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00:00 hearts this morning with the power of Holy Spirit. Open up our eyes as what it means to
00:06 really wrestle with you in prayer and limp into life totally dependent on you.
00:12 Fill us in our souls with the joy which you promised through the Holy Spirit. We ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.
00:22 Genesis chapter 32 is a chapter which would be very familiar with us. I remember preaching the same chapter
00:29 about 6 months ago or recast in a different way. Uh so today we're going
00:34 to talk about joy. Uh Christians life should be one which is filled with relentless joy no matter what the
00:42 circumstances and yet often times it's not. There seems to be a disconnect
00:47 between the joy that we're supposed to have in Christ and yet the stuff that we're going through in life right this
00:53 moment now. And um so we want to tackle this question of this joy. How do we get
00:59 this joy? Uh and a lot of definitions about joy. Some people think happiness
01:04 and joy are two different things. Actually, if you look biblically, they're about the same. All right? Uh
01:10 there's a bit of confusion about that. I like John Piper's definition of joy, which we're going to focus on today.
01:16 Christian joy is a good feeling. All right? It's an emotion. It's a good feeling in the soul produced by the Holy
01:23 Spirit as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world.
01:29 So this is the definition of joy. It's not just physical. It's felt in the
01:34 innermost part of our being. It's not produced by peripheral events actually
01:39 produced by the Holy Spirit as it causes us to see the beauty of Christ uh in the word and in the world. Now, we're going
01:46 to take you back to look at joy through prayer, through the lens of Jacob. And
01:52 and if you look at Jacob, this will be the worst time of his entire life. All right? It is the worst time. And yet,
01:58 this is the time where he comes to the Lord in prayer and receives the joy and peace uh to know that God is his God.
02:05 So, we have a family feud. If you know, Jacob has uh defrauded his brother of
02:11 his um inheritance. And after many years, 20 years working with Blaban, he
02:16 comes back and the last words that Esau has said to Jacob would surely be
02:21 ringing in his ears. I'm going to kill you. All right? This is I'm never ever
02:27 going to forget. You can go for a hundred years. When you come back, I'm going to kill you. All right? And he
02:32 hears as he's coming back from his spies that Jacob is coming, Esau is coming to
02:38 meet him with 400 armed men, you know, 400 men with swords and he's got his
02:46 whole family. He then starts to send off flocks, gifts in waves to bribe his brother so
02:54 his brother will look kindly in him. He divides his family into two and is separate because in case he attacks one
02:60 camp, the other camp will escape. He's all out of ideas. This is a day of
03:05 reckoning. What does he do? Uh he goes to God in prayer. So the prayer of joy basically
03:12 have three points I want to make from the passage today. Always begins alone. Prayer for joy wrestles with God for
03:18 blessing. The prayer of go joy works through weakness.
03:24 Prayer of joy begins alone. The same night he arose and took his two wives,
03:29 two female servants, 11 children crossed the ford of the Jabuk Jabuk River. He
03:35 took them and sent them across the stream. Everything else that he had and Jacob was left alone. So in the face of
03:44 the greatest trial of his life, he chooses to actually It's very difficult
03:50 when you're in great danger. You want to be with your family. You want to be to protect them and they to encourage you
03:55 and yet he chooses to take this time to be alone. You know most of the most
04:01 important issues in life we always face alone. You may be sick when pastor Rama
04:07 is in the hospital having had his um bumped his head and had blood clot in his brain or and he say there's so many
04:14 visit visitors coming to his hospital bed everybody else in the world thinks he's a d. They ask you hey Dr. why are
04:22 you so important? Everybody's coming to see you. So imagine every I want to thank all of you to have shown your love
04:27 uh and have been a witness because he can the the even the uh other fellow uh
04:32 patients can see God's love and that and but when they wheel him to surgery to drill those holes in his head,
04:39 he goes alone. He can't take you with him, you know. And when you're sick, you
04:44 go in alone into the operating theater. When you die, you walk through the valley of the shadow of death alone.
04:50 When you go for judgment, you sit alone. Children, when you go for exams, you sit alone. So you can't sit with your friend
04:57 having exam and share the answer. Right? Most important events you face alone.
05:02 Alone means authentic. This is Jesus. He says when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand and
05:08 pray in the synagogue and the streets corners. They may so that they may seen by others. But truly I said to you, they
05:14 have received a reward. When you pray, go into your room, shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret, and
05:20 your father in who sees in secret will reward you. So prayer is something that's intimate. It's personal. You you
05:26 go to be alone because alone means you're authentic.
05:32 You know, you'll find out whether your faith is real. If your faith is in the fellowship like the youth fellowship and
05:38 you find years from now, some of you will be very soon, maybe next year, you'll be sent off to college.
