Genesis 32:19-24 (GW)
19 He also commanded the second servant, the third, and all the others who followed the herds. He said, “Say the same thing to Esau when you find him.
20 And be sure to add, ‘Jacob is right behind us, sir.'” He thought, “I'll make peace with him by giving him this gift that I'm sending ahead of me. After that I will see him, and he'll welcome me back.”
21 So Jacob sent the gift ahead of him while he stayed in the camp that night.
22 During that night he got up and gathered his two wives, his two slaves and his eleven children and crossed at the shallow part of the Jabbok River.
23 After he sent them across the stream, he sent everything else across.
24 So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until dawn.
Comes a time in your life when you have to make peace with Esau
o Esau was the one that Jacob
o Had struggled with
o But never prevailed against
o His whole life
o Esau was the one that Jacob pretended to be
o To get what he thought he needed to have
o Esau was the one that even subconsciously
o And pre-Nataly had problems with
o He was predisposed to wrestle with Esau
o Before he had a conscious thought
o And now he’s 97
o And he’s preparing to meet with Esau
o There might even be a title above Chapter 32
o Where it says
o Jacob prepares to meet Esau
o Because there comes a time
o That no matter how much God has blessed you
o And no matter how much stuff you’ve accumulated in this world
o Or no matter how good your body looks
o Or how fit you are
o You cannot outrun your dysfunctional relationships forever
One of the greatest blessings that God gives
o One of the greatest gifts that God gives a believer is peace
o We ask for the Peace of God
o A peace that passes all understanding
o You can’t describe it
o You don’t understand it
o It’s hard to put into words
o But you just have a peace
o There is a peace
o There’s peace in the valley
o There’s peace in the storm
o There’s peace in the trial
o That only comes from God
o It doesn’t come from your wife
o It doesn’t come from your kids
o It doesn’t come from your husband
o It doesn’t come from your church
o It doesn’t come from the preacher
o It doesn’t come from anywhere but God
o There’s a peace
o It’s a gift from God
o If you want to pray for anything
o Pray for peace
o Now there will be some that will tell you
? Don’t pray for peace
? Because the Lord will teach you peace
? You should pray for strength
o While I believe that
o I also want His peace in my life
o Because if all I prayed for was provision
o All I would have would be the external stuff
o Without the internal infrastructure to enjoy what I prayed for
o So, I pray for that peace of God that passes all understanding
o The strength to make it through
o But the peace that passes all understanding
o Because the greatest blessing that God gives us
o Usually has little to do with the resources that He provides us with
o But more with the relationship that He restores
So, we’re looking at an Old Testament picture
Of a relationship in Genesis 32
Of Jacob
o Who has been able to pivot his whole life
o When he gets in trouble at home
? He runs to Uncle Laban
o When he marries Leah
? After serving Laban and God for Rachael for 7 years
? He pivots and gets Rachael anyhow
o When Laban begins to cheat him
? The Bible says that his heart turned against him
? Jacob was able to have the business sense to
• Devise a system to which he could stay ahead
o But Esau
o Esau is that enemy
o Esau is that thing that he’s been fighting against
o And fleeing from his whole life
o By the time he prepares to make peace
o With Esau
o He’s been hiding from him for 21 years
I want to ask a question
o What are you hiding from?
o It is the essential question of this message today
o I believe that it is a penetrating question
o If you’ll really answer it in your heart
o What are you hiding from?
o Because no matter where Jacob turned
o Or where he went
o What Jacob did
o What he accomplished
o There was always Esau
o It was the battle he was fighting when he was 9 months old
o It was the battle he was fighting when he was 97
o What is your Esau
o What is the thing
o That no matter how many herds and cattle
o And goats
o And relationships you acquire
o There is always an Esau
o It’s your hidden issue
o It is not the thing that you mention to the Bible Study Group on Sunday Night
? Wednesday Night
? Thursday Morning
? At Craft and Verse
? Breakfast Babes and Bobbies
? Or to people that you just met
o It is the…
? Thing
? Beneath the thing
? Beneath the thing
? Beneath the thing
o It is not your behavior
o It is not your symptom
o It is your issue
o Church it is ineffective when pastors only address behaviors
o Because until we get to the issue
o That creates the behavior
o The behavior will manifest
o Because the issue wasn’t healed
o Graduates,
? As you face life
? This is a principle that you need to take with you
? Out into the world
? Because the world system
? Treats symptoms
? And very rarely gets to the issue
? Very rarely gets to the root
? We just deal with the symptom
? Give an anti-biotic
? Get rid of the runny nose
? And send you on your way
o What are you hiding from?
