Cling to Christ

Introduction

Genesis 32:22–28 NKJV

And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.

Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” So He said to him, “What is your name?” he said, “Jacob.” And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob…

•     Jacob is on his journey back to Canaan… and, as we have talked about for a few weeks… he should have been going with a good deal of confidence… after all, it was the land that God promised bring him to safely.

Genesis 28:15 NKJV

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land…

Genesis 31:3 NKJV

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.”

•     God said He would go with him… so Jacob had every reason to be confident. He had nothing to fear… we talked about that in the first sermon of this series…

•     He had nothing to fear economically, for he was now a wealthy man.

•     He had nothing to fear from his brother Esau and his 400 men… because he was surrounded by angles.

•     And he had nothing to fear from God, for he was walking in obedience to God’s promises and commands.

•     He had found the source of prosperity, the source of protection, and the source of guidance and hope… things were good… and yet…

•     You ever find yourself in that situation? Things are good… and yet…

•     Things are good… and yet… I am depressed.

•     Things are good… and yet… I am anxious.

•     Things are good… and yet… I am distressed.

•     Things are good… and yet… I am scared.

•     Things are good… and yet… I am hopeless.

•     WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

•     Is your name depressed?

•     Is your name anxious?

•     Is your name scared?

•     Is your name hopeless?

•     Things are good… and yet… I am not good.

•     This is our third sermon in this series where we examine the question God asked Jacob… What is your name.

•     We have dealt with fear… we have dealt with pride… and we even have dealt with false humility… let’s deal with everything else this morning.

•     Because sometimes what bears us down is not one large burden… but hundreds of small ones…

•     Maybe you can’t identify one major thing in your life that is wrong… but there is just so much going on… so many responsibilities… so many issues… so many voices telling you what to be and who to be and how to be it… and you are tired of carrying it all around…

•     Here is the message for you this morning… before you can walk in your new name, you need to shuck off all the old ones.

•     Point one this morning… before you can receive your new name, before you can walk in your new name… you must empty yourself and leave everything behind.

Point One – Leave Your Baggage Behind

Genesis 32:22–24 NKJV

And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. Then Jacob was left alone…

•     Before I dig into this point I want to show a video that happened last summer in Denver… an American’s Airline plane experienced a fire during landing and had to be evacuated… I want to show you just 40 seconds of that evacuation as taken by a passenger’s cellphone…

•     Show AA-Evacuation.mp4 in the “Videos for Sunday Services” folder

•     There is more to this footage, but I wanted to show you something… did you notice how many people took their bags with them… and I am not even talking purses, I am talking full blown backpacks and carry-ons, sometimes multiple bags…

•     This lady is carrying three bags, and the guy behind her has a huge backpack on…

•     This guy also has three backpacks, and in his other hand is his daughter who is slipping… You know what would help your daughter? If you held her with BOTH HANDS…

•     This lady has at least two bags and something in her arm… maybe a baby?

•     But take a look at the guy behind her… THAT IS A FULL CARY ON!

•     This is the carry on dude… he went up into the overhead bins to get that carry on… and he is carrying his kid by the collar… here is an idea! LEAVE THE BAGS BEHIND!

•     Anyone who has ever flown knows that in emergency landing you leave the bags behind! This plane evacuated so slowly… I have seen planes just regularly deboard faster than this.… the aisles are tiny… wearing a backpack takes up precious space… and the audacity of opening the overhead bins… Like can you imagine, the cabin filling with smoke and some dude is like “Excuse me can I just get in here real quick?”

•     Now we are going to come back to the airlines example for point two, but I just want you to have those pictures in your head as we talk about getting a new name…

•     Jacob left everything behind, his family, and his stuff, and he went into a cave alone… and interestingly enough, to get to the cave he crossed the  Jabbok River… Now if you were here for our 11 traits series you know that names are important… and here the name Jabbok comes from the Hebrew word that means “to empty”.

•     Might I suggest, church, that some of your struggles… some of your identity crisis… some of your issues remain because you are carrying too much.

1 Peter 5:7 NKJV

[Cast] all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

Psalm 55:22 NKJV

Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you…

Matthew 11:28–30 NKJV

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

•     When I was a kid my dad had this Pilgrim’s Progress board game. And in this game each player had this big backpack, it was the players burden… I don’t remember much from that game, other than it had a huge board and kind of reminded me of the Game of Life… but I remember that in order to win you had to first remove your backpack… you had to first lay your burden down.