05:45 here overseas in Australia or in England and you'll find a lot of young people
05:51 can't adapt. The church there, the fellowship there is not exactly like the
05:56 one at home. They don't sing the same songs like the ones Ashley teaches you.
06:01 Um you grew up in this church. God doesn't feel railed in this new environment. Um, but the trouble is
06:09 maybe we've been overshadowed by Christ but not really penetrated in our hearts because we haven't really spent time
06:15 alone. And our faith consists of the faith of our preachers, the faith of our pastors, the faith of our leaders or
06:20 youth leaders or our worship leaders. But actually, we don't have any faith alone because we don't spend the time
06:25 alone. Because when you're alone, you're authentic. And when you spend time alone, you realize, hey, it's not
06:31 comfortable. You know why? There's nothing there. When you're alone, you're
06:36 authentic. you come to grips with the real you outside their influences. I remember being in school uh many many
06:43 years ago. My school was Bukit Bintang Boy School. A lot of people have very derogatory remarks about that school.
06:49 They say some of us in those days were like animals and the most and and we were you go to
06:55 our classrooms you know the fans are pointed downwards. Why people jump on the fan you know uh
07:01 and the only calming effect this fantastic effect is when the girls start coming in form six and suddenly all the
07:08 boys became angels but that's not the real us the real us we are like binatang isn't it we're like
07:14 animals you know you come to real authentic us we're animals the girls come and and suddenly there's a
07:20 transformation they're so helpful and so polite and there's no four-letter words and you know all that is crap right when
07:27 you come alone alone with God. There is an authentic you. You cannot hide. And
07:33 then you know you know sometimes our religion is basically coming on Sunday
07:39 having a tolerating a sermon and going out there spending time with your friends and then you go back and that's a sum total of your religious
07:45 experience. If that's the case then you will be overshadowed by Christ but not penetrated into your soul. And Jacob
07:52 goes in to be alone because he needs to come to grips with the rail. You Henry
07:58 Noen says in solitude I get rid of my scaffolding. The scaffolding is all the all the little props we put in life. All
08:06 the social influences that comprise our faith. Our faith is coming to church. Our faith is serving in the youth
08:12 fellowship. Our faith is singing those songs. Our faith is reading some Christian books occasionally. But they're actually all scaffolding. You
08:18 know now Jacob alone has to deal with his attitudes in life to God and he
08:24 cannot hide anymore. Uh Jesus before any big event spends time alone with God.
08:31 Before he starts his ministry of three years he spends 40 days and nights alone
08:37 with God being tempted by the devil. When he hears of the death of John the Baptist he spend times alone before
08:44 choosing his disciples. Very crucial step. This will be the beginning of the new kingdom. He spends time alone before
08:50 after healing the leper after his an disciples engage in ministry before transfiguration and at Gethsemane. Every
08:57 seinal event in his life Jesus goes alone. And yet many of us don't do that.
09:04 Our faith simply begins and ends on a Sunday. And the rest of the days if you
09:10 are actually very honest the authentic you is nothing. Not only solitude helps
09:16 us um get in touch with the real you, solitude also frees us. Osberg says
09:22 solitude is one place where we can gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us.
09:27 We're in a society and there all these influences and they're always molding us. It looks as if we cannot hear the
09:34 voice of God. This is what we call an ambient sound generator. If you don't want to hear people from the other room,
09:40 you know what you do? You put this on so you can you so you won't hear them. It generates an ambient sound like like
09:46 like waves splashing on the rock and after a while when you do this no matter
09:51 what's anyone is saying next door you can't really hear them and when we come to society society is like this ambient
09:58 sound generator God is you see God doesn't speak to us actually God speaks to us all the time through the word and
10:05 through our meditation but we can't hear you know why because we're in society and society produces this ambient sound
10:10 generator that gets us excited about everything else that's unimportant in life and a still silent voice of soft
10:17 voice of God is not heard. They've actually done experiments with uh rats
10:22 and they found that if the group of rats are together and a root group of rats alone, one solitary vat versus all the
10:29 rest of the rats and they're given empetamines, empetamines are drugs that get you all very excited. You know, the
10:34 Chinese call it ft. If if the rats are given are in a group
10:42 versus the vets rats alone, the rats alone can take an amphetamine do those 20 times higher than the ones in the group because they got resilience.
10:49 They're on their own. If you're influenced by the group, you die for quicker. So, uh, look is a picture of
10:55 our youth. Computer's on, handphone is on, iPod is
11:01 on. It's a fact, isn't it? everywhere you go, there's something in the ear plugs. Uh, and I see some adults doing
11:08 the same thing. We we're letting society like ambient noise generator pump into
11:14 our ears and our lives so that we cannot hear God. And so if we really want to
11:20 find and and and plum the depths of the peace and love and joy of God, we
11:25 actually have to get out of society. Is there a time during the week where we have to actually purposely like Jacob
11:32 get away from everybody else even from the family to spend time alone with God?
