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Guest (Female): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. Do you want God's blessing upon your life and your family? Then you must be the kind of person that God will bless. The character that is introduced to us in today's message is an unlikely candidate. On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about the world-changing impact you can make. Now, here's Dr. Graham with his message, Struggling Faith.

Jack Graham: Take your Bibles with me and join me in God's word at the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, which has been described as God's Hall of Fame or God's Hall of Faith. We are introduced to the heroes, the heroes of faith, the great stories of the Bible. Since I was a small boy, I have reveled in the stories of the Bible, these great heroic adventures of faith that we read about in God's word. It reminds me to say that we need spiritual heroes today. Not only celebrities—we have many celebrities and stars—but we need men and women, common ordinary people who possess a faith in God to do extraordinary things in their lives.

You need to be a spiritual hero to your children and to your grandchildren. In order for God to use you and in order to be that kind of person, a spiritual breakthrough needs to take place and the favor of God, the blessing of God, would then rest upon your life. So let me just ask you: Do you want God's blessing upon your life? If you want that kind of blessing in your life, then you must be the kind of person that God blesses. The kind of person that God blesses may surprise you because the character that is introduced to us in today's message is an unlikely candidate. He was more of a character than a man possessing character, and his name is Jacob, a man who struggled with his faith really nearly his entire life.

He was like so many of us: up and down and down and up, struggling to live out the faith that we profess. Now, we're in good company and so is Jacob in that the apostle Paul—I consider the apostle Paul the greatest Christian who ever lived—and yet in Romans chapter seven, he exclaimed, "The very things that I want to do for God, I don't do. And the things that I don't want to do are the very things that I find myself doing." Paul knew the war within, that spiritual struggle. So we're going to be talking today about struggling faith, and we're going to learn this lesson about how faith may struggle and ultimately win through the story of Jacob. In the end, this man, this irascible man, became a man of faith, but it came through the struggle and the brokenness of life. Look at verse 21 of Hebrews 11: "By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff," or leaning in worship over the head of his staff.

So let me tell you a little bit about Jacob. You have to start with his family. Now, his family was totally dysfunctional. He was born the second of twins to his parents, Isaac and Rebecca. And even as these twins were in Rebecca's womb, the struggle began between his brother Esau and Jacob. They were fighting and moving in the womb. Genesis 25:22 says the children struggled together within her, and she said, "If it is thus, why is this happening to me?" How many expectant mothers have said that? So she went to inquire of the Lord. So the day came and these twins were born—Esau first and then catching hold of his heel was Jacob. And thus he was named Jacob.

His very name means the heel-catcher, the one who trips you up. And it literally means cheater, conniver, contender, or struggler. In fact, when the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, the word deceitful there is the word for Jacob. So we all have a Jacob heart. Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked; who can know them? Therefore, the heart, the Jacob heart in all of us, must be transformed. And certainly, this man's heart was deceitful, and he spent most of his life as even before his birth, struggling. In the womb, then he struggled with his brother Esau.

He tricked him out of his father's blessing. He even tricked his aged, blind, and dying father out of the birthright, out of the blessing. Ultimately, he connived and cheated and manipulated with his father-in-law, Laban. He struggled with his two wives. Now, that would be a struggle if you had two wives. How would you manage that? But he had two wives and then kids with the two wives and, again, the whole family is messed up. And he's right in the middle of it. How could he turn out the way you would expect a child to turn out? I mean, he struggles his whole life.

He was a flawed man of faith. He was a religious man, but he was not a spiritual follower of God. He was not a man of faith. He knew about God all of his life, but he didn't know God. In fact, he spent most of his days trying to use God rather than being used by God. His faith was superficial and shallow, and he used his faith when he wanted it and forgot it when he wanted, like a lot of us, unfortunately. His faith just fluctuated and moved here and there and everywhere. So as a result, his life came to a crisis point when God really broke through in his life. He had cheated his way through life. You know, the one thing he could do all of his days was to run. He had good legs. He was a runner, and he was running his whole life from his past and his problems, his family, especially Esau, who hated him and had vowed to kill him.