•     Now I was a kid when I played this and I wasn’t a Christian yet… I mean my name was Christian… and I was playing a board game about a dude named Christian… but I was not born again… I had no idea what this little backpack represented… but I always remembered playing that game and the requirement to remove that little plastic back pack… to remove that burden…

•     And now as a born again believer I still have that image of that backpack in my head… when I read verses like Psalm 55:22 and Matthew 11:28 and 30, I think of that little plastic backpack on that little figure… and the act of taking it off and laying it at the foot of the cross…

•     Sometimes I think we get too transactional when we come to Jesus… we don’t want to lay our problems down at His feet… instead we want to hold on to all our problems… and just have Him kind of fix them… they are still OUR things, but I want Jesus to do something with it…

•     Like I come to Jesus with a spreadsheet of problems, and I just want to go through one by one…

•     Jesus I am depressed… can you fix that…

•     And when you are done with that can you fix my marriage…

•     and when you are done with that, can you fix my kids… especially… the DIFFICULT one… you know what I am saying…

•     And when you are done with that can you fix my financial situation…

•     And while we are here I have this lower back pain… and I haven’t been sleeping good… and I need help taking care of my aging parents… and I don’t know what to get my wife for mothers day… am I even supposed to get a mother’s day gift for my wife Lord?

•     And what about this… and what about that… and here is the other thing…

•     And while we are here Lord I am just kind of feeling a bit overwhelmed so if you could do something about that… that would be great…

•     Well YEAH YOU ARE OVERWHELEMED… LOOK AT ALL YOU ARE CARYING… LOOK AT ALL YOU ARE HOLDING ON TO…

•     Instead of carrying all those burdens… just lay them down at His feet… come empty handed and let Christ be enough…

•     And, listen, I am not saying don’t pray about these things… it is good to bring all of this to good… it is good to petition God… Philippians 4:6 says to be anxious for nothings but in all things by prayer and thanksgiving… let your requests be known to God.

•     But we are talking about your IDENTITY… not your problems… and I think too many people confuse the two… Jacob is going to leave this cave with a new identity… and he is still going to have problems… This series is not about fixing your problems… it is about fixing your eyes on Christ and realizing that your problems don’t define you… Christ defines you… and WHO you are in Christ should shape how you feel about and respond to those problems…

•     I want you to respond to your problems as more than an overcomer… I want you to respond to your problems as a saint of God, a royal priest, an heir of Abraham’s promises… Just like Jacob needed to respond to his problems not as Jacob… but as someone else…

Genesis 32:27–28 NKJV

So He said to him, “What is your name?” he said, “Jacob.” And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob…”

•     I want to do something a little different for a moment… something I don’t think we have ever done as a church, but I want to give you this opportunity… and don’t get to excited we still have a whole ‘nother point after this… but before we move to point two… let’s do this prayerfully for a moment…

•     I want everyone to close your eyes… now we are not new age… we are not meditating for the sake of being empty… but for the sake of being filled with Christ…

•     ake a breath… take a moment… slow down and just be with Jesus… I want you to imagine a bag, a backpack… or maybe even a cary-on bag… take all your problems and put them in that bag… Putyour past in that bag… put your sin and the consequences of that sin in the bag… take your addiction or whatever you have been struggling with… drugs, alcohol, sex… doom scrolling… whatever… put it in the bag… and not just the bad stuff… but the stuff you have to deal with too… take all your responsibilities and imagine them being stuffed into that bag…

•     the bag is starting to get heavy… it is hard to move… it’s straps are starting to dig into your shoulders…

•     Take what other people think about you… other peoples expectations… and put it in the bag…

•     Take your job, your finances, your health… put it all in the bag…

•     Responsibilities to your friends and family… if it is weighing you down… put it in the bag…

•     Now I want you to take that bag… take it off… and lay all of that at the feet of Jesus…

•     Feel the relief of not having to carry those things… for just a moment… just be alone with Jesus… just you and Him… empty handed…

•     Now listen, when you leave this place you will still have to deal with everything you put in that bag… you still have to be a parent… you still have to provide for your family and go to work and deal with finances… you still have to overcome those addictions, repent from those sins, deal with the consequences… but those things are NOT your identity… to get your knew Identity, to walk in your knew Identity… you need to be empty handed and then you need to cling to Christ…

Point Two – Cling to Christ

Genesis 32:24–28 NKJV

Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” So He said to him, “What is your name?” he said, “Jacob.” And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob…”

•     Now we know this “Man” who wrestled with Jacob is none-other than Christ in the flesh…

•     We know this for a variety of reasons… first the man calls Himself God when He renames Jacob into Israel saying “You have struggled with God”.

•     Second because Jacob said this Man was God when he named that place Peniel “For I have seen God face to face”.

•     Third because this “Man” refused to give a name to Jacob when asked…

•     Fourth because this Man had the spiritual authority to change a name, only God does that in scripture…

•     And finally fifth, most notably, because the prophet Hosea straight up calls this Man YHWY El-oh-HAY Tzva-OT which means: The Great I Am God of Angelic Armies, the LORD God of Hosts…

Hosea 12:3–5 NKJV

He took his brother by the heel in the womb, And in his strength he struggled with God.

Yes, he struggled with the Angel and prevailed; He wept, and sought favor from Him.