11:38 150 years ago Saurin Crocagard who is basically a Danish philosopher wrote
11:43 these words which is so real today. He says the press of business is like a
11:48 charm. Its power swells. It reaches out seeking always to lay hold of ever
11:54 younger victims so that childhood or youth are scarcely allowed the quiet and
12:01 retirement in which the eternal may unfold a divine growth. 150 years ago he
12:07 wrote this. He never seen an iPod in his life and he can predict what's happening
12:13 to our generation today. Brothers and sisters, if you really are missing the
12:18 joy and peace of the Lord, it is time like Jacob, even in the midst of the
12:24 darkest situations, to take time to be alone. Second of all, the prayer for joy
12:30 begins with wrestling with God for blessing.
12:36 Uh Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of
12:41 day. This is when God intrudes your space. God is an initiator. He becomes
12:47 personal and the last thing he needs God to do. You mean imagine you you're so
12:52 afraid of being murdered by your own brother. All the anxieties, excitement is all there and God comes and wallops
12:58 you. You thought God is a nice God, a cuddly God, a teddy bear kind of God. He come say, you know, it's okay. No, he
13:06 comes and whacks you. This is this is odd. He encounters the real God. God is
13:11 real. he in in when he intrudes our space. This is Lord Melbourne who was
13:16 basically one of the prime ministers of England and he was the main mentor to Queen Victoria when she was 18 years of
13:23 age to 21 and he was very uh popular man of integrity, a Christian man who
13:28 actually put in place many Christian programs as he believed Britain and England was a Christian nation. But when
13:36 the faith came near to his own voice and to its own heart, he said these words things are coming to a pretty pass when
13:42 religion is allowed to invade private life. We have this idea that uh religion
13:48 is or our faith is separate from what we do in our work life. We want to keep God
13:54 out. And here when we talk about wrestling, God comes into our personal space so that we have to learn to
14:01 wrestle with him. Wrestling is uncomfortably personal. God intrudes into our space
14:08 and we learn to wrestle with him in prayer. Story was told of a boy. He was
14:13 wrestling with God in prayer. He wanted a bicycle but he didn't know uh he did
14:19 not know how best to pray and wrestle with God. So he was watching a church television program from a very
14:25 traditional Anglican service and he saw how the minister prayed. At the end of the day, he got on his knees and
14:30 wrestled with God and said, "Lord, if it is in your sovereign will, in your eternal plan that I get a bicycle in
14:38 your time, according to your will, well, would you please get me a bicycle world without end? In Jesus name I pray."
14:44 Amen. He waited two days, painful two days, and no bicycle came. So, he began
14:51 to think that he needed a different style, maybe a more charismatic style. So he turned on TV set again to watch
14:56 another kind of ministry in operation. At the end of the day he got on his knees and said, "Lord, I declare my need
15:02 for a bicycle. I declare it'll be nice blue color and delivered to my home within 24 hours. I lay claim to it."
15:10 Amen. Several days passed and or whatever he declared didn't come to being. And then he was seen by his
15:17 mother running out of the house holding something hidden in the cloth and she noticed the the the statue of mother
15:23 Mary is missing. Later that night he came back without the statue and he started this prayer.
15:30 Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again.
15:39 Is it an example of wrestling with God in prayer? or at least the young guy,
15:44 you know, he actually is wrestling with God because he's coming, he wants something, right? And he can't seem to
15:50 find the right way to get about it. And and and don't laugh. Many of us are like that. You go to conservative church, you
15:57 pray, you know, your financial problem didn't get better. That go charismatic church and declare and declare and then
16:02 still didn't get, you know, then you do all sorts of things. He he is like us when we actually wrestle with God. uh is
16:10 being forced to confront God is honestly trying to talk to God about what you really want. We don't get joy at least
16:16 this boy is wrestling with God. Isn't it? We don't get joy running away from God. That's the point. We need to
16:22 wrestle and interact with him. There are so many instances in the Bible where where Moses wrestles with God, Jesus
16:28 wrestles with God, Hezekiah wrestles with God, Abraham wrestles with God, Jacob wrestle. Every time when there is
16:35 a crisis, we contend with God. Em bounds who wrote 17 books on prayer says prayer
16:42 in its highest form grander success assumes an attitude of a wrestler with
16:48 God. Why do we need to wrestle? If God knows what we need, why just give? What
16:53 for go and wrestle with you? I mean, God is being ridiculous. Why can't he just give us what we want?
