Your New Name
Dying to Self, Part One
If you have your bible, turn to Genesis chapter 32.
We’re starting a new series today,
based on the life of Jacob.
Gen 32:22 TNIV
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives,
By the way, we’ll deal with that in a couple weeks…
his two female servants 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,
This is when God will do some of his best work in your life,
when you’re left alone.
When the distractions are gone,
away from the opinions of people,
and even from the comfort of those you love.
That’s when God can touch you in the deepest places,
Gen 32:24-26
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?"
I think that’s kind of funny,
because they’ve been wrestling all night,
but they haven’t even been introduced.
"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 human beings, and have overcome."
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.
I’m calling this new series, “Dying To Self.”
I’m sure most of you have heard of
the cultural phenomenon known as the selfie,
If you’ve been living in a cave for the last couple years,
and aren’t aware,
a selfie is a picture you take of yourself,
usually using a cell phone,
and then you post it online,
I read that there are over 1 million selfies posted worldwide, each day.
Now let me assure you,
the reason for that series title is not
a church campaign urging everyone to delete all your
facebook, instagram and twitter accounts.
I’m not going to spend the next several weeks
admonishing you not to post
pictures of yourself on the treadmill,
or a status update about what you just ordered from Starbucks,
or an adorable collage of your cat in different poses
with scripture verses overlaid
and hashtagged, Holy Kitty.
Hopefully we’ll go much deeper than that.
But I want to use the selfie,
as kind of a symbol
of the conflict that all of us experience.
It’s the conflict between who we really are,
and how we’d like to appear.
the conflict between who we really are,
and how we’d like others to perceive us.
the conflict between who we really are,
and who we think we’re supposed to be.
The goal is for us to let go of
who we think we’re supposed to be,
so we can be who we really are
who we were created to be, by God.
So we’re going to spend several weeks
looking at the life of Jacob,
because Jacob spent much of his life,
trying to figure out who he really was,
and he made a lot of the same mistakes
that you and I make.
So lets go back to Genesis 32, the passage I just read.
Jacob is in a wrestling match at night,
he’s not yet sure who he’s wrestling,
but he knows its gotta be someone powerful,
and he is not gonna quit till he gets a blessing.
Now, this isn’t the first time
we see Jacob wrestling, in scripture,
in fact the very first time we see Jacob in the Bible,
he’s wrestling, and he hasn’t even been born yet.
Gen 25:21-26 NLT
Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was unable to have children. The Lord answered Isaac's prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant with twins. 22 But the two children struggled with each other in her womb.
She goes for her sonogram,
and they’re hooking all the wires up to her,
smearing the slimy stuff on her belly,
and the technician stops and says,
wait a minute, this is really weird,
you’ve gotta see this,
first, you’re having twins,
and second, they’re already going at it,
they’re already wrestling,
in fact, one of them is doing a body slam right now,
So Rebekah says something
that every mother has said at some point, with her kids,
"Why is this happening to me?" she asked.
The babies aren’t even born yet,
and she’s already gone from,
God please let me have a baby,
to Lord, "Why is this happening to me?
Wouldn’t this make a great mother’s day sermon?
Lord, "Why is this happening to me?
So it says
Rebekah went to ask the Lord about it.
And the Lord told her, "The sons in your womb will become two nations.
In other words, this is bigger than just you.
We’re going to talk about that more later.
because when God’s doing something in your life,
its almost always bigger than just you.
It goes on…
From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son."
24 And when the time came to give birth, Rebekah discovered that she did indeed have twins! 25 The first one was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat.
Okay, how many of you men are hairy?
Any hairy guys here?
Yeah, it takes guts to raise your hand.
Some of you didn’t used to be as hairy,
but now you’ve got hair growing in places it didn’t used to be.
It moved from on top of your head,
to the middle of your back.
The bible continues…
So they named him (Chewbakka) Esau.
The name Esau comes from the word, Red.
Then it says,
26 Then the other twin was born with his hand grasping Esau's heel.
So the first time we see Jacob,
he’s grasping Esau’s heel.
So they named him Jacob.
Jacob sounds like 2 words in the Hebrew language,
heel grabber, and deceiver.
