The Limp Won’t Make You Late

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.

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Hey, everybody today, the Lord gave me a word he can give it to me today.

Gave it to me Monday, so I've been sitting with it all week, so i can't wait to get to it. So I'm not going to do any announcements. So I'm just going to get right to it because I'm excited. We're going to revisit Genesis chapter thirty two, the scripture that I shared last week. We're going to jump in at verse twenty four. Some things that the Lord has been dealing with me about and some things I believe he wants to assure you about. This will be a word of assurance for somebody today.

Genesis chapter thirty two, verse twenty four, The.

Bible says, so Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 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.

The man said, let me go for his daybreak, but Jacob replied, I will not let you.

Go unless you bless me.

And I talked last week about the blessing of letting go, that sometimes it's not our strength, but our surrender that determines our ability to move forward in life. And specific what Jacob was letting go of and this passage wasn't the man. It was letting go of a previous version of himself.

Because watch this. The man asked him, what's your name? Jacob?

He answered, now, he had pretended to be his brother Esau, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but now he's saying his own name. And when he said his own name verse twenty eight, the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob.

But Israel, because you have.

Struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. Jacob said, please tell me your.

Name, but he replied, why do you ask my name?

Then he blessed him there so Jacob called the place ten yell, saying it is because I saw God face to.

Face, and yet my life was spared.

Last verse, I want to read key verse for today, Verse thirty one, Genesis, chapter thirty two. The sun rose above him as he passed Tenniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

The sun rose above.

Him as he passed Tenneoh, and he was limping because of his hip. Turn to your neighbor and say, I've got good news. Tell them the limp won't make you late, and.

That good news. Let's pray. Father.

I commend your people to you now, and I ask you to flow through me Holy Spirit, with clarity, supernatural accuracy, and indelible power. Make an imprint on the lives of your people, a mark that can't be erased. In Jesus' name, Amen, touch your neighbor on your way to your seat, and tell them I'm not late.

Praise God.

I think the reason that I'm perennially drawn to this text is because it illustrates one of my favorite things to teach people from the Bible, and that's the concept of progressive revelation. And when I say progressive revelation, it's not just so I can use big words so that you don't get confused at certain points in your life where you learn something that causes you to have to unlearn everything you thought you knew up until that point.

Progressive revelation is the idea that as God is.

Going in the scriptures, we see more and more of who He really is, and so you don't get all of God just by reading the Book of Genesis. You don't get all of God just by reading Genesis, Exis of Vidgicus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Pinituke, or those first five books of the Bible.

You don't get all of God. By reading all the way to.

The Book of Malachi I'm finishing the Old Testament, or Matthew, Martin, Luke and John, or all of the Epistles, the letters that Paul wrote to the Church, or James, or even the Book of Revelation. You don't get all of God. Even when you finish, if you go all the way to the Book of Maps in the back, you still will not have mastered God. This scripture is interesting, isn't it? Because Jacob asked this angel for his name, and he's like, no, not yet, I'm not going to tell you, I'm going

So write that down as a point today, Revelation is scheduled. Revelation is scheduled.

Judging by the percentage of people who wrote that down when I said write it down, we either need some more elevation pins to hand out at the door, or you'll need it an extra two hours of sleep.

I'm not sure which one it was.

It's hard for me to believe that I'm pastoring this church going into our eighteenth year.

Yeah.

Why is so crazy is when I visioned myself starting a church, I was sixteen, but I thought I'd start the church when I was in my forties. So now here I am in my forties and I've been pastoring the church for eighteen years.

And that's just crazy to me.

And God set the schedule for when he wanted me to do this. And then Holly, she's very Holly has an interesting concept of time. Usually she's the one behind schedule in certain areas of life.

She's doing a lot better with it.

There was one time where she was the one who was early and I was running late. Usually in our marriage it's you know that I'm waiting in the car and she's running a little late. Very stereotypical male thing to say in the sermon intro, but it was true in our marriage, especially.

For the first few years.