17:00 Why do we need to wrestle for the source of blessing? If you look in Jacob's life, his whole life is described as a
17:07 wrestling match. When he was in his mother's womb, who do you think he was wrestling with? His brother. His brother
17:15 come out before him. He betan. He grabbed his foot. He's wrestling, you know, because he wants to be first. And
17:20 his brother has the birthight. And he actually cheats him of his birthight by
17:26 giving him selling to him with a bowl of soup. And then when his father is sick
17:31 and old and it's time to give the final blessing, he disguises as his brother wearing a hairy monkey suit. So his
17:38 brother, his father thinks it's his brother and he cheats his brother of his birthight and therefore sews the seed,
17:44 the harvest that's now come in the accumulating storm and Esau is coming at 400 men. Uh and then he goes to Laban,
17:52 his uncle, and then also he's struggling and wrestling. You know why? because he
17:57 falls in love with Rachel but cannot get her. While wedding night got the wrong woman, the is the is the sister, the
18:03 ugly one. And so therefore, he has to work 14 years to marry the one that he really love, right? And then he winds up
18:10 with two wives. And then you know what happens when you wind up with two wives, one so difficult, right? Imagine you
18:16 have two, the entire family is split, okay? And the two wives are fighting day
18:22 in and day out and then their concubines involved. It's horrible. Uh and then he's fighting with his uncle who tries
18:28 to cheat him and he has to overcome his his uncle and he finds that every step
18:34 of his life and he's wrestling because he wants what he wants in life. He's searching for a blessing in life and
18:41 everything he touch instead of touching the gold becomes dust. That is the picture of Jacob's life. Uh it's like
18:50 this movie that we saw some years ago and some of you older enough urban cowboys. It should be included in the
18:56 unforgettable four or three. Uh tells the story of a cowboy who goes to town. John started by John Travolta and he
19:04 looks for some blessing which he cannot find. And if you look at this word,
19:09 unforgettable for but isn't that I love that song because it really describes we can say we're
19:17 Christian but actually we're looking for love in all the wrong places, you know. And CS Lewis knew knew this
19:25 and he tells us that we're actually looking for things on earth which you actually cannot find. It's something
19:31 like out of physical realm and he writes these words which are so true. There are all sorts of things in this world that
19:38 offer to give it to you but they never keep their promise. The longings that
19:43 arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country or first take up some subject that
19:49 excites us are longings that no marriage, no travel, no learning can really satisfy. I am not speaking of
19:56 what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages or holidays or so on. I'm speaking of the best possible
20:02 ones and yet there's always something that we grasp at in the first moment that fades away in reality. So you're
20:11 looking for love in all the wrong places. And that's a story of Jacob. And that's the story of a lot of us. We may
20:18 have come into church and in fellowship and said that magical sinner's prayer. But the way we actually live is like
20:25 when God has just overshadowed us but not really penetrated in the heart because we're still looking for love
20:31 everywhere else. And then there's a breakthrough. There's a breakthrough. When a man saw he did prevail against
20:38 Jacob, he touched his hip shocket and Jacob's head was put out of place and he wrestled with him. And then he said,
20:43 "Let me go, for the day has broken." Jacob called the name of the place
20:49 pineal, for I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been delivered. He realizes that when he's wrestling, he
20:56 finally realizes when when when his when his hip snaps with a touch of a finger
21:01 that this is actually God. And if you actually are wrestling with God and the
21:07 sun is going to come up, you know what's going to happen to you? You're going to die because no man, imagine uh Moses
21:14 asked to see God. And God didn't even show he showed him his back end, you know, at the trailing edge and that was
21:20 enough to make Moses face radioactive. Yeah, it's radioactive shining all the time. And here you are grappling with
21:27 God and in a few minutes the sun will shine up there. You better let go because if you don't let go, you will
21:33 die. Let me go for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And here what he's
21:41 doing is that he's basically having a desire for blessing. And there's a danger of death. There are two things. I
21:47 want to be blessed all my life. I'm wrestling with God to get the kind of blessings that will make my life happy and fulfilled and joyful. And on the
21:53 other hand, if I hang on, I will die. I will lose my life, the very life which I
21:58 seek to save. And so he is at a dilemma. Do I let go and save my life or I hang
22:03 on and possibly die and get the blessing? And so at this stage of his life after looking for love at all the
22:10 wrong places at this side of the river Jabok at the eve of the greatest
22:16 disaster of his life he chooses blessing and hanging on God. And so
22:23 basically it's psalm says delight yourself in the lord and he will give you the desire. heart didn't say submit
22:29 to God. It didn't say obey God. It says delight yourself in God. And so
22:35 therefore, I will not let you go unless you bless me. The same as delighting yourself in the Lord, hanging on to him
22:41 because he is the one that gives all the blessing. He is the one where you will actually find the love for which we are
22:47 looking for. He is the one where we actually have inner spiritual transformation. And you look back at what Piper says,
22:53 Christian joy is a good feeling of soul produced by the Holy Spirit as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the
22:59 word. You can't the joy. You see the joy is a good feeling the soul, right? But
23:05 it's produced by the Holy Spirit. You can't produce it by yourself. You can't manufacture yourself. You can't you probably can go shopping and get a
23:11 little bit of joy and then the pain of credit card bill will later on.