So when they saw Jacob grabbing Esau’s heel,
they said, hey we have the perfect name for you,
Jacob, heel grabber.
And that name stuck with him for the rest of his life,
because of something that happened,
before he was even conscious.
Its crazy how life can do that to you.
You can get stuck with something
that was a part of you before you were even born,
before you ever even made a choice,
so Jacob was born, trying to get ahead,
he was born, grabbing his brother’s heel,
trying to pull him back, and get ahead.
You see, to be the first born in that culture,
meant that you had a lot of rights and privileges
that the younger son did not have.
For example, when the inheritance was given out,
it wasn’t split equally,
the oldest son got twice as much as anyone else.
No wonder Jacob wanted to be first.
Instinctively, not in his mind,
but something in his nature
right from the start,
had this me-first mentality,
I want to be first…
because if I can just be born 5 seconds earlier than you,
then I can get more than you have.
And for any of you who don’t believe in original sin,
that we’re all born with selfish attitudes,
all that tells me is that, you haven’t had children yet.
And if you don’t believe in the devil,
that just tells me your kids aren’t in middle school yet.
But Jacob is born with this me-first mentality,
just like all of our kids are.
You don’t have to teach a kid to say, me,
You have to teach them to say please.
but you don’t have to teach them to say mine,
You don’t have to teach them to say no,
We all start with this me-first instinct.
We live in a me-first world.
Let me ask you,
How can you even begin to have a God first focus,
in a me first world?
Is it even possible?
because our instincts are me-first,
the messages we get hundreds of times every day
from the marketing world,
are all me-first.
Jesus said something one time that was pretty powerful.
He said “The way it works in the kingdom,
many who are first will be last,
and many who are last will be first.”
In other words,
it’s not always the ones who get ahead,
who are ahead.
Now we’ve all heard that before,
but if we try to apply it to this world
and what we see around us,
we’re tempted to think,
Uh Jesus, what planet are you from? Heaven. Oh…
You see, that’s how it works in heaven.
many who are first will be last,
and many who are last will be first.”
And Jesus is bringing the kingdom of heaven
to this earth,
But most of us are so earthly,
we’re so wrapped up in this culture,
its very tough for us to understand the idea that,
maybe it shouldn’t be me-first.
We honestly identify a lot better with
Ricky Bobby’s classic line in Talledega Nights, (next SLIDE)
“If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
But let me tell you something,
if you haven’t found this out yet, you eventually will,
If you spend your life grabbing at heels,
with a me-first mentality,
and everything is all about you,
and you’re so concerned with what
everybody else thinks about you,
let me tell you, living that way is exhausting.
Me first is miserable.
Me first is miserable.
It’s miserable to be grabbing at heels.
It’s miserable to be living only for yourself,
It’s miserable to never have a bigger thought than,
What’s best for me?
It’s miserable to be disconnected from people around you,
because you’re always thinking about yourself.
Me first is miserable.
And it doesn’t even work, ultimately,
Because Jesus says that the me-first, will be last.
and the last will be first.
In Luke 9:25 Jesus says…
What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?
What good is it, if you grab after stuff,
and grab after status,
and grab after success,
only to find out that it left you farther behind,
than if you’d done nothing at all.
Because in the process of grasping for stuff,
and status, and success,
you lost your very self.
There’s some of you here this morning,
and you’ve lost your self,
And in order to find yourself,
you must let God show you a self,
that’s not about stuff,
and not about status,
and not about success,
Because me-first, doesn’t work.
Jacob comes out grabbing at heels,
but he’s still born second.
Now lets fast forward in Jacobs life,
This week we’re kind of jumping around,
doing an overview of his life.
We started at baby Jake.
then we get to Jake the snake.
Because in addition to meaning heel-grabber,
Jacob’s name also meant Deceiver.
And that’s kind of how he lived his life.
Now his brother Esau, remember, the hairy one,
Esau was tough,
Esau was rough,
he was the hunter.
But it says this about Jacob…
Jacob loved to stay among the tents,
In other words,
he was a Momma’s boy.
He liked to watch reruns of Downton Abbey.
His hero was Bobby Flay.