But in one of our first conversations about this church, she said, you know, I believe it's time for us to go start this church. We were in our twenties, we had only been married a couple of years, and she said, I think it's time. I said, it's not time. We're going to do it later. I'm going to go do something else for twenty years and learn everything I

Go do this, And the.

Stupidity of youth, aided by faith in God, led us to start a church in our twenties.

Praise the Lord.

Now, the thing about that is at the time that she made mention of that to me and I talk about progressive revelation. There are a lot of mistakes that I believe I made because I started the church so early, that I probably would not have made if I had been more mature. When I started the church at age twenty seven, there were some things I didn't know yet about human nature, and to be honest, some things I didn't know about myself, my own deficits, my own psychological

And he was ninety years old when this happened.

So tell somebody next to you, there's hope for you yet.

And one day I was just going through a list. This was recent.

I was going through a list of all of the dumb things that I did in the foundational stages of our church that I regret now because looking back, I say, that was so dumb that I set it up that way. If I hadn't set it up like this, we wouldn't be dealing with that.

Now I see that this was a bad idea. I thought it was good.

But now this this thing that was so good thought.

I thought it was so good when we started, and this thing that I said.

And now is just ah. And I'm just beating myself up.

That's my spiritual gift, just to beat the crap out of myself. And so I'm doing all this jiu jitsu on myself making myself feel bad, and again, with wisdom, she steps in and says something that's so simple but so wise. She's like, why are you punishing yourself for decisions that you made with revelation that you didn't have at the time.

Why are you punishing.

Yourself over yesterday's mistake with today's revel.

The truth of.

The matter is that at every stage along the way of leading this church, I've tried to do what I thought was right in that season with the resources.

That I had.

And I can respect that, because even if I.

Came to see later then I could have done it better. I did what was right at the time.

I led in the light that I had, with the light that I had, with the knowledge.

That I had, with the wisdom that I had. Meager, though she were, I.

Led this church the best I could in the light that I had. I want to call your attention to two parts of Genesis, chapter thirty two, Verse thirty one. One says the sun rose above Jacob as he passed, and the other says he was limping.

Now, for the rest of this message, I want to talk about.

Those two physical elements, but I want to use them symbolically for spiritual purposes for what you're going through in your life. It says the sun rose that's number one, and he limped. So there's two characters at play in this text. There's the light and the limp. The light and the limp. And what I want to make the case to you about in your life Jacob's life. My life today is that the light didn't stop the limp, but the limp couldn't stop the light.

They're like preaching that today.

So here he is Jacob ninety plus years old, getting ready to go deal with his brother Esau, who he cheated out of a blessing twenty years earlier.

Jacob has spent twenty years in sort of a layover situation at his uncle's house.

His uncle is named Laban.

As it often happens in life, what happened to him during the layover was even more important than what happened when he got to the destination. It was at Laban's house that he met his wife, Leah. It was also at Laban's house that he met his second wife, Rachel. Turn to your neighbors, say you only get one just the Old Testament progressive revelation, and.

So is it truth?

Sometimes the stuff that happens.

While you're trying to get where you're going becomes the stuff that's the most important, and that while you're on the way to where you're going, you stumble over what you were actually supposed to do all along. I mean, that is absolutely true in my life.

And yet we don't see.

By all the light that there is only the light that we have. Right now, somebody is living in the life, but only a little bit of light. All night long, Jacob has wrestled with a man. He's not sure who the man is at first. He's not even really sure who the man is when the match is over, but he has a little bit of a better picture, a little bit of a clearer picture, and he's wrestling, grappling, and in many ways losing in this battle against this opponent that he can't see. He is living in the

He walks past nile.

He says, this is the place where I saw God. The sun is rising and he's limping at the same time. To me, that is very powerful to describe what it is like to walk with God. I remembered this funny story, and Graham probably doesn't remember it, but one of his early birthdays, I was out preaching in Oklahoma.

I wanted to be home for his birthday.

Somebody let us borrow you know what story I'm about to tell. Somebody let us borrow their little plane, and so we were gonna fly back that night so I could preach at night and then fly back.

Remember this. We got on the plane.

The plane was very small, so it couldn't get really above the weather, so we had to circle around all these storms.