23:16 But it's produced by the Holy Spirit. And how does he produce it? By causing us to see the beauty of Christ to to
23:23 hang on to God to look and gaze into his face and see the beauty there. If you don't see the beauty there and Bible
23:30 study and sermon is such a drag to you, then you are not penetrated by God. You're just overshadowed.
23:36 You don't really know God. Why else do we need to wrestle? Why do we need to wrestle? Why is it why can't we just
23:42 connect with God and and be like transformed like Star Trek, you know, beam me up, Scotty? Why Why can't The
23:49 other reason is is that the old man won't die. Right? This is Paul in 1
23:54 Corinthians 9:27 talks about wrestling. Actually Paul there talks about not wrestling but boxing. And he says I
24:00 discipline my body and keep it under control less after preaching to others. I myself should be disqualified. The
24:06 word discipline here is hoopazo which means wear out treat severely. Black eye
24:11 that means I punch punch myself black eye you know. Okay. Because the old man won't die. The reason why we have to
24:18 wrestle with God in order to get the joy that is rightfully ours is that we are addicted to our old selves. There's so
24:25 many things we're addicted to. Young people, you look at Facebook, look at Instagram, everything else. We're
24:32 addicted. And so therefore, what do we need to do? We have to wrestle with our addictions. We wrestle with our fears.
24:37 We wrestle about anxieties. We wrestle with God about what life is supposed to be about. You know, things happen.
24:46 economy turns down, you lose your job, your spouse turns on you.
24:52 No spouse after marriage for any length of time remains the same. Everybody changes. And how do you cope with these
24:57 changes? And sometimes we rebel. We we we we can't take that. So therefore, we need to wrestle with God. We bring to
25:02 God what these things are, our disappointments, and we wrestle with God. True joy has several features. When
25:09 the true joy we have in God is when we desire to communicate and have reunion
25:15 with him. Do you actually desire to set apart a time where you actually sit and
25:20 talk things over with God? That's a sign. Uh true joy comes when you're satisfied with him and you go. True joy
25:27 comes when you go to Empire Shopping Complex, right? And you look there, you walk out, nothing to buy.
25:35 The day that happens when you walk out Empire, it's not because you don't have enough money, right? If you have pocket
25:40 full of dollars and you go to Empire, you walk out, I say, "Actually, I have nothing there to buy that actually will
25:45 make me happy and I'd rather go home and spend time talking with him." And then
25:51 that's what we call true joy. True joy is confidence. When you wake up in the morning and you're wondering what kind
25:56 of day this is going to be, whether it's going to be good, bad, or ugly, but you actually I don't know what kind of day
26:02 it's going to be, but I know who's holding my hand during this day. and you enter and you plunge yourself in this
26:07 day realizing that he's going to be with you. That's when you get true joy. True joy is where we glad submission when
26:14 things turn for the worse and and yet you believe that God is going to be with you this time is glad submission. True
26:20 joy is where you got deep interest in his glory and honor that honoring him at work, at business, in your relationship
26:26 is the most important thing to you. Now that's signs of true joy when you've wrestled with God and these things break
26:34 through. And the trouble is we we also have joy in the midst of pain. True joy, authentic joy in the Lord comes in the
26:41 midst of pain. It's not separated. A lot of people think I'll have true joy when I get into medical school or lawyer
26:49 school. I bear true joy when I graduate. True joy when I get a girlfriend, true joy when I get married, true joy when my
26:55 children go off to university, true joy when I'm retired. That's not true joy. True joy occurs,
27:03 authentic joy occurs in the midst of pain. It's like having a child. The
27:08 women will tell you it's severe pain but severe joy as well. It's intermingled.
27:14 Ravi Zachcharias was asked one of his lectures called on being human.
27:19 Does a Christian ever become sad? Is there is it an oxymoron? What is a place of pain and
27:25 sorrow and Christian joy? He says quite profound words and I been reflecting on
27:30 this. He says a Christian is a person with joy at the center of his life. He
27:37 will have sorrow at the peripheral areas in life. In the center of your life, if you have Christ today sitting here, the
27:44 question is who you are, why you were born, what is your purpose in life, what will happen to you in future, all those
27:51 things. No matter what happens to you, what diseases you have, what accidents you have, that is sorted out. That's the
27:58 center of your life. It cannot be moved. And that's a joy which the Holy Spirit produces at the periphery of your life.
