Struggling for a Breakthrough!
Do you want a breakthrough? Many of you may be thinking obviously, how stupid can he be? But in all seriousness, do you want a breakthrough? I have one disclaimer I want to make clear. When I say breakthrough, I am not talking about the Lord in all his glory with his angels stepping out of heaven to move a mountain on your behalf. Oh, would that be nice, but the last time I checked God did not operate like that. So what I mean when I say breakthrough, is moving from where you are, to where God wants you to be on your spiritual journey because God is always thinking two steps ahead.
Since none of us have arrived yet, we all have room to grow spiritually. I have discovered that for most of us we neglect the fact that our physical struggles in life effect our spiritual growth. The things we can not conquer end up cutting us short when it is time for us to take our Christianity to the next level. Let me clarify myself. The things we struggle with in the physical realm, like lying, jealously, envy, pride, or substance abuse, have a direct effect on our spiritual growth. So when I talk about seeking your breakthrough, I mean conquering that which you are struggling with so that you can move to the next rung on God’s spiritual ladder to maturity.
Now, I want to share, from my life experience, how I struggled for a break through. I am going to take you way back. To the year 1996, when I walked down the aisle with thousands of people who committed their life to Jesus at a Promise Keepers meeting at the New York Mets Stadium. I remember it made my dad extremely happy, but to be honest, I did not experience any change whatsoever. So I began to live life like I knew best. I rode my bike. My dream was to be a professional BMX freestyle rider. So I rode everyday, rain, sleet, hail, snow, I rode my bike. I was dedicated. I got sponsored by the local bike shop and did very well in the contests I entered. I actually rode with and placed higher then some of the pros who have made a name for themselves in the BMX Freestyle World today.
As I was progressing fast, and doing everything possible to succeed, I compromised my commitment to becoming a professional BMX rider by going to an innocent high school party where there was alcohol and drugs and a ton of peer pressure. From that day forward, I entered into a 3 year struggle with drugs and alcohol that almost cost me my life multiple times. Not to go in much detail in those three years, two of my best friends died to drugs, others overdosed including myself, I became not just addicted to drugs, but money. I ended up getting arrested 15 times and I stand here today only by the grace of God because when the rubber met the rode and I was over my head in the struggle, God met me exactly where I was at. I had lost everything, family, friends, and my future. But in the midst of all that turmoil God met me where I was at. So that I could meet him face to face. From the day I met and struggled with God my life has never been the same.
One of my heroes in the Bible was Jacob. He went through a similar situation when his whole life came to a point where He was either going to continually let his struggles conquer him or he was going to let God conquer his struggles. Like Jacob, we can experience a breakthrough when we find God on our own, struggle with God alone, give God control, and endure till the end.
Before we jump into the passage, allow me set the stage. Jacob had not seen his brother, Esau, in a long time and he was very apprehensive about their meeting. The reason was because many years earlier Jacob tricked his brother out of his birthright and stole his blessing. Because of this Esau was planning to kill Jacob. Jacob’s mother found out about Esau’s plan and she arranged to have his father, Isaac, send Jacob away to live among her relatives in a distant land. Now after many years had passed, Jacob was returning and he was afraid that his brother might still try to kill him.
Jacob had come to the Jabbok River and crossing it meant crossing into Esau’s territory. Jacob decided that he would try to settle things with his brother so he sent gifts across the river before him. That night Jacob was left all by himself on the banks of the Jabbok. And that night the most famous and perhaps the most bizarre wrestling match in all of history took place. That night an unknown, unnamed man appeared and wrestled with Jacob all through the night.
Now can you please turn with me to Genesis chapter 32, we will begin with verse 22, genesis 32: 22, it says, “That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. 28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."
If you want to conquer your struggle and experience a breakthrough you must find God on your own, struggle with God alone, let God take control and then look to God, for His blessing, if we hold on.
1. To experience a breakthrough, you must first, find God on our own! The text said, “Jacob was alone.”
For the first time in a long time, Jacob had nothing. He was a man of many possessions and much wealth, the previous text said, when he divided all he had accumulated in life, he had two families.
In order for Jacob to go through this process, he would have to approach God with nothing but himself. Some of you might think that is not fair. You might say, when I struggle I need my pastor, my counselors, my parents, and friends to struggle on my behalf. You might be thinking if I had all these people then the odds are in my favor. Well let me let you in on a little secret. I don’t care how many people you have aiding you in your struggle. In comparison to the God of the universe, the odds will never be able to match up to the odds that God gives you when He is in control of your struggle.