o Your heart may be in hiding
o Because of your fear of rejection
o Your heart may be in hiding because of your fear of failure
I understand why Jacob had issues
o It’s pretty plain in the text
o The Bible says that there was a lot of favoritism going on in Isaac’s household
o In fact, look at
o Genesis 25:28 (GW)
28 Because Isaac liked to eat the meat of wild animals, he loved Esau. However, Rebekah loved Jacob.
o There’s the problem right there
o No wonder the guy spent his whole life in hiding
o From an early age
o He discovered that he didn’t have what his father wanted
o He didn’t have the skills to be acceptable
o In the sight of the one whose affirmation meant the most
o When that happens to you
o You develop all kinds of devices to hide behind
o Psychologically they call this abandonment issues
o And they say that when you have abandonment issues
? This can happen through divorce
? It can happen through abuse
? It can happen through love withheld
? It can happen through a circumstance that is so embedded that you can’t even remember what it is
o But when you have these abandonment issues
o They tell us that you tend toward two extremes
? One is attachment
? The other is avoidance
o So, you attach
? This is Jacob grabbing the heel of Esau
o Or you avoid
? This is Jacob running from that same brother
? That he was trying to attach himself to
o One thing I love about God’s Word
? It doesn’t just address my spirituality
? It addresses my psychology
o In Jacob I see an illustrated sermon
? About the psyche of someone who is running
? Toward and chasing someone that they can never get
o Meanwhile running from something that they don’t want to face
o I believe everyone in our church can relate to Jacob
? Hiding from an Esau in your life
? Hiding and hoping that no one sees you for who you really are
o So, you invent methods so that you are impressive
o That’s what Jacob did
o He makes a plan
He makes a plan to hide his issues
o You have to understand that in the last 21 years
o Jacob was not struggling
o Jacob was prospering
o Jacob was succeeding
o Jacob was accumulating
o Jacob was working his way up
o And by this time in his life
o He was very rich
o He’s got a lot of kids
o And so, on the external
o He’s doing pretty good for himself
o So, what he does
? And I think we all do this
o He tries to take what he’s accumulated to hide who he is
o Jacob gets a strategy
o He calls his messengers
o He has a lot of people working for him
o He says here’s what I want you to do
? Line up the goats
? Line up the rams
? Line up the camels
? Line up the cows
? Line up the bulls
? Line up the donkeys
? Put the servants out there
o He arranges what’s around him to hide what’s within him
o Maybe Esau will accept me if I send him a goat
o Maybe Esau will accept me if I send him a donkey
o Maybe people will like me if I make them laugh
? So, I become the life of the party
? I become the class clown
o But when I get alone
o What I had out in front of me
o Can’t help me for the battle that I have to fight within me
o The Bible says
? That when Jacob sent his gift ahead
? He remained alone in the camp
o And to every lonely person today
o I want to encourage you to know
o That the places of your greatest isolation
o Will often become the places of your greatest revelation
o Jacob had seen God in the form of an angel
o When he was with people
o But he had only seen God’s face when he was all alone
o Separated from all his stuff
o He sent his gift ahead
o But he himself spent the night in the camp
o And God dealt with him
o And God pushed him around a little bit
God brought him to his breaking point
o So much so
o That the Bible says
o That when He got done
o And he left that camp
o He was limping
o He was limping
o But he was blessed
o His hip was dislocated
o But his identity was now securely in place
o Because he found out who he was
o God says that
? Through the preaching of His Word
? He was going to restore unto you
? An awareness of your identity
? Because you’ve gotten so entangled
? With your stuff
? And your skills
? That you’ve lost your sense of substance
? But today is the day that the hand of God is upon you heavy
? To show you who you are
22 During that night he got up and gathered his two wives, his two slaves and his eleven children and crossed at the shallow part of the Jabbok River.