But I wanted to be back by his birthday. He's finally had four or five at the time.

And we got on that plane and the pilot said, well, we're going to be able to get you home. It's just a matter of win because we're gonna have to stop a bunch of times to refuel this plane because the plane is very little and they can't hold much fuel, and we're gonna have to fly around the weather.

So we don't know.

We took a three hour trip from Oklahoma City to Charlotte, North Carolina, and twelve hours later, at seven am, I walked in the front door and Graham was just waking up on his birthday, and he said, how'd you get here so quick?

Because he thought I left that morning. He thought I left that morning.

He had no idea that I had been flying all night to get there what he called quick. People ask me sometimes how did Elevation Church grow so quick? Sometimes people look at your life and they can't understand how you are where you are, and they look at you and they think it just came natural. But what they don't see is I thought all night. I thought all night to get here. I fought all night and half the morning. I thought all night and half the morning.

But they don't really know what you.

Went through to get there, do they? They don't really know what you went through to show up at the job.

Every day last.

Week do they, And you would never tell them that because to tell them what you went through to get there would make you feel a little vulnerable and insecure because you don't think you're supposed to fight because nobody else shows you their fight. You only see the fragments of their life that shine through a screen light, and so through the light of the screen, you can't really see the struggles that other people deal with. So now here you are in your life feeling like, oh, I

You don't know what they were doing last night.

I don't know what's going through their mind right now, So why would I compare myself with somebody I can't see through? And I think it's worse than ever for our kids, because now I gotta compare myself.

To the whole world at all times.

When I first.

Started learning how to play guitar, I just had to be better than my friends.

In Monk's corner who also played guitar. There were three. Now, I gotta look at a four year old in Japan who can play Stairway to Heaven left handed on one string.

I suck.

And just about when you think you're doing pretty good, here comes somebody.

Y'all, there is a man in our neighborhood.

I testify God as my witness. I am not lying that when we walked by.

His house yesterday, yesterday he was putting up his Christmas lights. Pray for all the dysfunctional.

People who are clapping for that, like that's normal.

That's a demon.

That's a childhood trauma that needs therapy. Because it's November fifth or sixth or something like that. It just got cold three hours ago, and you're blasting simply having a wonderful. He had music playing in his yard. All the kids were out there, nobody was fighting.

I was like, what's wrong with me?

I don't even know where we keep our Christmas lights. Holly's in charge of that. I'm not a man. I'm not a good man.

With a kid, I start playing sports, I thought, well, maybe I'll coach their team.

They start playing baseball.

I found out real quick the standards for coaching little league baseball have changed since I played little league baseball.

Used to be you know, show.

Up, don't be drunk, don't yell at the umph. My dad coached my team and he didn't ever play baseball, didn't know about baseball. He went to the library and checked out a book. I saw you see him reading the book how to coach Little League Baseball. Times have changed. He bought a rule book. He memorized the rule book. He's out there teaching us to play baseball. He was, he was, he was well, the team was worse than he was. It was anyway, the whole season, all he.

Let us do was bunt because we were that bad.

So I'm out there thinking my boys, like, well, maybe I could, maybe I could coach the team. Maybe I could go to the library, go over to the car catalog, get a little book and learn how to coach.

And maybe that'd be a good memory for the kids.

Man.

I don't remember if they were seven or five or nine. I don't remember exactly.

It's all blurry, but they start talking to me pretty much before the boys were in middle school. You got them on a travel team. Yet I'm like, a, who what doing good? I'm doing good to get them out there for every practice. Note if you don't have them on a travel team. This is what the man pulled me aside and explain. If you don't have him on a travel team by age ten, they'll fall behind. They won't even be able to make the middle school team. I said, wow, looks like you're not making the middle

I feel like I'm behind and I don't even know how I got behind, But it.

Seems like everybody knows something, has something, sees something, and can do.

Something that I can't do.

What I realized about Jacob's life as the sun was rising and he was limping, is that he was born feeling behind. In the literal birth order of Jacob and Esau, they were twins.

Separated by only a few seconds, Jacob was.