28:05 Maybe tomorrow you got no money to makan. Maybe tomorrow you fail your exam. Maybe tomorrow you don't get to go
28:11 overseas to study. You have sorrow. But at the center of your life, you will
28:16 have joy. Without Christ in your life, at the center of your life, you will
28:22 have sorrow because you're still looking for love in a place that you cannot find. You're looking for a blessing that
28:27 can never be filled. You're looking for something in your life because you don't know who made you, why you're here, what's your purpose in life, and whether
28:33 when you finish, you become fertilizer and push up daisies. Imagine living that life. Oh, I'm an
28:40 animal. I've been evolved. You know, uh when I die, I become fertilizer. Wow. I
28:45 looking forward to die, right? At the center of your life, you don't have Christ. You have sorrow. There's deep
28:51 spiritual sorrow. In your periphery of life, you have joy. That means get more
28:58 money, a few more dollars, buy more things. Then you want bigger and bigger things. Sometimes in empire, you you
29:03 walk out, you're unhappy. You know why? Not because you don't have things to buy. Nothing there that you like. So, you want to buy a big yacht or something
29:10 bigger and bigger and bigger, right? U you know psychologist Cheryl Macdonald wrote this article and
29:16 says how do we get joy? Well you know how if you don't have Christ at the
29:22 center and these existential questions in life are not answered then what do you do? Choose to smile meditate and
29:29 imagine positive thinking feeling grateful notice immediate surroundings
29:34 become active and support that's worthy. When you do all this the psychologists tell you that you increase your
29:39 endorphin levels. See endorphin. These are the feelgood chemicals in your body.
29:45 You drink chocolate, meditate, drink tea, they all exercise, even sex, you
29:51 get a lot of endorphins. And so therefore, you become happy. But that happiness is at the periphery of life.
29:58 It is not the center of your life. If you want a lot of endorphins, I tell you the best way take a heroin and shoot it
30:03 up there. Isn't that the same? Why want to go and go all the trouble to exercise
30:09 and meditate and do all of that? We actually take the syringe of morphine which is endorphin pop inside there.
30:14 Fantastic high, right? Same thing. The Christian is the one where joy is at the
30:22 center and sorrow is at the periphery at the same time. And so therefore, every
30:28 time you feel that the devil trying to get you down, you you tap back into the center. You drill back into the center.
30:35 That is the source of our joy. Uh give me give an example. Moses read
30:43 here. By faith Moses when he was growing up refused to be called the son of Pharaoh choosing rather to be mistreated
30:50 with the people of God rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ
30:57 greater wealth than the treasures of Christ. Greater than the treasure of is
31:02 Egypt. For he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt not being afraid
31:08 of the anger of the king for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Here you have Moses born in the courts. You know
31:15 what he did? He exchanged the center. He chose Christ and he
31:21 preferred to suffer 40 years outside. He chose to give up being the prince of
31:26 Egypt because he chose the center. And that's the picture of us as Christians
31:32 as well. That's why we have joy in the midst of sorrow. Lastly, the prayer for
31:39 joy works through weakness. This is amazing. Uh the man saw that he did not
31:45 prevail against Jacob. He touched his hip and his hip was put out of joint. This is very painful. Anybody who's
31:50 broken his hip here uh will find it extremely painful. And he wrestled with him and he said, "Let me go for the day
31:57 is broken." Jacob says, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The trouble is we won't cling to God until he breaks
32:03 our hip. We all very funny. God tell you nicely, you don't listen. He'll break your hip then you listen. That's the problem. And
32:11 the whole reason why we go through life is God is God's keeping. He keeps breaking our hip. Why? Because we're
32:17 stubborn people. We won't cling until we're broken. You know, he said to him,
32:24 "What's your name? You you you think you think God doesn't know Jacob's name?" He
32:29 knows. Why you ask him? It's like Adam and Eve running away, you know, and God in the garden, they say, "Where are you?
32:37 Where are you?" Reminds me of playing my children many years ago. Where are you? And you know they're hiding in front of
32:42 you, right? You know why he says, "Where are you? What is your name?" You know why? Because in Genesis 27, he went into
32:52 his father and said, "My father." And he said, "Here I am. Who are you, my son?" Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau,
32:59 your firstborn." He's a liar. He's a liar. When he asked you, "What's
33:06 your name?" You know what? You know what the what word Jacob means? Cornman.