So the moment came when Jacob and Esau were about to confront one another. This is 20 years in advance of the stealing of the birthright and so on, and Esau shows up with 400 men, and he waits to catch his brother. So in Genesis chapter 32, we read exactly what happened, verses 22 to 32: "The same night he arose," that is Jacob, "and he took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had. And Jacob," and this is critical, "and Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

And then he said, 'Let me go, for the day is broken.' But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' And he said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Jacob.' And then he said, 'Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.' And then Jacob asked him, 'Please tell me your name.' But he said, 'Why is it that you ask my name?' And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, 'For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.' The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping, limping because of his hip. And therefore, to this day, the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh."

So now we talk about Jacob's fight. He'd been fighting and struggling his whole life. Then comes this defining moment, this breakthrough, this spiritual breaking point of his life. He's alone in the darkness. Can you imagine what he's doing? He must be fretting; he's fearful; he's worrying; he's praying. He thinks this could be the end. It's often when we are alone in the darkness, it's often when God gets us isolated, so often in a crisis of some kind, that he can really get our attention. Too often we're moving here and there and we don't have time for God. We're on the run, and typically, God doesn't speak to us on the run. Now, you can pray anywhere and everywhere, but if you really want a spiritual breakthrough in your life, you need to take time alone with God.

As a result of this crisis in his life, he is brought to the end of himself, and God had him right where he wanted him. And the Bible says in verse 24 that a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the dawn. Now, who is this one who wrestles with him? There are ideas that have been expressed. What was Jacob thinking? Maybe he thought Esau had attacked him in the middle of the night—his brother had come to get him. Or maybe he thought a demon had jumped out of hell to attack him. Some of the rabbis suggested in the rabbinical literature that it was his guardian angel that attacked him. Now, imagine a man so despicable that his own guardian angel attacked him.

But we really don't have to wonder who this is grappling with Jacob: God himself. Because Jacob later identifies the one as "I have met God face to face." This is the Angel of the Lord's presence, referred to often in the scripture, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. And so he is grappling with God. He's fighting God. And when you wrestle with God, you're going to lose big time. Did you know that? If you've been resisting God and fighting God and struggling against God in your life, rebelling against God like Jacob, there will be a time when you're going to come face to face with God himself. So when you step into the ring with God, you better be prepared for what God is about to do. And what God is about to do is to crush your resistance and claim your reliance. And the only way you can win with God is to surrender.

Guest (Female): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, Struggling Faith. Be sure to sign up to receive Dr. Graham's daily video devotion on the Seven Words from the Cross. This powerful study will remind you of the sacrifice Jesus made so that we can be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God. Dr. Graham will share a short devotion about the final words that Jesus spoke from the cross and what they mean to us today. To sign up, text CROSS to 59789. It's absolutely free to join, so text CROSS to 59789.

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Jack Graham: Jacob held on for the blessing. You see, God wanted Jacob. Jacob wanted God's blessing and God's favor, but God wanted Jacob himself. So he discovered life's most important lesson when his hip was taken out of socket, when he was wounded in this wrestling experience. It was a painful experience that was a reminder for the rest of his life of this encounter with God when he was broken, when he came to the end of himself and his self-reliance and his self-dependence and his arrogance and his ego and his conniving and his manipulation and capitulation of his faith. He came to the place where he discovered what every one of us needs to know, and that is: it is in our weakness that we are made strong.

Guest (Female): I want you to know that right now, your support goes even further to help share the hope of Jesus with people around the world. Thanks to a generous $150,000 matching grant, every gift this month will be doubled to help proclaim God's word through PowerPoint Ministries. That means you'll help reach even more people who desperately need truth, encouragement, and the gospel. And as a heartfelt thank you for your generous gift this month, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, Help, to remind you that you are not alone, your pain is not unseen, and God's peace is real. Text MAR to 59789 to have your gift doubled and request your copy today. Again, text MAR to 59789.