Only going to get one third of the inheritance because that's the way it worked in those days, and.

So when he was born, he came out grabbing his brother's heel.

That's what the name Jacob means. It means heel grabber.

There was something in him, even in the womb, that was wrestling against his brother, something that felt like I'm.

Behind and I can't be behind.

For all of his clutching and grasping at his brother's heel.

He still came out second. Now, at age ninety.

He's very blessed because he's stolen a blessing in a birthright from his blind father Isaac. But yet there's a wrestling match that happens on his way to reconcile with Esau.

It's been twenty years.

Since he's seen him, and as he's getting ready to go and face Esau and make it right with Esau, he hopes because Esau could kill him, an angel appears and wrestles him to the point where his hip is wrenched, and he leaves the presence of the angel to face his brother. And the only evidence that he has that he's met with God is his limb. We think the evidence that we've been with God is that our situation

Could compare to them.

I came to announce to you today that nothing in your life is originated divinely by your comparison to people, only by your commitment to purpose. The starting place for contentment is commitment to purpose.

Why is that important?

Because the alternative to commitment to purpose is comparison to people. If I'm comparing myself to people, I'm always grabbing heels. If I'm comparing myself to people, I'm always feeling either better than or less than.

But neither of those will bring you close to God.

If I'm comparing myself to people, I'll always feel like I was born behind. And here's why. Because everybody in here has a limp. But some limps are more easily hidden than others. Some limps show up later in life.

Some limps show up privately.

Some limps show up in intimate relationships. Some limps show up in an inability to hold down a job.

Some limps have catastrophic results. Some limps have insidious.

Effects that no one can see.

Some limps you carry alone. But everybody came in here limping. Yeah, you came, but you're limping. You've been limping this week.

It's been a long week because you've been limping, limping.

I'm limping.

I'm here, but I'm limping.

I love God, but I'm limping.

I'm bringing this back from last week because something needs to break in our lives to where we stop showing up on Sunday and not getting what we really need from God because we don't want anybody to see where we really limp, or where you stop coming to church every time you have to limp in because.

You feel too guilty. That's how shame operates.

The time when you need to drag your behind to this church the most is the time where you've done the dumbest stuff in your life and you say, God, I need a course correction.

God.

I need you to top me off. I need you to fill me.

I feel empty, I feel.

Crazy, I don't feel.

Like myself limp in here and see if the Lord won't lift you up. The Bible says, humble yourself.

Under the mighty hand of God, and in due time.

He'll lift you up.

So watch this, somebody say, the light is coming. It's a new day dawning on Jacob. The sun is coming up over Jacob. The night is over, the wrestling is over, the struggle is over.

He has let go.

Of his old self.

He has received a new name. He has been touched and transformed by God. He is carrying destiny. He is on his way to his purpose.

But he's limping.

Because the light doesn't stuck the limb. Just because you know doesn't mean you can do it.

It just because God.

Just because God shows you who is calling you to be, doesn't mean you yet have the courage to do it. Everything that I've become in my life, everything I've accomplished in my life that was worthwhile for God, I confess to you, I limped into it. What are you limping into today? The light is coming and Jacob is limping, and those are not mutually exclusive. I don't know if this is too deep, if I'm preaching it. Maybe if at the wrong time to the wrong people or something

The evidence of this meeting with Jesus was a limp that never left Jacob's life. So I suggest to you that some of the times of the greatest light will also be the times of the greatest limp. And the Bible says that Jacob limped all the way to the place where he met his brother aside, you can get their limping.

Where God has taken you, where he's calling you, what he's drawing out of you, what he's using you to do, what he's moving you into, how he's maturing you, how he's growing you.

It might not be pretty, that's all right, nobody's is all. The pretty people.

Just have really hidden limbs, just really hidden limbs, and some of the people with the biggest strut are compensating for something that they're dragging behind them. Now imagine you're Jacob, and maybe this is how you feel in your life. He's coming up on something that is the most important meeting he's ever had.

If this goes bad, Esau kills him. The stakes are high. How many WOUM say that's high stakes?