o Jacob crossed the shallow end of the Jabbok
o All of his life he thought he was fighting against Esau
o For 21 years he thought he was running from Esau
o But God showed up to show him
o That the only real enemy that he was ever fighting against
o You see the real enemy is not the issue I see
o Your life will change
o Your marriage will change
o Your relationships will change
o When you stop trying to fix Esau
o Jacob crossed the Jabbok
o Do you think those two-sound similar on accident?
o Do you think that there’s a sense of poetic justice in the mind of God?
o That he wants to show us
o That all the time that you’re running from Esau
o All the time that you’re running from issues
o All the time that you’re running from relationships
o All the time that you’re running from fears
o The only issue is you
o And if you can get right with you
o You can get right with God
o And if you can get right with God
o God can make it right with Esau
o We just have to get over ourselves
o And humble ourselves before the Lord
o That’s the real enemy
o It’s the enemy in me
o It’s the Jabbok I have to cross
o It’s my pride I have to get over
o It’s my regret I have to get over
o It’s my scars I have to get over
o It’s not your issue that’s holding me back
o It’s me God
o It’s me
o It’s me
o I won’t let you go
o Until you bless me
The practical implications of this are staggering
o If the only thing that you really have to cross over
o Is your own mis-conceptions of what it really means to be accepted by God,
o You’re going to be all good
o Single you’re going to be all good
o Married you’re going to be all good
o Get over yourself
o Sick, you’re going to be all good
o Well, you’re going to be all good
o Rich, you’re going to be all good
o Poor, you’re going to be all good
o Get over yourself
o That’s the message today
o That’s the message for graduates today
o That’s the message for Columbus West today
o Get over yourself Jacob
o If you can get over your
? Conniving
? Scheming
? Dysfunctional ways
? God will fix your relationships
o On the other hand
? If you don’t get over yourself
? You’re going to carry your issues into your next relationship
? And your issues are only going to increase
? When they are multiplied by the human interaction
? That is required for you to connect with another person
? When you have not even correctly learned how to connect with yourself
o That’s for free
You want right relationships?
o It’s going to require the right posture
o The right posture is to not try and make yourself appear
o And look impressive
o If you really want to connect with people
o And stop pivoting from issue to issue
o You have to deal with what’s within
o Come out from behind your hurts
o And stand before Esau
o Face your fears
o And face your failures
o And face your frustrations
o And when Esau saw Jacob
o On the ground
o He took out his buck knife
o And put it right up to Jacob’s throat
? Wouldn’t that be crazy?
? Wouldn’t that be crazy if that happened next and Jacob died right there?
? Isn’t that just what you’d expect is going to happen?
? If you ever get real
? And come out from behind what you’re hiding behind
o Let’s be honest this morning
o You are scared to death
o That if you ever showed the real you
o If you ever get out from behind all the religious talk
o Because one of the things that people hide behind
o More than anything else
? Is religious pretension
o But he comes out from behind that
o And watch what Esau did
o Just like the father in the Prodigal Son story
o This is how God treats every son and daughter
o That comes running home
o With no excuses
o But just an admission
? I have sinned
o Esau ran to meet Jacob
o And embraced him
o The thing that he had been hiding from
o For 21 years
o Was handled the whole time
o I came with an announcement
o What you’re hiding from
o Has already been handled
o The sin
o The guilt
o The disgrace
o The disappointment
o The uncertainty
o You need to know this morning
o It’s handled
o And no, it’s not been handled by Olivia Pope
o It’s been handled by Jesus Christ
o He handled it over 2,000 years ago on the cross of Calvary
o When they hung Him high
o And stretched Him wide
o It’s been handled when He kicked the stone out from in front of the tomb
o Because it was too small for Him
o It’s handled
The question is
o Is it handled in you?
o Is it taken care of in your life?
o Have you come out and faced that thing?
o Have you come out and gotten over yourself?
o Humbled yourself
o And accepted the gift that is yours this morning
o You can’t hide from the Lord
o You can’t hide from Esau
o Come out and know that it’s handled.
o Let’s stand
