without regret, we have a group of young people who the next three or four years, we have this window right now, right now we have this window with this group of teenage kids who are orienting their life, who are cultivating their affections, who are making their associations, deep associations, who are unbeknownst to us adopting their value system, who are setting lifelong goals and aspirations, and those things are becoming, as the days pass, more and more set in stone. Every day that they date the wrong person is another day harder. to leave the wrong person. Every day setting their heart and affection towards accomplishment in the world is another day that's setting that concrete of their heart. Right now with a group of them, we'll have another group in about two or three years that's coming along. But right now with this three or four years, and you and I, have been given stewardship over their life. And I am imperfect, but at peace with the effort that we have made the last year to do everything in our power. And that's where today comes from. I am not at peace with the effort of deliberate collective and individual prayer. for them, and that's not accusatory at all, at all, at all. It's a plea. It's a sincere plea. Let us recognize that when all the planning was done, God did not visit Jacob and say, Your plans and provisions are going to appease your brother. Be at ease and sleep through the night. You're saved. That's not what happened. After all the planning had been done, Jacob finally got to a place of restlessness. And there, he begins to wrestle with the Lord. I'm not gonna talk about the specific physical things that happened because I think those are secondary to the point of the scripture. I think what he's trying to teach us here today is not that we should go pray that an angel would come, that we could wrestle with him physically and not to let go of him, but I think it teaches us these central things about prayer. that let us set our eyes upon God alone and forget all the preparation and how effective that it will or will not be to forget about all the enemies that are trying to attack and thwart the things that we have done in order to accomplish the will of God at this church. All of those things are set aside and the place's name is even called the place where he met God face to face. Everything about that interaction is between Jacob and God. He becomes one, he's renamed. You know, of all the names in the Bible that are renamed, Abraham, Sarah, you know Joshua? I didn't realize that until I started studying. Joshua's name was renamed, you know that? His name was Hoshea, was his name. And that just meant salvation. But then his name was changed to Joshua, which means God is salvation. It's a great name. Peter, it's a great name change. Of all the name change, you know what I like the most? This one right here. One that goes from being deceptive and a deceiver and a supplanter to one who strives with God. What a name to be remembered by, and here's the irony of that name. That name of Jacob becomes the name for the people of God. Abraham didn't come that name. None of the 12 tribes became the name to reference the collective people of God. Israel became that name. And in the New Testament, he uses that appellation in the book of Romans chapter two and three to call us the Israel of God. See what he's saying there? We are those who strive with God. That is our identity as a people is those who strive with God through prayer. This morning, I want to exhort you as well as myself. I pray that we could as a group collectively orient ever so slightly from our power and our strength and the cultivation of our wisdom to falling upon the Lord. And this scripture, and then I'm gonna close. Jacob wouldn't quit. You know, I gotta tell you this, I always feel like I try to indict people, and I'm not trying. It's just my sinful brain, where it went when I was younger. I always felt that the essence of spirituality and prayer was you press for this short season, a couple weeks, three weeks, five weeks, six weeks, and you have this object. So I'm directed towards one person or one thing, and I spend this set season, and I just pray. And I'm not discounting the need for that. I think there's higher ground than that. I think that's good. I think there's higher ground. I think often that's how God cultivates people of prayer, is by giving us a spiritual energy for short periods of time. and then shows us the power of prayer. Because listen, what he says here is that Jacob had power with God. Now, I got a comment about that power. I remember Charles Spurgeon writing one time about the power that we have on God. It's much different than what we think. Oftentimes people think of power and prayer and power with God is that you're some righteous, powerful prayer warrior that storms the throne room of heaven and says, God, give us these things. And then the lightning flashes and the heavens come down and he blesses all of those things. And often that is what had been depicted to me as a child. And that's not what power with prayer is, either here in this text, or generally speaking. I want you to imagine with me for a moment a child with terminal cancer. Broken body, weak, pitiful to look at. Demonstrating all the symptoms of terminal cancer. Vomiting and tears and gaunt and gray. Did you know that they have more power over educated, powerful people than you and I do. There's foundations. Make-A-Wish Foundation. So that child barely utters, I'd like to meet Michael Jordan. Suddenly, dozens of people pay tens of thousands of dollars to coordinate just a little bit of time with a man of power and prestige. And that power and prestige comes and gives his full undivided attention to this little puny child. And in some ways that request is one filled with great power. And the reason it's filled with great power is because those to whom the request is made have spirits of compassion. And so when we are given a spirit of compassion and there is one in great need, we are mightily moved in their direction to do what we can. And then we turn to Jesus in the New Testament. Mark chapter one. I wanna say it was the two lepers. It says about them that Jesus saw their condition, and guess what? He was moved with compassion towards them. What about the woman in Nain who lost her son? He was her only son, and he sees this funeral procession taking place, and the weeping of this woman who's lost her only son, and the Bible says that Jesus was moved with compassion when he saw it. What about the two blind men, blind men who cried out, said, Oh, thou son of David, have mercy upon us. You know what the scripture says about Jesus? He was moved with compassion. What about in Mark chapter two, when all those people were filling the house, giving attention to Jesus' teaching, and then those friends begin to lift their friend down. And it says, Jesus saw their faith. You recognize that the power that we have with God is not due to our strength, it's due to our confessed weakness. How do we allow, I'm trying to stop. How do we allow the weakness that we have to overcome us? Let's say right now, Just a mile from here, there was a great tornado that was coming and nobody knew about it. You think before phones and before TVs, radios, that's exactly what happened. People would gather for a Sunday night service, not thinking anything was wrong. Perhaps a nice calm, still night. And then all of a sudden, their vulnerability to this power beyond their control was resting upon them. That's the way that it used to be. How do we, in order to come to the realization of our weakness and vulnerability, it has to be made known to us, deeper than just our minds. This morning I think what cultivates a spirit of prayer is a divine revelation from God to show us our weakness. to show us our need. And so here's my request. Here's my request. I'm not requesting today that we pray for our lost people. I'm not requesting that we pray for our young group of people earlier. I'm not requesting that we pray for our many shut-ins who I feel deep compassion for. And I'm not just praying that you pray for you, this prayer. Pray for all of us that God would show us our spiritual need. Will you join with me in praying that prayer? God, open our eyes to our spiritual need because listen, our hearts will not be moved to get alone and penile until God first shows us our weakness. The Apostle Paul famously was shown that, wasn't he? He didn't want the weakness. At first, God showed him the power of weakness. That in our weakness, then's Christ's strength is perfected. And then Paul said, Lord, I rejoice in glory and weakness because it's in weakness that your power is made perfect and known. This morning, I want us to close with an altar of prayer and with as sincere as I can make it request to you that God would give us all a vision. I don't mean something mystic, but that God would give us a vision of the need and help that we have of him.