And it's not like it's even going to be a close call because Esau is a skilled hunter.

Jacob is a skilled cook. By the way, that's.

Part of the reason that Jacob felt very insecure in his life because he never had his father's love. His father loved Esau, so one of the reasons he pretended to be his brother was to get the love of a father who expected him to be something that he could never become because it wasn't according to his purpose. Jacob isn't just limping at age ninety. He's been limping all of his life because of the love that he didn't get from the only one who could really confer.

A blessing on him. He's limping.

See, there is a reason if in your life you're not who you're supposed to be. Yet there's a reason for that. There's an explanation for him. Yeah, I would love to be a better wife, but it's hard for me because I didn't see that model. I've been limping. I would love to be a more patient person, but I grew up in a family where people exploded with their temper, and I am trying to unlearn that template so that I can change it and turn it around

Me how to do this thing.

So I went into debt trying to compensate for the love.

That I didn't get.

I went into debt trying to compensate for the approval that I didn't get. I've been limping my whole life. I've been struggling my whole life.

And the truth of it is, some of the people that are critical of you would celebrate you.

If they could understand how hard.

It was for you to get to this point with your limp. And don't let them intimidate you when they show you their dance. Because everybody limps somewhere. Everybody limps somewhere.

They're not farther along than you.

They're just called to a different place than you, so they have a different pace from you. So when you get there on Thanksgiving and they say I thought you'd be married by now, say I thought you would have learned how to pray and let God lead me by now, and stop trying to manipulate my life.

I'm not late.

I'm moving this thing along. The man i'm gonna marry is still earning his millions.

Yeah, I'm not late.

I'm not late. This is a layover.

I'm gonna get some blessings, some maturity, some strength, some lessons, some truth.

I'm gonna get some things while I'm in Laban's house.

Yeah, when I get where God is taking me, I got everything I need.

Humble yourself. Tell your neighbor your limp won't make you late.

Because what I love about Jacob is he's been up all night. He's tired, he's scared, he's afraid, he's in turmoil. He's got an ulcer. He's about the fight his brother. He doesn't know what's gonna happen next. He's uncertain, he's anxious. Pastor, I thought you were talking about Jacob. It sounds like you're talking about me. We're talking about all of us. We're talking about all of us. But the sun's coming up. The sun's coming up. The Sun's coming up. It's a

The light came, and he was limping.

Now not only do I have to face he saw, but I gotta do it limping, and that means I can't even run. Has God got you in a place right now where you can't run from it? And did he do that intentionally? Is he trying to show you who you really are, who He really is? Have you been caught in the constant comparison trap where it is a cycle that makes you sick, a nauseating noticing of what everybody else has that you don't have.

Wait up, I'm limping. I'm trying to catch you, but I can't.

You know.

Not only did Jacob feel this way, your great apostle Paul felt this way. He was writing to the Corinthian Church and they were doubting his credentials as an apostle. They said he didn't speak as well as a polus. So I wrote him a letter. When he got to about chapter fifteen of First Corinthians, that's a long letter, he started telling him how he really felt about it. He said, verse three, for what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance. Now that underscores

Now watch how long the list is that Paul gives, and I'll show you why I'm reading this.

After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some of them have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me, also as to one abnormally born.

Last of all, if you ask for people to quote a scripture from the New Testament, the first ones that come to our mind are written by this guy, Paul. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Learn the secret of being content.

I am crucified with Christ, all of these wonderful things that.

He passed on to us, the apostle Paul.

And yet he said I was the last one that he appeared to in a literal chronological sense. He meant it that after Jesus had been taken up and they all got to see him in bodily form, he had to knock Paul down on the Damascus road, blind his eyes, and change his name from Saul to Paul, and bring him to a place of conversion. But he also meant it a little differently. Look at the verse again, verse eight,

That's literally what his name means, Paul means small. So there is much speculation among.

Scholars that Paul was called the small one, the little one. There's even language in this text that makes us think that maybe Paul was calling himself some kind of freak.

I'm a freak. I came last.

He showed up to all the other apostles in physical form.

But to me, I was the last one.