Guest (Male): Be sure to sign up to receive Dr. Graham's daily video devotion on the Seven Words from the Cross. This powerful study will remind you of the sacrifice Jesus made so that we can be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God. Dr. Graham will share a short devotion about the final words that Jesus spoke from the cross and what they mean to us today. To sign up, just text CROSS to 59789. It's absolutely free to join, so text CROSS to 59789. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?

Jack Graham: It is when our ego and our arrogance is conquered, when our deceitful heart is destroyed and that we are broken. God wants to get the Jacob out of every one of us, and he often uses painful experiences. You say, "I want the blessing of God, the favor of God on my life and family." Do you really? Because it's been my experience and it has been my observation through the years that God rarely, rarely if ever blesses people without first breaking people. Thankfully, you can choose a broken and contrite spirit, but the fact is most of us go through the broken experiences of life in order to learn this lesson. It's the lesson the apostle Paul learned when he prayed that God would remove the thorn from his flesh, the painful, torturous thorn he prayed again and again and again.

And he discovered God's grace was sufficient. Though God did not remove the pain and the thorn, he said, "I've learned in my weakness that I'm made strong." And that's the lesson we all need to learn. Now, the Lord asked Jacob, "What is your name?" Now, God knew his name, of course, but he was bringing Jacob to the point that he could face himself. Someone said adversity introduces yourself to yourself. And so when he comes face to face with God and God asked him, "What is your name?" he had to admit, "I'm a liar, I'm a cheater, I'm a Jacob." He'd been living up to his name his entire life. And now he admits his failure and his frustration, and then God blesses him. Thus we see the favor of God upon him.

How did God bless him? He became a new person. The blessing of God means that he was transformed and he now is no longer living in his own strength, but in the strength of God himself. The power of God now rested upon him. Can you imagine the next day after this all-night bout with God and, you know, he comes into the camp of his family and he's limping and he's all disheveled and he's coming in like this? And they say, "Jacob, what happened to you?" And he said, "I just got blessed." And he limped the rest of his life. Every ache, every pain was a reminder of his dependence upon God. It was a life lesson that he would never forget. He became a new person. Finally, he came to the place where he said, "God, I want you more than anything else in my life."

This is a picture of prevailing prayer. Sometimes when we talk about wrestling with God, it's a picture of persevering in prayer and pushing through and praying until we pray. Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of God's willingness to bless us. But there's a time to pray and to continue to pray until the answer comes. So we in one sense wrestle with God in prayer. We struggle. Paul spoke of this in the book of Romans 15:30. He said, "Strive together with me in prayer. Struggle together with me in prayer." God delights to give us his favor and his blessing in life. He wants to give it, and sometimes we need to strive and struggle in prayer because we don't have it right yet. God wants to give us something more. God wants to give us something better.

God wants to give us something else. Have you ever thanked God for unanswered prayer? So yes, we're to struggle and strive in prayer, but ultimately, the struggle was about the surrender. And he limped through the rest of his life, leaning on the Lord. So he had a new position. His name is changed to Israel, prince with God. He's crippled, but he's now crowned. He's crowned with God. He could always run from his problems; now he could barely walk, and that with a cane, leaning on his cane. And he had a new potential. Why did God choose Jacob and put him in his Hall of Fame? Why not Esau? Why Jacob? How could a man like this make it to this level? I'll tell you why: because God saw the potential in this man. God knew that he had a heart that once it was surrendered would be powerful for him.

He became the progenitor. The Jacob name became the name of Israel, the people of God. The potential was there all the time. He just needed to give up so that God could get done what he wanted to get done in his life. It's the lesson that Jesus taught us as well: that if you want to gain your life, you must lose it. It's not always in the victory, but it's in the struggle that we win. It's in what God does when we contend with him and he conquers us and we live in his power and his grace. We used to sing a little chorus: "learning to lean, learning to lean, learning to lean on Jesus; finding more power than I've ever seen, learning to lean on Jesus." Of course, we love that song taken right from the scriptures: "leaning on the everlasting arms."

