Trusting God with Complete Faith

Lord, thank you for the work you have done, and we pray that you would continue to work, that we could be like a little child that is able to receive from their father, and just trust you, that you have our best interests in mind, and that you love us and care for us. In Jesus' name, Amen. The ways of the Lord and the working of the Spirit is not according to the will of man, but according to the will of God.

There has to be first a hunger in order for there to be a change. Now, we all hunger for different things, but if we satisfy our hunger with natural things, we'll never have a hunger for the things of God. It's when we fast from things of the world that we start to become really hungry for the things of God.

So, it has everything to do with denial of self, self-will, self-pleasure, self-interest. It begins with a prayer, creating me a clean heart of God, renew a right spirit within me. And if we start to pray and ask God to do whatever he needs to do, he will begin his work.

But you have to give him the right to begin to work. Now, David was sharing about how the Spirit moved on people. That's a supernatural working of grace, and God can do that.

He can do that. But those of us who have knowledge and who understand the things of God somewhat and the will of God, we have to separate ourselves unto him. And that takes an effort.

It takes a being intentional. I don't usually like that word, but you have to be intentional about seeking his face and say, your face, Lord, I will seek when he says, seek my face. I wanted to share a little bit about Jacob.

Jacob had a purpose and a call on his life. The scripture says, before the children were born, that the older would serve the younger, and that Jacob I have loved and Esau I hated. In the process of time, we see Jacob was a bit of a scammer.

You know, I mean, getting phone calls, scammers. You can hardly stand them. You know what they're all about.

Jacob was a bit of a scammer. And he scammed his brother through the lust of the flesh. His brother was hungry.

He knew his brother pretty good. He knew that he could get the birthright from him for a bowl of red stew. And then in the process of time, he did the voice of his mother.

He deceived his father, disguised himself as Esau and stole the blessing, seemingly fulfilling the purpose and call of God for his life, robbing the birthright and stealing the blessing. But God, in the beginning, he knew all these things. In a sense, he wanted the favor and the blessing of God, and he wouldn't stop at whatever natural means or carnal means or deceitful means to get it.

But that's not where the story ends. That's just where the story begins. And then such hatred fills his brother's heart that his mom says, you got to get out of here because your brother's going to kill you.

And so he goes to a place called Bethel. And there he has an encounter with the Lord. There, it's like when we talked about Jacob's ladder, where the angels were ascending and descending, and he had a rock for his pillow, and he built an altar there.

And then he makes a deal with God. And I know when I was young in the Lord, I made a lot of deals with God. If you get me out of this jam, then you'll be my God.

If you do this for me and just help me and just bring me into some prosperity or some success or if you just get me a wife, then you'll be my God. And it's at this place where Jacob makes a deal with God and he says, if you are with me and you go and you bless me and you provide for me and you clothe me and you do all these natural things and provisions and you help me to get a family, I'm just kind of expanding it now and you bring me back to this place, then you'll be my God. As though somehow we can choose, you know, like, okay, if you do all this for me, then I'll do this for you.

It's in our ignorance, we say things like that. But you know, the Lord, in some ways, he brings to pass his end of the deal. And he allows it to be manifested that we can't keep our end.

Because but for the grace of God, we can't keep our end. We can have the best intentions. But intentions are a lot different than actions.

And how many times we failed God and we've made deals with him. I'll do this for you. I'll go into the ministry, I'll do these things.

And then later on, we get sidetracked because our flesh drives us on. Well, Jacob goes to a place and he meets Laban there and he has his eye on one of his daughters and Laban makes a deal with him. And then the deceiver gets deceived.

He worked seven years for this one daughter, Rachel, or something like that. And boy, he said, it just seemed like a few days. But I bet you the last seven years didn't seem like a few days.

It seemed like an eternity. Because what he did is he got Leah, the older one, instead of the younger one, he got deceived. Never wanted that one.

Never asked for that one, never made a deal for that one. But he got deceived. And so he gave him also the other one and all the guys got this mess going.

And he had to work another seven years. But the Lord was with him in it. And the process of time, the Lord blessed him and Laban was losing out and Jacob was gaining strength.