Looking at the state of Jacob’s spiritual condition at the moment when he was all alone. I see a man who was broken. A man who was sick and tired, of being sick and tired of living a lie. There is a saying used in the psychology world that goes like this, when the pain of change is greater then the pain of remaining the same, a change can take place.
Well I believe that Jacob was at that moment where the pain to change was greater then the pain of remaining the same. It is a lot easier said then done. The last time I got in trouble with the law it was all over. There was no bailing out, like all the other times. Like Jacob I was all alone. It was a time in my life where I literally had nothing. Actually it is a lot like being in college! I was alone. I had very few people who would talk to me and nothing but the clothes on my back. So I am sitting in jail waiting to see what is going to happen and my lawyer comes to me and says the best we can do is three years. That was devastating. So the next day was when I would sign the plea agreement and then the deal is done. So the next day comes and I go into the court room and I learn that my Dad came to court with an application for Teen Challenge. So I signed the papers, not knowing the program was Christian and in about a month I was released with a stipulation that I was to finish the program or go to jail for up to 10 years.
So I drove to the beautiful city of Syracuse, New York, well actually it was not so beautiful where the Teen Challenge was. Actually I don’t think it could have been any worse. Drug dealing across the street, prostitution, gun fights in the back yard, cops chasing people; it was like being on the TV show cops. So I walk in and I asked what do here. They said, basically, we serve Jesus for breakfast, Jesus for lunch and Jesus for dinner and if you’re still hungry we serve Jesus at snack time. I said, no thanks, I am not hungry one bit.
For the next six months I struggled with the Lord. I was alone. I was in pain from all the things I did in my past and I wanted to change, but I didn’t know exactly how. I wanted to stop doing what I used to do, but I could not find it in myself to surrender. So God and I duked it out for six months. Do you know that was the most miserable time of my life? Even though Jacob was alone, He was very much alive. The text says, “a man wrestled with him till daybreak.”
In order to experience a break through, we must first find God on our own and then we must struggle with God alone.
2. To experience a breakthrough, you must struggle with God alone!
The night Jacob wrestled with God was the climax of 20 years of God’s patience in dealing with him. It looks to me that God is more concerned with our breakthroughs then we are. God gave Jacob his space for 20 years. For 20 years God took the back seat to Jacob’s life. Yes, God did do things for Jacob, but not to the extent that He could, if he lived out of a surrendered life, not a life of struggle.
I want to share a story of a man who struggled. Now this man’s life was unique because he experienced a breakthrough the day he gave his life to Christ. Frank Templeton was the man’s name. Lee Strobel in his book the Case for Christ said, “Templeton became increasingly disgusted with his lifestyle. Fresh from a night out in a sleazy strip joint, feeling shoddy and unclean, he went to his room and knelt by his bed in the darkness.”
Frank Templeton later wrote how he felt as though a black blanket of guilt pervaded him, but slowly the weight began to lift. He said, it seemed as though a light has turned on in his chest and has cleansed him. Frank Templeton then left his profession as journalist to do the work of the ministry. No sooner did Templeton meet Billy Graham at a youth for Christ rally. They became roommates as they toured Europe and would alternate in the pulpit as they would preach at rallies. Templeton founded a church that overflowed a 1,200 seat sanctuary. American magazine said, “Templeton has set a new standard for mass evangelism.” So his friendship with Graham grew.
But soon he began to doubt the faith that he preached. He began to struggle. Templeton could not rest in the fact that the whole of God’s word was true. He was quoted saying to Billy Graham, your 50 years out of date, people no longer except the Bible as being inspired as you do, your faith is too simple” Templeton began to struggle not with God but with himself. He took his struggle into his own hands. That is probably the worst place possible.
Initially, when Jacob entered his struggle, he did not know it was God who He was struggling with. He didn’t know, but he was in the grip of God’s unending grace and that is the best possible place to be in a struggle.
So as the story goes, Templeton doubted more and more. Graham searched the scriptures for answers, he prayed and pondered and on a moonlit night, he dropped to his needs and admitted to God he could not answer all the questions Templeton and others were raising.