33:12 He's a planter. He's a pawn man. I'm conman. And so therefore, you see, God cannot
33:20 bless us, cannot move into our lives until there's a space occupied by
33:25 repentance. You continue to hang on to our pride and hang on to who we are and we're we won't
33:32 be able to cling. And so therefore, God always makes us face our mistakes. 20
33:37 years ago, 30 years ago, we have to face it. And when we face it, he says, "Who am I?" Then he realizes that he have
33:45 sinned and he says, "I am Jacob the conman." And God says that you will
33:50 no longer be called Jacob but Israel for you have striven with God. So God gives
33:56 him a new nature. And Jacob is now broken but blessed. Broken means he's
34:03 totally dependent, totally repentant, totally at a place where he he clinging to God as the only joy and treasure in
34:12 his whole life. That's all he wants. Nothing else but God. On the other hand, he's totally transformed because he has
34:17 a new name, a new purpose in life. So as Christians, we are all Jacobs. We have a
34:23 brokenness, but we're also blessed because we got the blessing. The blessing is that I got a new name, a new nature, a new purpose, a new life, but
34:31 we're also broken because we are completely dependent on God. When a
34:36 crisis comes to our life, we can either be broken and blessed or we could take the other view, the theology of glory.
34:44 You know, a lot of Christians are misled by this wrong idea that in life as a Christian, you look like Superman. You
34:50 want a healing must be now. You want a victory must be now. You want a power yesterday. You want a change yesterday.
34:59 A lot of people, preachers will tell you this, but it's wrong. Look at Jesus Christ. Greatest moment of Jesus' power
35:06 was when on the cross. Perfect mercy, perfect
35:11 justice, perfect love coalesed into the cross. And are we to go at a different
35:18 route? On the other hand, if you if you don't subscribe to this, then you wind up broken but bitter. You watch this on
35:26 the Muppet Show. He's always at the corner, the top that everything good to say on. You met many of these people in
35:32 church. Yeah, they're they're apathetic. They're rebellious. They're cynical.
35:37 Yeah. Health fair all big con one all the people coming there to give out. Not really the doctors
35:43 actually not not free one. No, we got to pay somehow, you know. So all cynical and and it's a loss of confidence. You
35:48 could wind up in life broken and blessed. You could wind up blind and believing that healing. I've seen some
35:55 people go in the hospital and pray for people and I declare the healing is still sick or cancer going to die. I declare healing. blind or you could be
36:03 broken and bitter and you lost total confidence in God. A Christian is both
36:08 broken and blessed. Joy is a good feeling in the soul produced by Holy
36:14 Spirit as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ. This is 2 Corinthians 3:18.
36:21 We with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed to the same image from one degree of
36:27 glory to another. You know, when you tune guitar strings for young people here, you press on the the the the the
36:35 string above the string, you're going to you're going to tune, right? When you the other string also vibrates. Why?
36:43 Because they're in the same frequency. Why do we grow and have joy when look at the face of Jesus Christ? It's because
36:49 we're made in the image of God. When we're made in the image of God, whatever we see in him is reflected in us and
36:54 there's a resonance. When you read the words of scripture, when you see the life of Christ, there's a resonance and
36:59 peace that comes upon our lives. And that's when we get the joy. If we don't do that, how are we going to resonate
37:06 with the kind of joy which God has decided to give us? We won't look until we're broken. Joseph
37:14 in the pit for many years suffered as a slave.
37:19 Moses 40 years in the backside of the desert. Paul struck down. I will show him how much he
37:27 must suffer for the sake of my name. Every single person is broken before
37:34 he's blessed. Osberg writes, "Jesus does not come to rearrange the outside of our life the way we want. He comes to
37:40 arrange the inside of our life the way God wants." Story is told of Jim Baker, a very
37:46 famous evangelist who basically ran Praise the Lord ministries. He was found
37:52 out to be sexually immoral. He was found out to have cheated his ministries. People give him money. He say pray he
37:59 never pray for them. Uh and he was sentenced 45 years in jail. 45. And yet
38:06 he writes a book in which he tells his journey back from being broken. When he
38:12 got into jail, a lot of people threatened him. And in fact, one man tried to rape him twice. And somehow by
38:19 God's intervention, the man was transferred out to another prison. And some people in prison helped him.
38:24 They're prison lawyers, you know, they're pretty good, better than lawyer bur uh and they helped him cut the
38:29 sentence down to 18 years. And another lawyer found a loophole and he got it cut down to five years.