And then he says he feared Laban, that Laban would take his children and his wives from him. It says in Genesis in chapter 31 verse 31, then Jacob answered and said to Laban, because I was afraid, for I said, perhaps you will take your daughters from me by force. Fear motivates us to do all kinds of things.

Fear is exact the killer of faith. You can't live in fear if you're a man of faith. Fear will cripple you.

Fear will bring you to a place where you can't move forward and you don't want to go back and you just stay sitting. Fear will make you blind. I think of blind Bartimaeus sitting on the side of the road.

Someone who's you don't know what to do. And you start making bad decisions. But the scripture says in Proverbs in chapter three, I think in verse five, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart.

And don't lean on your own understanding. When we start leaning on our own understanding, when we're crippled with fear, we start making bad choices, bad decisions. Remember a time in my life we hired, I hired bad people because I felt like I needed them rather than waiting on the Lord.

And the end result of that was total chaos. We need to wait on the Lord, not lean on our own understanding, trust in him. He'll bring it to pass.

So Jacob went and he took off from Laban. He took his family with him. Genesis 31, verse 45.

So Jacob took a stone and he set up a pillar. And Jacob said to his brethren, gather stones. And they took stones and they made a heap and they ate there on that heap.

And he made a covenant there with Laban that Laban would leave him alone. And Jacob would go his own way. And he was headed back home, going back to the place where he was, where God had called them to.

And here comes Esau with 400 men. You don't come to meet your brother who swindled you out of your birthright and your blessing with 400 men unless you have a score to settle. And here Jacob again becomes crippled with fear.

And he has a way worked out. The scammer is still trying to scheme a way to try to pacify his brother to buy him off so that he can save his own skin, so to speak. And you know what? When the Lord deals with you, you'll seek to find another, an easier way out rather than allowing him to squeeze you and bring you to that place where you have to face your Esau.

Where you come to the end of self, self-trust, self-reliance, self-will. And let the Lord deal with that thing, that area in your life that you've been trying to hang on to. We've been trying to save your own life.

Brother shared about going to the river. You know, and most believers, if they've had a taste from the Spirit and they've trusted in the Lord at some point, but then, you know, we start trusting in our own resources. And we have the Lord, but we also have our own wisdom.

And they always come and go in the meetings. They'll go to these different meetings. You'll run around to different places, different meetings where the Spirit's working.

But they always come and go to come to a place where it's over the waist, where one must swim, where you lose control, where your feet leave the ground or the river. It's frightening place to be, but it's a place of faith where you have to trust that God is with you and he has you. And to live in that faith.

It talks about the elders. Many people, they say they want to be elders. And I'm telling you, gray hair doesn't make you an elder.

An elder is someone who's strong in faith, who are able to go through the valley, who are able to swim in the river, even though they don't know where they're going, where the Spirit's leading them. But they know that God is good and they trust him. Though you slay me, yet will I trust you.

Job said that. He trusted God in the process of what God was dealing with. He was able to accomplish it.

Though you slay me, yet will I trust you. And it manifests in all kinds of guile. When you get into a place where it's scary, all kinds of things will come out of your heart.

Scum that needs to be purged will manifest. And then you have to repent of it and ask the Lord to cleanse you of it and purge you, that you might be clean. It says, by faith the elders obtain a good testimony.

We can't have faith on Sunday and then Monday our faith goes somewhere. We want to become faith translates into faithfulness. Not fair weather Christians.

We want to be found faithful. Being found in Him. Not having our own righteousness, our own way worked out.

Jacob was trying to work his own way out. But we notice Jacob means supplanter, deceiver. And yet he hadn't had a conversion yet.

Yet God's been working with the guy for 20-30 years. But there's no conversion. His name hasn't changed.

He's still the same guy. He's still the guy who made deals with God that says, if you do this for me, then I'll be this for you. I'll choose you to be my God.

Here comes Jacob with 400 men. So Jacob chapter 32 verse 1, Jacob went his way and the angels of God met him. Jacob saw them and he said, this is God's camp.

This is God's camp. He called the name of the place Manahim. Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

And he commanded them saying, speak thus to my lord Esau, thus as your servant Jacob says, I have dwelt with Laban and stayed with him till now. And here's how he starts working. He starts scheming.