Jacob could cook.
but Esau could hunt.
And we see this as they grow up,
we’re not going to talk about this story now,
we’ll get to it later,
but one day Jacob actually trades Esau a bowl of beans,
for Esau’s birthright.
There were two parts of being the oldest son,
there’s the birthright, and the blessing,
both were important,
but the blessing was most important.
We’re going to talk another week about
how Esau gives up his birthright, for a bowl of beans,
and we’ll be talking about how people often give up
what we want most, for what we want now,
and how dangerous that is.
But a few years after that story,
we see Jacob, with a new scheme,
he’s already got Esau’s birthright,
now he wants to get the blessing.
Why wasn’t it enough for Jacob,
to just get Esau’s birthright?
Why does he want to steal the blessing too?
What is Jacob’s problem anyway?
You see, the way life works is
when you are centered on yourself in life,
it is never enough.
it is never enough.
You’ve always got to have more.
Author C.S. Lewis said,
“We don’t take pride in the possession itself, but in having more of it than someone else.”
So its not enough just to be thin, I want to be thin-er than her.
Its not enough to be rich, I want to be rich-er than him.
Its all about the er.
I’m not satisfied of my kids are smart,
they have to be smart-‐er
than yours.
Jacobs grandfather Abraham was born in a land called
Ur, of the Chaldees.
I wonder if we aren’t all still living in the land of er.
I gotta be Bett-‐er.
cool—er
I want a nice-er car,
a bigg-er house…
Its all about the er
Now, here’s the problem with that.
No matter how er you are,
You will always find someone who is “er-‐er”.
So you’re never content.
Well, Jacob’s already got the birthright,
he swindled his way into that.
Now he wants to steal the blessing too.
The story is found in Genesis 27.
It says that Isaac
who you remember is the dad,
Isaac was getting old and his eyesight was very poor,
and he knows he doesn’t have a lot of time left to live,
so he decides its time to give the blessing to Esau,
as the firstborn.
The blessing wasn’t just a prayer,
it was like a prophetic statement
that conferred the authority and rights of the father
onto the firstborn son.
So Isaac calls in Esau,
and Isaac really liked Esau
because Esau was the hunter,
and Esau would go hunting and bring back tasty game,
But Rebekah liked Jacob,
because Jacob was the mommas boy,
and would stay at home with her in the kitchen,
So there’s this division in the family,
so Isaac calls in Esau, and says,
its time for me to give you the blessing,
but first go hunting, and kill me some food,
and after I eat I’ll give you the blessing.
Well, Rebekah hears this, and tells Jacob,
hey, I’ve got an idea.
Esau’s going hunting,
here’s how you can steal his blessing,
your dads almost blind,
we’ll just dress you up like Esau,
and you pretend to be Esau and go get the blessing.
Now you read this,
and at first you think, hey, this is Rebekah’s fault,
it was her idea.
But you have to realize,
by this time Jacob is a grown man,
he’s not a boy, he’s not a teenager any more,
he’s a middle-aged man, and he should know better.
How many of you know,
at some point in life, you have to get past the point
where you blame your parents.
You get past the point where you say, its my moms fault.
She didn’t change my diapers often enough.
Its her fault.
No, you’re a grown man now,
you’re a grown woman now,
you take responsibility for it.
So Jacob goes along with the scheme.
He dresses in Esau’s clothes,
And Rebekah gets some goat skins
to cover Jacobs hands and neck,
because remember, Jacob is smooth, but Esau is hairy.
Then she cooks some stew and gives it to Jacob,
and he takes it to his dad.
Verse 18
He went to his father and said, "My father."
"Yes, my son," he answered. "Who is it?"
19 Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing."
20 Isaac asked his son, "How did you find it so quickly, my son?"
"The Lord your God gave me success," he replied.
He’s giving God the credit for his lie.
21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not."
22 Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." 23 He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him.
But that’s not the end of the story.
You see what they didn’t think about,
is what would happen when Esau came back.
Esau came back, and he’s just been out hunting,
which means he’s got weapons.
And Jacob is good with a frying pan.
Esau is good with a gun.
Paper Rock Scissors,
Rock beats scissors.