38:36 And and and bad things still happened. his wife Tammy Fay left him had an
38:41 affair with somebody else and divorce him. Maybe that was a good thing. But at the last end uh uh he describes
38:49 being in a toilet and and wishing that he would die because he's such a famous
38:54 evangelist fall all the way down. He wished he would die in the toilet there and it was full of dirty water. And the
39:00 prison guard said to him, "Hey Jim, you got a visitor? I don't need any visitors. The only fellow who visit me
39:06 is a lawyer. I don't want to see his stupid face. So he refused to go out. I think you need to see this one. And then
39:14 okay, I can't change. I'm dirty, but I'll just meet him like this. So he got up. He went to the visit room. You know
39:19 who you saw there? Billy Graham, the most despised preacher in the world,
39:27 meeting the most celebrated Christian speaker in the world. And you know
39:32 Petham approached him with a smile on his face and wide open arms before he say anything he just shook his hand and
39:38 hugged him. Hugged him. That's when Jim Baker felt the love of
39:45 Christ and the joy of Christ. He cannot see Christ. He cannot feel the joy until
39:51 you're broken. Broken. And that's what I mean. Brokenness comes
39:59 before blessing. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
40:05 and saves the crushed in spirit. Jim Baker was a crook.
40:10 Jacob was a crook. Many of us here are crooks. That's a fact. We're frauds.
40:17 Some of us made money the right way. Some of us made money the wrong way. But
40:22 the question is the cross of Jesus Christ takes care of it. The word of God says the Lord is near to the
40:28 brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit. Maybe we're struggling with a
40:34 difficult marriage or difficult relationship. Maybe we're struggling with failures in our life, in our business,
40:40 but God is near to you because you come broken because that's the only way you
40:46 can cling to God. Pray. This is a time of two months where we're going to work
40:52 on prayer. Learn to pray alone. Learn to wrestle with God and all the things that
40:58 bug you. Don't run away from God. Bring it to him. Struggle with him. And then
41:03 when he works through blessing, when we're broken, you will see his joy.
41:08 And the challenge is when we're wrestling with God, Tim Keller says, "Jacob held on at the risk of his life
41:15 to get the blessing from him, but Jesus held on at the cost of his life to get the blessing from us." Yeah. Jacob
41:22 struggled for himself. But Jesus Christ and you know you know know God God held back his strength. He
41:28 only touched his hip. If God had his full strength in the wrestling match
41:34 there will be nothing left of Jacob. Thousands of years later on Jesus Christ wrestled with God in garden of
41:40 Gethsemane. And on the cross he received the full impact the entire cup of wrath
41:46 for God. Not for his blessing you know but for ours. And so therefore we have a
41:52 God. We have a Jesus who understands us. Our brokenness, our sin, our wrestling.
41:60 There many of us here who are still wrestling. I'm going to spend some time in prayer. I'm going to pray for three
42:06 kinds of people here today. All right. One, those who are wrestling maybe some
42:14 sin in our lives, some difficulties in our life. We we don't know where we're going to be.
42:19 issues we haven't resolved with God. I want to pray for you. Second one I pray for is those who are already broken and
42:26 and you feel that the world is coming in on you and there's nothing left. And the third, which is the majority, those who
42:32 feel neither broken nor wrestling and feel very good. I think you're the one in the big biggest danger.
42:38 That's the fact. Um and but God has a word for all of us. Let's close our eyes
42:44 and bow our heads. I'm going to address and pray first for those who are
42:50 wrestling and struggling with God for certain issues in your life which are difficult. Maybe it be financial, maybe
42:56 in your family, maybe uh interpersonal relationships and and you just can't get
43:01 over it and something something's happened to you and you're just struggling. I want to minister to you and I want to just slip your hands up
43:08 and and then put it down. Uh I want to see that. I want to pray for you. Those of you who are struggling, please be
43:14 honest. God God will see that hand. Nobody's going to see that hand. Just put your hands up and keep it up while I
43:19 pray for you. Those of you who are struggling, you're struggling with issues in your life and and you really
43:25 want the Lord to come and touch you this morning. Father Lord, we see all these hands raised by faith. No one else is
43:32 looking. Oh Lord, I'm going to ask, oh Lord, to come as they struggle. Father Lord, I ask for breakthrough in their
43:37 lives that they will see that the most important person, the most avenue of blessing that needs to come needs to
43:44 come from you. I pray Lord in their in their struggles, in their resting, they'll be honest
43:49 and and and you will show to them your beauty in their lives, how their lives can be changed. We ask for Jesus' sake.
43:56 Amen. Put your hands down. The next ones I'm going to pray for are those who are broken. Perhaps you you keep your eyes
44:02 closed and and I want you to put your hands up. Those of you here who who feel as if you're a place where God is
44:07 already breaking you down and you're broken and you don't know where to go after this and you don't know what life will hold for you and you've lost
44:14 confidence and you think God doesn't love you because these bad things has happened to you. But let me tell you,
44:20 brother, even though you're a place of brokenness, God knows because his son was broken on the cross for us 2,000
44:27 years ago. And God is near the brokenhearted. So any brokenhearted here today, put your hands up and I'm going
44:34 to pray for you right now. Father Lord, we see all those hands.
44:40 That broke.