I have oxen. I have donkeys. I have flocks.

I have male and female servants. I have sent them to tell my lord that I may find favor in your sight. Then the messengers returned to Jacob saying, we came to your brother Esau.

He is also coming to meet you now with 400 men. They are with him. So all the blessings of God that God had done for him, if you do this for me, if you do that for me, if you do this for me, now he's going to take all those blessings and he's going to try and peace off Esau with them.

Try and buy him off. But Esau is having none of it. He's coming with 400 men.

I can imagine his heart must have sunk within him. Jacob was greatly afraid. He was distressed.

When you get fear and you get distressed, you start having panic attacks. You start making bad decisions, but the Lord allows it to manifest to show you where you're really at. This is not God's plan for us, but he allows it to manifest to show us that our faith is small, that our faith is weak.

And so we start trusting in ourselves. When we don't know what to do, we start to make up backup plans and God is not with our backup plans. He says, this is what I'll do.

He divided the people that were with him, the flocks, the herds, the camels into two companies. And he said, if Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the other company which is left shall escape. He's trying to cut his losses.

Maybe I can do this and cut my losses. Then Jacob said, oh my God, my father Abraham, the God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, return to your country and to your family, and I will do well with you. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which you have shown your servant for I have crossed over this Jordan with my staff and now I have become two companies.

He's coming to the end of himself here now. He's remembering that God was with his grandfather Abraham and he was with his father Isaac. And now he's calling on the name of the Lord and he's asking the Lord that he would be with him.

His conditions of peace have changed rather than if you do all this for me, then I'll do this for you. Now he's saying, Lord, remember me and all your mercies that you showed my grandfather and my father deliver me verse 11. This is a prayer of repentance.

Deliver me. I pray from the hand of my brother. From the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children.

For you said, I will surely treat you well and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered. He's reminding God of his promises. So he lodged there that same night and he took what came to his hand a present for Esau, his brother.

So he sent this, he's company and he sent these gifts 200 female goats. He's sending his brother 20 male goats. He's calling on the name of the Lord for help.

He wants to trust in the Lord, but he also is working with his backup plan. He wants God to come alongside and work with his plan, but God doesn't work with our plans. God brings our plans to nothing that we might come to genuine faith in him alone, Christ alone, God alone, not Jesus plus something else.

Jesus plus AA, Jesus plus NA, Jesus plus what I can do. You know, when I first got born again, I thought now with Jesus added to the package and all that I can build and all that I can do, imagine how it's going to go. And he began to shake everything that can be shaken, that that which is unshakable will remain.

And we don't understand his ways, but he's shaking loose of all that, that those things in which we trust, all our own abilities, our own skills, our own wisdom, our own knowledge. He's shaking all that carnal stuff so that that which is unshakable will remain. We're receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken.

You can't bring your junk with you. He lodged there that night, he sent his present to Esau, 200 female goats, 200 ewes, 20 male goats, 20 rams, 30 milk cows with their colts, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, 10 foals. He's sending no small present.

He's trying to subside his anger because he got cheated. You know, you cheated someone. How many times the Lord spoke to me through the Holy Spirit and I heard so-and-so was there or so-and-so was coming and I had cheated them in my in my previous life, taking money or didn't pay them.

And the Lord says, you go make it right. Well, I don't know if I have the means. You humble yourself, you humble yourself and you trust me.

That's when you're getting out there where one must swim, where you humble yourself and then you leave terms of peace to them. I've said many times, how much do I owe you? What will it be that I owe you to make it good? And sometimes it was a great sum of money and sometimes it was nothing at all. But humbling yourself and trusting in God, not leaning on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledging him and you know he's gonna direct your steps. Coming to a place you don't have to look over your shoulder anymore. That's a wonderful place to live.

You don't have to wonder, who did I scam? What did I say? What lies were told? No. Having peace with God and having peace with all men. We want to come to that place.

God has a process in which to bring us where we don't have to worry about what we say to who at whatever time because we know that our trust is in the Lord. Sometimes we go to the creek and I share about my past and they say, well you're very open and like you wear your heart on your sleeve. I say, you know what? The Lord dealt with so many of these things.