Gun beats frying pan.
Esau comes back and finds out what happens,
and he says,
He took my blessing, I’m gonna kill him.
And now Jacob has to run.
Jacob goes to mom,
and mom says, you better run, boy.
And he runs.
He gets a blessing,
but he ends up on the run, for 21 years.
Did you know its possible to get what you want,
but then not want what you got
if you got it the wrong way?
Did you know its possible to get what seemed like a blessing,
but the way you got it leaves you on the run,
because it wasn’t really you.
So this blessing, wasn’t much of a blessing at all, was it?
And I want to share something
that is kind of the theme of this series,
And I want you to let it sink in,
God cannot bless who you pretend to be.
God cannot bless who you pretend to be.
God cannot bless Jacob dressed like Esau.
And God can’t bless you or me,
when we’re pretending to be something else.
I don’t know about you,
but there are many me’s.
There’s me as I am,
and I get frustrated with that version of me.
Then there’s me as I wish I was,
me as I want to be.
Me as I hope to be.
and that version of me is awesome.
If you could meet that version of me,
you’d want to vote for him as president.
I mean, he’s consistent, kind and loving,
He’s disciplined and accomplishes amazing things,
but at the same time fun-loving,
He doesn’t have one extra pound of weight,
but he can eat desserts whenever he wants,
He’s amazing.
That’s the guy I wish I was.
But I know that I’m not that guy,
and everybody else knows that too.
So somewhere in the middle,
between the real me,
and the perfect me,
there’s a third me…
we’ll call him counterfeit Ken,
and counterfeit ken is what I pretend to be.
Now don’t look at me confused,
because you have a counterfeit you too,
you have a pretend person,
that you act like you are.
We all have the me that you actually see in the mirror,
and the me that you wish you could be,
and somewhere in the middle
is the me that you show to others.
So what we do is we get out the goat skin,
and dress in Esau’s clothes,
and put on a mask,
and pretend we’re something else,
and we do what we see somebody else doing,
and learn how to talk the talk,
and wear the right brands,
and look the right way,
because we want a blessing.
And so we become somebody else,
only to realize that
that blessing doesn’t really count for much,
Because Jesus said,
what good is it to gain the whole world,
if you lose your very self in the process.
What good is it?
What good is the blessing of Isaac,
if you can’t even stay at home once you’ve got it?
What good is it?
What good is it to fool Isaac,
when you don’t fool yourself.
You may fool your neighbors,
but you’ll never fool your God.
God can’t bless who you pretend to be.
Jacob got the blessing, but he lost himself,
and had to run away.
Maybe there’s someone here today,
and you got the popularity,
but you’re losing yourself,
you got the possessions,
but you’re losing yourself,
you got the home, you got the car,
but you’re losing your soul,
what good is it to gain the whole world, and yet lose your very self in the process.
It took Jacob many more years, to finally figure this out.
21 years, to be exact.
After 21 years of running from Esau, he finally decides,
I’m going back home,
I’m tired of running
maybe there can be reconciliation,
maybe Esau will forgive me,
maybe Esau won’t kill me,
so he heads back home,
and of course during that 21 years he’s had a lot of success,
he’s worked for his uncle Laban,
and he’s rich now,
and he’s married with a bunch of kids,
You see, sometimes it takes you getting all the stuff
you thought you wanted,
before you realize,
that’s not what you really needed.
So Jacob starts on the way back home,
and on the way back he hears that
Esau is coming to meet him, with 400 men,
and Jacob is terrified…
but the night before he meets Esau,
he wrestles with God.
Isn’t it interesting,
that all of his life, Jacob’s been grabbing onto other things,
but now someone else grabs onto him.
Now the scripture doesn’t say its God,
and Jacob doesn’t even really know its God at first,
but he figures it out along the way,
because at the end he says,
I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.
Theologians will tell you that this was a
pre-incarnate form of Jesus Christ.
You see, Jesus, being God,
didn’t just come into being 2000 years ago,
he was there when the world was created,
but he simply took the form of a baby 2000 years ago at the incarnation.
In any case, they wrestled all night long,
and Jacobs hip went out, so he’s hurting,
but he keeps wrestling,
Gen 32:26
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."