And yet Paul says, even though I got a late start, even though I don't deserve it, even though I might be smaller than less than and.

Have seen less than look at verse nine, for.

I am the least of the apostles, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. Do you see how he's still limping over the life that he lived before he met Christ.

He never got.

Over that he was present at the stoning of Stephen, and he.

Never forgot it.

That guilt never went away from Paul, that shame never fully left him. He is still dealing with it and the church that he's trying to lead is throwing it back in.

His face, and he says, I'm not going to argue with you about that. I'm not gonna pretend that I don't limp. I'm not gonna try to pretend like I was the first in line. I'm not here because I was the first in line.

I'm here by faith, through grace and the grace of God that reached for me, that reached and pulled me from the back of the line.

I came to.

Preach to somebody who's been limping. I've been behind lately. I don't know what I need to know. I didn't get what I wanted to have.

But watch what Paul said, give me the next verse. I'm the least. I don't deserve it. But by the grace.

Of God, I am what I am. I'm not racing to become something that I'm not called to be.

I am what I am.

Somebody say, I.

Am what I am, and where I am is where the great I am wanting me to be. So I'm limping, but I'm not late. So I'm not up to your standard. But I'm not living for your approval because I'm not created by your hand. Because my days aren't ordained in your book.

I find somebody say I'm right on time.

I'm right on time.

Because watch this. The light is coming. The light is coming. The light is coming. The light is coming. The light is coming.

I've been depressed, but.

The light is coming.

I've been down having rubble figuring it out, but the light is coming. I've been unsure, down on myself, rolling in his security.

But the light is coming. The light is coming. The light is coming. The joy is coming.

A new day is darning. I'm waking up.

So what I always was, I am what I am by the grace of God, and the grace that brought me safe thus far will lead me home. If I gotta get their limpis, if I gotta get there a.

Little behind, if I gotta get there.

Tuesday, if I gotta put it back to Wednesday, if I gotta.

Make up for it at the end of wedding three, I shall do it.

And the Lord said, it's no coinci. Then I'm preaching this on daylight.

Save these times Sunday, because something happened this morning. When you woke up, you had an extra hour you didn't know you have. God said, I'm gonna give you time I'm gonna restore the years.

You're gonna have time to do it.

Whoever is forrests hidden deep right now. And I don't want this shout to get in the way of your receiving this ministry, because it is a terrible thing to watch everybody else go ahead of you and feel like you're limping, to watch everybody else be happy and feel like there's some demon in you that won't let.

You enjoy life, to watch everybody else.

Move up in their career, and to feel like you keep moving backwards, staying plateaued. Every time you get a little momentum, you get a little set back.

You're limping.

But the grace of God came to Paul, if God came to Jacob, the light of God is dawning in your life to let you know.

You're not late.

In order for you to be late, there would have had to be something that God did not account for that happened.

In your life.

And if something happened in your life that God didn't account for, then he's not God.

So the fact that God started.

It means that he knows where it's supposed to be right now, means that when God called you, he accounted for traffic.

I'm so tired of watching people beat themselves up over comparison that has nothing to do with their calling, asking little four year olds what college are you applying to. We've gone absolutely crazy in this culture to say to you that the spirit that gets on you, that has you subjecting yourself to a standard that has nothing to do with the spirit of God. It has to let you go right now, in the name of Jesus, put your Christmas lights up in February for all I care.

I'm not late. I abide in Christ.

And since I abide in Him, that means that everything in His season that is supposed to come forth is coming up.

Somebody's shout is coming up.

Say I abide in Christ, and everything in my life is coming up, is coming up. Say it again, I abide in Christ, and everything in my life is coming up lovely in abundance at just the right time.

I dare you to give God a praise for that.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

The light's coming.

Man.

I know it's been a dark night. You've been wrestling alone, you've been feeling behind your whole life. But the light is coming limp into it.

I said, Lord, what do you want me to tell them about this message that they can never forget?

He said, to tell him limp into it. Limp into it, because.

One thing I love about Jacob he might have been limping, but he didn't lay down. And that's how you accomplish it, and that's how you make it, and that's how you grow, and that's how you know who God is.