He found Him in Bethel, And there He spoke to us— That is, the Lord God of hosts. The Lord is His memorable name.

•     So Jacob is wrestling with God in the flesh… and even that makes sense… it was dark, Jacob was alone and fearing for his life…

•     And in walks a man… Jacob must have thought this man was an assassin sent from Esau…

•     With no weapon to defend himself, he did what he knew to do, he grappled the would-be attacker and started wrestling him…

•     He was fighting for his life… at first… but at some point Jacob must have recognized this was no ordinary man He was wrestling… and finally as day breaks… Jesus says “Let me go”… and Jacob does something crazy…

•     Jacob tells God “No”.

•     No I won’t let you go… not until you give me a blessing.

•     Did you catch that… God says “Let me go” and Jacob… a sinner, a fallen man… but a chosen man… has the audacity to tell God “No”.

Genesis 32:25 NKJV

Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him.

•     Here is something you will probably never hear a God Fearing Preacher say… there is a time, it seems, when it is okay to disobey Christ… when Christ says “Let me go”…

•     “No! I can’t let you go Jesus! I will never let you go Lord”.

•     When God says “Go on without me”

•     “No! If you are not going I don’t want to go either! I would rather stay here with you in the wilderness than enter the promised land without you!”.

•     When Jesus  says “I was not sent here for you, I was sent for the lost sheep of Israel”…

•     Church you protest and say “No! Give me a blessing also Lord”

•     And when Christ pushes back harder “It is not good to give the children’s bread to a dog like you!”

•     You say “But even the dogs eat the scraps from the masters table”.

•     You see the ONLY time in scripture where someone seemingly disobeys God and is blessed for it is when they say “No, I won’t let go until you bless me”… “No I won’t leave your presence”… “No, I just want a little scrap, I little bit, a little peace of your blessing, of your goodness, of your presence”.

•     And honestly, this is probably less of a command and more of a test… it probably isn’t really disobedience… because those who love Christ obey His commands… but it is probably more of a test than a command… but what it does is it reveals Jacob’s heart… He has a physical grip of the divine and HE IS NOT LETTING GO.

•     And it is not like Jesus NEEDS Jacob to let Him go… Jesus with a touch of His finger dislocates Jacob’s hip… there was no real wrestling match… Jesus was allowing Jacob to cling to Him…

•     And when He says “Let me go” Jacob clings the harder…

•     Church when you are afraid… cling to Jesus…

•     When you are confused… cling to Jesus….

•     When you are in desperate need of a blessing… Cling to Jesus…

•     When you feel your relationship with God slipping away… CLING TO JESUS!

•     How many people have I seen, for whatever reason, they start drifting away from God…

•     They feel farther and farther away from Him… He is not speaking like He used to, He is not moving like He used to… or so they think…

•     And their response? They let go of God… they start leaving church early and coming late… eventually they stop coming all together.

•     They stop fellowshipping with other saints, they stop reading thier Bible… they begin to fill all that time with secular and worldly things…

•     Why is that church? If we feel like God is slipping away, ought we not show up to church more? I’m bout to be at both service… I am signing up for Growth track… I am gonna start going to a small group…

•     If I feel like Jesus is slipping away I am going to read my Bible more, and watch secular media far less…

•     If I feel like my relationship with God is waning… I am not going to call my friend who stopped going to church years ago for advice… NO! I am going to find people who are ALL IN FOR JESUS and I am going to confess everything I am going through to them.

•     IF I FEEL LIKE JESUS IS LEAVING ME… though I know Jesus will never leave me or forsake me so it is probably me leaving Jesus… but if I feel like Jesus is leaving me I am going to CLING TO JESUS ALL THE MORE.

James 4:8 NKJV

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

•     Oh… I like that “Cleanse your hands” part… because it brings me back to point one… Leave your baggage behind… leave your burden at the foot of the cross…

•     Because if I am going to cling to Jesus I don’t want a backpack getting in the way…

•     Yes I have needs… and yes He is going to take care of those needs… but let’s just put that aside for a moment and CLING TO JESUS…

•     And it is in that moment, it is in that HOLDING ON FOR DEAR LIFE… that you find your new identity in Christ… Or day I say, saints, it is here, clinging once again to Christ, that you remember the New Identity Christ gave you the day you were born again…

•     If you are not born again, give your life to Jesus this morning… Cling to Him and He will give you a new identity, a new name…

•     But if you are born again, cling afresh to your savior and let Him whisper your name in your ear once again.

•     Now I will close with this story because I think it is a great reminder to all of us and a great bridge to the gospel… going back to the airplane example… if the worship team can come up…

Conclusion

•     This is an example I first heard given by Ray Comfort… and it has always stuck with me… Ray used it to explain the danger of the prosperity Gospel, but I think it does well to also explain the importance of clinging to Christ…

•     Airplane Crashing parachute example from Ray Comfort… do you want a parachute to make your flight better, or do you want it to save you from impending doom?