I think you can safely assume, that you’ve found yourself,
when you hold onto God, even when it would be easier to let go.
when you hold onto God, even when you’re hurting,
when you hold onto God, even when its dark and you can’t see clearly what’s going on.
Jacob says I will not let you go.
I might be hurting,
I might be hobbling,
I may not even be sure who you are,
but I will not let you go.
Have you found out that,
Sometimes you’ve just gotta decide in your life,
I want this bad enough,
I’m sick of faking it,
I’m sick of posturing,
I’m sick of pretending,
I’m sick of posing,
I’m sick of proving myself,
I will not let go,
I’m going after this all the way,
this is important enough,
this is significant enough,
this matters enough to me,
I will not let go,
Some of you here are tired,
I want to tell you, don’t let go of God.
Some of you don’t feel like God is blessing you,
don’t let go.
You might not feel strong enough,
but don’t let go.
They might have the upper hand,
but don’t let go.
Why? Because God has a blessing for you,
if you don’t let go.
So Jacob says, I will not let you go, unless you bless me.
Jacob says, I’ve been holding onto heels all my life,
trying to get blessed,
I was holding onto Esau when I was born,
but now I’m holding onto one
who is way greater than Esau,
now I’m holding onto the only one,
who really has the power to bless me,
someone who knows who I am,
and meets with me anyway,
face to face,
so I will not let you go.
I’m letting go of what people think,
and I’m letting go of what people say,
I’m letting go of my past,
I’m letting go of where I’ve been,
because I can’t do anything about all those things,
but as the sun comes up,
I want to let you know God,
that I am holding onto you.
And then it gets a little weird, because…
27 The man asked him, "What is your name?"
Jacob’s thinking,
This is a fine time for us to get acquainted,
We’ve been wrestling all night,
You wrecked my hip,
and now you want to know my name?
Why did God, in the form of this man,
need to ask Jacob that?
Do you think he didn’t know?
Yes, he knew every detail of Jacob’s life.
But you see, we’ve heard that question before…
What is your name?
When Jacob went in to see his dad,
and Isaac says, who is it?
And Jacob said, I am Esau.
And he got blessed as Esau, 21 years ago,
but now its time for Jacob
to get a blessing for himself.
So God is saying,
I know who you pretended to be,
but who are you really?
Are you gonna keep pretending?
What is your name?
And he responds in verse 27,
"Jacob," he answered.
Heelgrabber, deceiver, backstabber,
The one always trying to be first,
yep, I’m Jacob.
I’m finally ready to take off Esau’s clothes,
and quit deceiving people,
I’m not gonna pretend any more,
I struggle, I’ve got some issues,
I’m Jacob.
And when he finally admits who he is,
look what happens.
Verse 28
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,
Once he admits his real name,
God can bless him with a new one.
He goes on…
because you have struggled
Notice, its because you have struggled
Its not always in your successes,
but in your struggle,
that God will show you who you really are,
because you struggled…
with God and with human beings and have overcome."
That’s why you get a new name…
Did you know that if you’re a follower of Christ today,
God gives you a new name?
Aren’t you glad he doesn’t call you by
what you did,
or who you’ve been,
but he calls you by what Jesus did,
and he said I’ll give you a new name,
I’ll call you righteous,
I’ll call you holy,
I’ll call you pure,
I’ll call you beloved,
You have a new name,
And Jacob didn’t just get a new name,
he got a new identity.
Instead of Jacob,
heelgrabber, deceiver,
he is now Israel.
Do you know what Israel means?
Triumphant with God,
or one who Prevails with God.
Now here’s the strange thing about this.
You would expect
that now that Jacob has his new name, Israel,
that from that point on,
the scriptures would use the new name, Israel.
But if you keep reading,
you see that for the rest of his life,
he’s called both.
Sometimes he’s called Jacob,
sometimes he’s called Israel.
And you wonder, why would God give him a new name
if he wasn’t going to use that name all the time.
I think it’s because, change is complicated,
doesn’t happen all at once,
Just because I have a new name
doesn’t mean I’m not gonna have the same struggles.