Billy Graham said, Father, I am going to accept this as they word—by faith. I am going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions.” Both of them struggled but only one of them kept their faith and the other reasoned themselves out of their faith. And we all know who won the struggle, Billy Graham. Templeton lost his struggle of faith, literally, the crusade before his and Grahman’s ministry went worldwide.
To experience a breakthrough, we must first, go to God on our own, struggle with God alone, and then let God take control.
3. To experience a breakthrough, you must let God take control!
When we let God take control, we put ourselves in a position where he can take control. Notice that Jacob was not broken until he wrestled with God, which took place after he was alone. Jacob has showed us the proper way to seek a breakthrough. The breakthrough begins and ends with God.
The text says in verse 25, “When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.”
After Jacob was injured, he switched the way he was struggling from wrestling to clinging. This is the breaking point of every struggle. When the struggle gets so intense, you come to the point where you declare that no matter what happens, you are not going to give up. This is the point that either makes or breaks people. Once Jacob’s hip was broken, he did not give up, but in order to make it to the end he had to submit to God’s plan. He had to give God control because if he did not do this, he would not have made it to his blessing.
The same exact things took place when I was struggling for those six months before I gave God control of the struggle. I want to let you in on something I am pretty embarrassed about. In the midst of my 6 month struggle in Teen Challenge before I turned the control over to God, I actually contemplated going back to jail. I thought it would give me more options in life. That was pretty bad. I really thought that Christianity was not for me and I should just go finish my time in jail. Well I was an idiot. At that moment, I gave the control of the struggle over to God and it was at that moment I began to experience my breakthrough.
Jacob set the pattern in this passage. He was alone so that he could be broken and broken so that he could be blessed, which leads me to my last point,
4. To experience a breakthrough, you must endure till the end!
The text says, 26 “Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. 28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."
Jacob was determined. He was committed to survive this struggle. He didn’t care if He needed a wheel chair afterwards. He was going to fight like he had nothing to lose. He did that because he literally had nothing to lose, physically, but now the anti was up and he knew if he let go he would have lost spiritually, as well.
Jacob came to the point where he was tired of always running from his problems. He knew that if he quit now, he would always quit for the rest of his life.
This point is probably the most important because you can do all the others with precision and still fail to get the breakthrough you are struggling for. Jacob persevered. He knew that if he was going to make a difference for himself, he must endure the struggle. This is probably the hardest part. Your struggle will come to the pinnacle where it can go one of two ways. You can either hold on and endure the struggle, which leads to God’s blessing or you can let go, and lose the struggle and march yourself back to the beginning where you can keep going in circles, never experiencing your breakthrough or God’s blessing.
I want to share another story that I am embarrassed about, but because I was told in my preaching class, personal experiences are the best illustrations; I will let you laugh at my cost.
When I turned 17, I got my license and soon I got my first car. I remember it like yesterday, it was my dad’s 1990 black ford thunderbird super cope. The car was black leather, and supercharged. It was fast and also my best friend’s dad was a state trooper, so I thought I was invincible. I remember that first day getting pulled over and pulling out the “my best friend’s dad is a state trooper” card, the cop ripped the ticket, but that was about the only time it worked so for the next year I went through 5 cars and over thirty tickets. My high school actually made a new piece in the year book so that I can have my picture in it that year for the worst driver. So as you can imagine, I lost my license for a long time. So when I finally gave my life to Christ, I came to VFCC and needed to get a job. So I needed to get my license back.
So I began to dig up my history and it was a mess. I went to get a quote at an insurance company. I asked the guy for a quote, mind you he has been in business for years and years. So I am sitting there and my record begins to print out and print out and print out. I am not sure how long it was, but he said, it was the longest record he ever saw. I was like thanks that was real encouraging. So, I began to pay back fines. I thought I had them all paid off. So I go to the DMV on thanksgiving break. It is one of those regional centers. We get there like 7:30 AM and there was a couple hundred people standing in the freezing cold waiting for it to open. So I get in after hours of waiting. I get to a human being and they search my records and an unpaid fine comes up. By the way, I owed $1,200 dollars and I was dead broke. I was just about to give up. I was frustrated.