Is you limp into it.

The beauty of today's limp, he said, it becomes tomorrow's lean. Follow me real quick, y'all got like three minutes for me to finish this message. M it'd be weird if I preached a message called You're not late and you told me to hurry up and finish my message. Be kind of ironic because I was reading about I was reading about the end of Jacob's life. Yeah, Minister l J, that'll be good. He uh, he lived fifty more years after this wrestling match. So guess what he saw didn't kill him.

He Sau didn't kill him. He had to limp to Esau.

In Genesis thirty three, verse four, the Bible says that he made his way toward Esau. Remember, he's limping and as Esau's coming toward and the Bible says verse four Genesis thirty three, Verse four, I got shit.

It says that Esau ran to me Jacob, and the beauty of that is that Jacob couldn't run to it, so it ran to him. Did you hear what I just said to you?

Because you've been thinking, well, if I would have had this opportunity sooner, I could have done it.

But I can't now because look where I am now.

No, no, no, you limped to it, and God will make it run to you. In fact, when the writer of Hebrews many centuries later, remember it's progress of revelation. We don't even know at this point in the story that Jacob and Esau are going to go.

And you don't even know at.

This point in the story that this is the nation of Israel that Jacob is carrying with them. We don't know any of that yet, and you don't know any of that yet. But it's all on God's schedule of revelation, so that at the end of Jacob's life. This is what the author of Hebrews said about in verse twenty, that by faith Hebrews eleven, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

Now watch this, and this is how I want you to leave today. Verse twenty one.

By Faith Jacob, when he was dying, fifty years after he wrestled with God.

When he was dying, blessed each of.

The sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his staff.

So what it means to me is that my limping today will teach me to lean tomorrow.

The greatest blessing of Jacob's life happen not as he was running grabbing, but as he was leaning. So the Lord said, limp into it. But make sure that what you're leaning on can hold you as you do, because for what you're going through. You can't lean on the addiction. It won't hold you for what you're going through right now. You can't lean on your own understanding. It can't direct you for what you're going through right now. You certainly cannot lean on what other people are saying that you

But faith will get us there. Nothing but faith will carry us forward.

Specifically, now, I want to pray for someone who has been limping and thought that it made them less.

And maybe the light that you want to give them today.

Is knowledge that you've still got them right where you want them, and even just that would be enough to keep them going forward.

Our eyes are on you, Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.

We fix our eyes not on things that are seen, but things that are unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Thank you for the light, Thank you for your word. Thank you for the Gospel of your son Jesus. Thank you that we don't wander like those in darkness, hopeless.

Thank you that you have not left.

Us in our ignorance, but you have given us the light of the revelation.

And this in the face of Christ, the glory of God. We have seen you.

Face to face, and yet we did not die.

We call this place Panio, and we thank you for the light of the gospel flooding in.

Thank you for new beginnings today.

Right now I want to pray for somebody who needs to make this stay their new beginning, somebody who the Lord Jesus Christ is calling unto himself.

Right now. You know, when the light comes and you.

Can't see any way forward, but that next step, that's all God calls you to take. The very first step of faith, is to give your life to Jesus Christ.

And right now it would be.

My privilege and my honor if you say I've been far away from God and this message.

Today I feel God drawing me back.

And yes I'm limping, and yes I'm limited, and yes I've wasted some time, but I'm coming toward the light today.

You take that one step toward him.

He will carry you, he will rescue you, he will save you, he will cleanse you, he will forgive you, he will make you.

A new creation. He will change your name. With head's ballot and eyes closed.

All over this campus and all of our campuses, We're going to pray a prayer out loud for those who are coming to God, are coming back to God. Repeat this prayer after me, Heavenly Father. I am a sinner in need of a savior, and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the savior of the world.

And today I make Jesus the Lord of my life.

I believe he died that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life. This is my new beginning. On the count of three, raise your hand. If you prayed that one, two, three, shoot your hand up. I want to celebrate with you thought that.

The Lord.

Along. Can we clap our hands?

Can we celebrate together?

Thank you Jesus.

Hey.

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