I'm ashamed of many of them but I can speak openly of them because God has done a work. I don't have to hide these things anymore because they've been brought to the surface. We don't want to have bones in our closet.

We want to cast all of our anxieties upon him because he cares for us and trust him that he's going to clean it up. Not going to just clean it up a little bit. He's going to thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the garner.

We need the Holy Spirit to just purge us of all filthiness. Deal with the garbage in our lives. All that hidden junk that we've got there.

Still secret stuff that's holding us back from going all the way with the Lord. Then he delivered them to the hand of the servants. Every drove by itself and he said to his servants, pass over before me and put some distance between successive droves and he commanded the first one saying, when Esau my brother meets you and he asks you saying, to whom do these belong and where are you going? Whose are these in front of you? Then you shall say, they are your servant Jacob's.

It is a present sent to my Lord Esau because he also is behind us. So he commanded the second drove and the third drove and all the following drove saying, in this manner you shall speak to Esau when you find him and also say, behold your servant Jacob is behind us for he said, I will appease him with the present that goes before me and afterward I will see his face and perhaps he will accept me. So the present went on over before him but he himself lodged that night in the camp.

Brother, this is how the flesh works. The flesh is always scheming, lying in bed at night trying to figure out a way rather than saying, Lord I've sinned full stop. I need you to help me.

I'm not going to try to save my life. My life is in your hands. He says, Lord you promised I would be, my descendants would be as the sand of the seashore and all this and that but then he's sending all his presents.

He's saying he believes it but he doesn't believe it at all. It's like our brother shared about Peter. Lord I'll die with you but then the very same night he denies the Lord three times calling down curses on himself.

I don't know the man. You don't know what's in your heart until you get funneled into the cocoon of his dealings and then you realize what's really in there. You're a scammer.

You're a deceiver. You're a phony. Your faith is not real.

You better figure out whether you want to serve God or whether you want to serve yourself because you can't say you serve both. You can't claim all the promises while you're doing things your way. The scripture says if a man seeks to save his life he's going to lose it but if you say here I am Lord I'm trusting you.

If you'll lose your life for his sake you'll find it. So here the man is by himself. He sent all of his companies.

He divided them all up according to his wisdom and I'm telling you the guy's got absolutely no peace. He has absolutely no peace. Verse 22.

He rose that night. He took his two wives his two female servants his 11 sons and crossed over the ford of Jabok. This place Jabok is a place where Jacob meets God.

You know we heard our brother share he had an encounter with the Lord. Have you met God at Jabok? Has it become real to you? Or have you just heard about him with the ear? Or has he become your Lord? Have you settled it in your heart that whatever is going to be will be and I'm going to go through with God. You have to have your own encounter with the Lord at Jabok.

You have to have your own wrestle with God. Not if you do this for me then you'll be my God. If you help me to get through this then you'll be my God.

If you give me success then you'll be my no full stop. I want you to have mercy on me oh God and I need your help that I might be found faithful and by the grace of God I will be what I am. That's what Paul said by the grace of God I am what I am.

A preacher and a teacher an apostle born out of time. May we be who we are new creations in Christ. We're old has passed away and all things are becoming new.

Jacob he took him over. The brook he sent over what he had. Verse 24 chapter 32 of Genesis.

Then Jacob was left alone and the man wrestled with him until the break of day. Wrestling with God. He didn't know it was God.

He was in a fight for his life and before you come to the end of yourself you'll be fighting the flesh. You'll be fighting your your ways your will to let go and let God. You'll be trying to find your own way out of your mess.

You'll be trying to use your own wisdom make your own plans seek to save your life but in the end you'll lose it. Now he's wrestling trying to throw off this man who's fighting against him but he doesn't realize until the day dawns that he's fighting the Lord. How many ways we've done our own thing and we've had another way worked out only to realize or some of us haven't even realized yet we're fighting the Lord.

Now the day begins to dawn and he realizes he's fighting the angel of the Lord and the Lord says let me go for the day breaks but he said I will not let you go unless you bless me. The fight shifts and it begins to realize he's fighting the Lord and the Lord is seemingly to say I'm done with you now. You don't want my ways.