That was the place, the new position, the potential that he now had, leaning. And of all the adventures of faith, you read these stories of faith in Hebrews 11, these mighty conquering heroes. And of all those, the one thing that put this man in this position and in our memories today is because he learned how to worship God leaning on his staff. Bowed down, it came to the end of his life. He was 147 years of age—147. He's tired; he's worn out; but his family gathers around him for those last words. And what do they hear Jacob doing? Worshiping God. He's blessed; he's leaning; he's loving God; he's worshiping the Lord. So the point is for us: if you want a spiritual breakthrough in your life, you need to let God do whatever God wants to do in your life. To be strong at the broken places.

I'm told if you break a bone that it grows back with the calcification and so on, stronger than it was before. And when we are broken, we can come back stronger in God. And here's this man adoring and praising God at the end of his days. He finished well. His life was up and down, and what an encouragement that is to us: that no matter where we've been, no matter our past or our family or our situation or what we've been through, it's never too late for a new beginning in Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from sin. We can be forgiven; our lives can be transformed.

And when Jesus spoke later of Jacob, he spoke of that ladder that Jacob saw in his dream, ascending and descending angels. And that ladder is a picture of Christ. Jacob's ladder is the pathway into the presence of God. The ladder is Jesus. And when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, our lives are changed. When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part; when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall be amazed, watch his methods, watch his ways! How he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects!

How he hammers him and hurts him, and with mighty blows converts him into trial shapes of clay which only God understands; while his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands! How he bends but never breaks when his good he undertakes; how he uses whom he chooses, and with every purpose fuses him; by every act induces him to try his splendor out—God knows what he is about. Struggling faith puts you in the position to have a powerful faith that is real and forever. If you're struggling in your faith today, give it up to God. Let God do what he wants and only he can do in your life. Remember the potential that he has for you and what you could be as a mom, a dad, a parent, a partner in your marriage, a person for God. If you will simply allow him to break you that he may bless you in ways unimagined.

Jack Graham: Throughout his life, Jacob was concerned with receiving God's blessing and favor. That was a good thing in one sense, but do you know what God really wanted? God wanted Jacob to completely surrender his will, in particular his self-will, to the Lord. Not so that he could hurt or limit Jacob, but so that he could liberate him to fulfill the true potential that God wanted him to achieve. You see, God had called Jacob to be the forefather of his people, but to fulfill this calling, Jacob had to give up control of his life. This is very much the same lesson that Jesus taught us in Matthew chapter 10, when he said, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

It was essential that Jacob be completely dependent and reliant on God. And so God finally confronted Jacob's struggling faith by orchestrating the ultimate wrestling match: Jacob versus God. And finally, after a night-long struggle that resulted in Jacob's hip being pulled out of socket, Jacob was finally conquered, conquered and surrendered to God. God crushed Jacob's resistance and rebellion and claimed his reliance. Now, Jacob lost the wrestling match, but in losing, he won everything. When God conquered his physical strength and when God conquered his self-will, Jacob finally learned the great joy of depending on God completely.

Through his weakness, Jacob was made strong in faith, and in the struggle, Jacob found the real blessing and abundance that comes from complete reliance upon God. All right, let me ask you something. Are you struggling in your faith? Are you struggling in life? Do you really want a spiritual breakthrough when you receive from God all that he desires to give? Then you must surrender to him and allow God to work within you as he desires to do. It is through brokenness that we find blessedness. Let God fulfill his promise in you. He knows the person of God that you will be when you surrender to him. He knows the kind of parent you will be, the kind of child you will be, or employee, or athlete, or whatever you do in life if you are yielded to him, if you're given to him. So for you to fulfill your potential and become all that God wants you to be and do for him, you must stop struggling and surrender your life unconditionally. And when you do that, he will bless you in ways you never thought possible. And that is today's PowerPoint.

Guest (Female): Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, Help. Just text MAR to 59789. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about where God's plans meet your purpose. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.