Just because I know God
doesn’t mean I’m gonna completely know myself.
It’s a process.
On my computer at work I use Microsoft Outlook to manage my calendar, but our church uses Google calendar, so I also use that on my cell phone,
and I have it set so that my Google calendar will automatically sync with Microsoft Outlook, so my cell phone and computer show the same calendar.
But then I changed cell phones,
I got a new one,
and suddenly I started getting this error message on my work computer (PICTURE)
Its really frustrating, because this error message keeps showing up on my computer about 20 times a day,
and its basically telling me,
Hey, I tried to sync up these 2 devices
but its not working like its supposed to.
you made a change, you got a new cell phone,
and now there’s a problem, there’s a conflict,
its not working like its supposed to.
That is a picture of life.
Any time you make a change,
it causes some conflict, doesn’t it?
I change cell phones, and I get error messages.
You try to make good changes in your life,
and it causes some conflict.
You stop smoking,
but now you’re gaining weight and yelling at your kids more.
You decide to pray more,
but now you’re bible reading goes out the window.
Life is all about conflicting changes.
You start to follow Christ,
and God calls you a new name,
but guess what, there’s still conflict.
You have a new name,
but you still act the old way a lot, don’t you.
God calls you Israel, but you still feel like Jacob,
But here’s the good news…
I want you to know,
God is comfortable with that conflict,
he understands that conflict,
He’s patient with us,
He’s not intimidated by your inadequacies.
And we can see this in the story of Jacob.
The last thing that happens in this story is that
Jacob asks the man his name,
but God doesn’t tell him,
because it wasn’t the right time.
Then, many years pass, Jacob is now dead.
His descendants multiply in Egypt, but are made slaves,
and then God appears to a man named Moses,
speaking from a burning bush.
And in Exodus 3.
Moses asks God the same thing Jacob asked God,
Moses says,
Ex 3:13-15
13 Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I Am has sent me to you.'"
Now most people, when they’re teaching this story,
they kind of stop right there.
That’s the part of the story we remember,
from the burning bush.
God tells Moses his name, I AM.
But God doesn’t stop there, he goes on.
in Verse 15
God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites,
you want to know who I am,
you want to know the kind of God I am?
Tell them this…
'The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac
and you’d think he’d say the God of Israel,
because that’s Jacob’s good side,
that’s the new Jacob,
If you’re God, and you want to make yourself known,
wouldn’t you want to call yourself the God of Israel,
wouldn’t you want to be the God of their good side?
wouldn’t you want to be the God of the guy
who was changed, in the wrestling match?
But yet he says to Moses, and he says to you today,
if you want to know who I am,
then you need to understand,
I’m the God of Jacob too.
I’m the God of Jacob
I’m the God of that part of you,
that you don’t want anyone to see.
I’m not just the God of your success,
I’m the God of your struggle,
I’m not just the God of your victories,
I’m the God of your defeats,
I’m the God of Jacob, too.
And the God of Jacob is in this place, right now,
his name is Jesus.
And He is full of mercy,
He’s full of grace,
He’s full of truth,
and He’s full of forgiveness…
He’s the God of the hurting,
He’s the God of the hopeless,
He’s the God of the skeptic,
He’s the God of the backslider,
He’s the God of my lonely places,
He’s the God of Jacob.
That is good news!
Lets stand for prayer and praise the God of Jacob.
Would you bow your heads in prayer…
There’s someone today who needs a new name. You came in as Jacob, and you’re leaving as Israel. If you need to place your faith in Christ, whether its for the first time, or you want to come back home after 21 years of running, God wants you to know today that you can have a new name. So that you’d no longer be called sinner, but you could be called saint. And that happens when you call on the name Jesus, and commit your life to him.
As we continue to bow our heads, I want to do something a little different, I’m going to say a prayer, and I’d like everyone here this morning to pray this out loud after me. Ready?
Heavenly father, I believe that Jesus Christ, is the son of God, and the savior of the world. I believe he died on a cross, to forgive my sin, and he rose again, to give me life, I receive this new life, I repent of my sin, I trust in you, as my Lord and savior, I’ll follow you all the days of my life. Amen.
Praise God, lets worship him together.