You're not interested in my dealings. You hate all my ways. You fight me at every turn.

You have another way worked out. You don't want to submit to me and all of a sudden the light comes on. He realizes it's the Lord I've been fighting and the fight goes from pushing off the Lord and fighting against his ways to saying Lord if you leave me I have no hope.

If you don't bless me I die but receiving the blessing of the Lord is not always what we think it's going to be. His ways are not our ways. They're higher.

Do not let me go unless you bless me so he said to him what is your name and he said Jacob and he said your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel. This is the blessing he received his conversion for you have struggled with God and with men and you have prevailed then Jacob asked saying tell me your name I pray and he said why is it that you ask about my name and he blessed him there so Jacob called the name of the place Peniel for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved just as he crossed over Peniel the sun rose on him and he limped on his hip and therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle of that shank which is on the hip socket because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip in the muscle and that shank the blessing he got was the fact that he was now lame in his flesh he would all could no longer walk the way that he had walked he no longer could live the lifestyle that he once lived he no longer could run and do all those things according to his own ability that he once was able to do he had to walk with God and it says that Jacob walked with a staff he had to lean on the Lord from that day forward he needed the Lord I need the Lord even if we walk with a limp we need the Lord to have his way in our life to deal with us in our strength and our pride and our selfishness we got lots to say we have a lot of plans but you won't walk the same Jacob was no longer Jacob from that day forward he was Israel the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Israel may the Lord have his way in our life that in our wrestle to find his will in his ways that we would encounter him and that he would have his own way in our life that we might become the people of God through faith that faith would work through love and that we could become as brother David shared a people who love people Jacob did meet Esau and Esau had pity on him but it was the process in which God allowed to break the man allow the process to break you so that he can remake you into a vessel of honor sanctified and useful for his purposes brother shared about the need of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and brother George Warnock used to say this is the conduit in which the grain which would later become chaff the water would flow to bring nourishment to the head so that the grain could ripen but at the end of it all he says in 1 corinthians 13 I will show you a more excellent way when all the gifts and all the purpose and all that and which is exciting and wonderful and needful for the body to grow that we could come to the fullness of the love of God then all those things will be done away with because he's coming to gather his wheat into his garner but all that which was once green and all those gifts and all those things there's no need for them anymore he said when I was a child I reasoned as a child I spoke as a child I thought like a child but then I became a man and I put away childish things he talked about three things faith hope and love coming to that kind of love a God kind of love where we love God and we keep his word and when we love God and keep his word you are going to have love for people if you say that you love God and you're very zealous for good works and you're very careful dotting i's and crossing t's but you don't love people then you don't love God because God is love if he says he loves God but he can't stand people you want to be a hermit then you have a false gospel it's a different Jesus you can't love God and hate your brother you can't love God and be indifferent towards people who are perishing if God so loved the world that he gave then that kind of heart would be in you sacrificial love that's the gape love not expecting something in return when we expect something in return we're missing God you're just like the heathen that's what the heathen do you itch my back I'll scratch yours not so with the brothers not so may the Lord help us to come into the fullness of that kind of love that God has for us that we would have that love and that burden for the lost sometimes you'll get ripped off and taken advantage of people will trample on you you know what's happening but you know what that happens to God every day he knows that if he sends rain on the unjust and their crops do well they'll just take advantage of it they'll they'll they'll take they'll say that it was their wisdom that that accomplished all these things he's not too worried about it because he's good you know and he's good every day and their day is coming but right now he's showing them kindness may the Lord put that kind of heart in us that we would show people kindness even though we know they're taking advantage of us that we wouldn't hold grudges against anyone they would keep no record of wrongs against our brothers especially that we would love one another fervently from a pure heart that we would have good consciences clean consciences before God and that we could come to sincere faith Jacob came to sincere faith but it was a process may we find genuine saving faith in Christ alone in Jesus alone that that baptism that we experienced will not just have been some kind of washing by men but it would be a deep work of grace that happens between you and God a death to self a glorious transformation a working of the Holy Spirit and brother did share we need the Holy Spirit we cannot live according to the will and the ways of God without his power may the Lord help us to walk worthy of that calling in Jesus name