Struggling For Your Breakthrough

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.