God must have a sense of humor because of what happens next. So, I am down on myself. We leave and I call Elizabeth in Virginia. We talk and I tell her the bad news and she gets upset, so we both feel like we are at a dead end. So she tells me she will call me back. Now I want you also to know I only knew her for a few months. So in no time she calls back and says, she told her mom what happened and her mom wants to give me the money. She told me that her mom had put $1,200 dollars aside for somebody who was suppose to go to college, but he never went, so she feels like God wants to give me the money. Just when I was about to give up, God blessed me because he knew how broken I was. So I got my license, insurance and registration. I endured the struggle till the end even though the end was not in sight and I received God’s blessing.
Jacobs blessing was a little different then the one I received. His name was changed from Jacob to Israel. My name wasn’t changed but put on a license, registration and insurance card. This was a pretty monumental moment in Jacob’s life. The heavenly visitor asked, Jacob, “What is your name?” Jacob knew his name, and God knew his name, but if you recall the last time Jacob was asked this question, he lied and said, “Esau.” But the day He struggled with God was different, he answered with the truth. He said, “I am Jacob.” In doing so, he came to grips with who he had become in life, which then put him in a position to become who God knows he can be.
I like how one person summed up Jacob’s past up to his name change, he said, “Jacob was the kind of person that could enter a revolving door behind you and come out ahead of you.”
Just as Jacob did, we should also identify ourselves in the struggle. If you want to write a new history for yourself, you must first come to grips with you were and what you did and with God’s help, you can become all God wants you to be.
I had to deal with this same issue. I was known as Jess, the drug dealer, or Jess the thief, and on and on the names went. The real breakthrough came when I owned up to my past and let God take control of my future. Now some people introduce me as Reverend Jess, and this is my husband Jess, or my small group leader Jess and the list can go on. But it would not turned out like this if I had pressed the eject button when I was in the middle of my six month struggle with deciding whether I should take control of my life or let God control my life.
Thank God I chose the latter. Now I am writing a new history for my life. Jacob did the same thing. When He answered God, God must have been so proud of him. Jacob for the first time was honest before God. When we are true to ourselves, we can be honest with God and not a second earlier.
Although Jacob came out of that struggle with crutches, he was a new person. God breaks us, so He can make us anew. If we endure the struggle, then we are entitled to our breakthrough. For Jacob, his breakthrough was a change in identity.
When he owned up to his identity and said, I am Jacob, a lot of baggage was attached to those syllables. He was a liar and cheat. But since he endured the struggle, and faced God and himself, he was blessed with a new identity.
He was given a new name. The word, Israel actually means “to be chief.” The word can also be translated as “God’s prince.” Jacob went from a lowly pauper to a high prince with the change of one word in his life.
A.W. Tozer said, "The Lord cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him." God conquered Jacob by weakening him and he wants to conquer you as well. We can only have victory in our struggles, if we first surrender to God because in the end He will always have the last word.
In conclusion, in order to experience a break through, you must follow 4 steps. You must first go to God on your own, struggle with God alone, let God take control, and then endure till the end.
These are 4 steps that have radically changed my life and continue to change my life. Today whenever, I find myself in a struggle. I immediately turn to God. Then after we have duked it out and He says, Mercy, I let Him take control of the struggle, while I hold on to till I receive His blessing.
I have learned that as long as I hold on, I am in a position to be blessed by him. For six months I held on the best I knew how, before I completely committed my life to Christ. God honored my efforts, even though they were feeble in comparison to the effort that He put in and that is the reason I am here today, speaking to you. Everyday is a blessing writing a new story for my life.
I want to ask you, what is it that you are struggling with? What area in your life can you use a breakthrough? In a room of this size, there are many different struggles. The depth of your struggle does not matter as much as the way you handle your struggle. The steps we learned today can bring you through any struggle, no matter how long you have been dealing with the struggle. Jacob’s dealt with his for 20 years, and mine lasted 3 years.
Hitting a wall on your spiritual journey is a good indicator that you need a breakthrough. Whatever it is that has caused you to reach a spiritual plateau needs immediate action because not properly conquering those problematic areas in our lives have the power to hold us back from doing great things for God. Just look at Frank Templeton, who possibly could have done greater things then, Billy Graham had he won his intellectual battle with faith. Don’t let your struggle’s conquer you when there is a God who wants you to live in complete victory at all times.
My challenge to you, today, is to seek out whatever it is keeping you from being all God wants you to be. Just as Jacob was able to write a new history, so can you. If you can line up who God knows you can be with who you want to become, then the sky is the limit in what you can do in life.
