Sermon Notes

March 5, 2023

Hearing Your Calling

Genesis 32:22-31

Have you ever noticed how many people are trying to get your attention? If you’re a parent of a toddler, all you have to do is look at your children. How many times a day do your little ones say, “Mommy, Mommy!” or “Daddy, Daddy!” trying to get your attention? Statistics tell us that answer is 105, the average toddler says ‘Mommy!” or “Daddy!” 105 times a day. That means your toddler tries to get your attention every 6.5 minutes. However, of all the things that try to get your attention, your toddler might be the least persistent. Did you know companies spend around 300 billion dollars trying to get your attention through advertising and they do a really good job of it as well? On average you see between 4,000 - 10,000 advertisements in one form or another every day. That means, on the low end, someone is trying to get your attention every 4 seconds of every waking hour. This begs the question, with so many voices calling to get your attention, how do you pay attention to the one voice that matters most? God is calling, do you hear Him?

This morning we are going to look at one of the most fascinating scoundrels in all of scripture. He’s one of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, but when it comes to hearing and responding to God’s calling in his life, he fought it constantly (sometimes literally). I want to look at the life of Jacob and more specifically at a turning point in his life when he finally dealt with the calling God had placed on him. While we look at the scriptures this morning, my prayer is (for better or for worse) that we see ourselves in them and learn how to proceed with the call God has placed on each and every one of His children's lives.

Before we get into the main part of today's sermon, I want to catch you up on the life of Jacob that has led up to this monumental turning point in his life. The name Jacob is really close to the Hebrew word that we would translate as “deceiver” and oh boy, did he ever live up to that name. At this point in his life he had swindled his brother out of his birthright as the firstborn and he has stolen his brother’s blessing by deceiving his father. His brother wanted to kill him so he got scared and ran away. Jacob got a taste of his own medicine when he went to marry Laban’s daughters. He ran away from Laban after many years in his service and almost caused a huge problem. Now he is going to confront his brother after 20 years on the run. That’s where we find ourselves in this morning's text. This is when Jacob comes face to face with God and is confronted with the calling God had given him years before.

To hear our calling we must get alone with God. - Genesis 32:22-24a

²² During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. ²³ After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. ²⁴ This left Jacob all alone in the camp

Whether he did so out of fear of his brother Esau or on purpose, Jacob moved his family out of the camp and across the river. Jacob was now all alone. Being alone with God is one of the most important steps in hearing our calling from Him. It was something Jesus did constantly (Luke 5:16, Luke 22:39-44, Luke 6:12-13) and something we are called to do as well (Psalms 46:10). Why do we need to be alone to hear from God? I think the reason for this is explained in 1 Kings 19 when Elijah is standing before the presence of God on the mountainside. It says that a huge, destructive wind came, but God was not in the wind. Then a massive earthquake came, but God was not in the earthquake. A fire came, but God was not in the fire. Then a gentle whisper came and God was in the whisper. Our lives are so full of “noise” from all matters of things that it’s very rare to find ourselves in a quiet place in order to hear that gentle whisper from God. We must be intentional about getting alone with God every day, it’s very rarely going to happen by accident. In the busyness of our lives are we taking the time to be quiet before God? If we answered no, I guess the next question is… Do we really want to have to deal with God’s call on our life? That seemed to be Jacob’s problem. Maybe it’s our problem as well.

To hear our calling we must struggle. - Genesis 32:24-27

²⁴ This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. ²⁵ When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. ²⁶ Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷ “What is your name?” the man asked. He replied, “Jacob.”

The reason we don’t want to get alone with God is the same reason we must struggle with our calling. It goes against our nature - our sinful nature. This is what Paul was struggling with in Romans 7 when he said “what I want to do I don’t do, but what I don’t want to do I do.” We have the same problem. The things we want to do and what God wants us to do very seldomly line up. So we have to struggle just like Jacob. This wasn’t the first time Jacob wrestled with God, Jacob had been doing this his entire life. Let’s look at what it took for Jacob to come to terms with his calling.

Jacob had to no longer operate in his own strength.

All throughout Jacob's life, he had done everything in his own strength. He had wrestled with his brother in his mother's womb, had grabbed his brother's heel when he was born, stole his brother's birthright over a bowl of stew, and had lied to his father to steal his brother's blessing. He had used his own skill and cunning to live life up to that point. At this point, his brother plotted to kill him so Jacob ran because he was scared. When he ran, God met with him for the first time. He made him a promise and placed a call on his life (Genesis 28:10-22), but Jacob left that place and still tried to accomplish everything in his own power. That is until this point 20 years after that first meeting with God. He wasn’t going to be able to rely on his own strength anymore because God touched his hip and Jacob was crippled.

When God calls us, He’s not going to call us into something we can do in our own power. That can be scary and I think Jacob thought the same thing. That’s why Jacob asked for a blessing because he knew he wasn’t going to ever be able to do things in his own strength anymore. When Jesus calls us we find ourselves in the same spot. He calls us into things we can only do through His strength and that can be terrifying. One of the things that everyone who has made Jesus the Lord of their lives is called to do is to make disciples. When we try to do this in our own strength we either fail or we get too scared to even try to have a gospel conversation. When we do it with the understanding that it’s the Holy Spirit that is doing all the work in the lives of others when we are obedient to the call to share the Gospel, we no longer stand in confidence in our own abilities. We now stand in the confidence of God. When responding to the call of God in our lives we can use our strengths and abilities, but we can not rely solely upon them, we must rely on God.

Jacob had to surrender.

All throughout Jacob’s life he had done everything to serve himself. Everything he did was always about what he could get out of it. Selfishness permeated everything he did, but now he was face to face with God and had to face the truth of his call. God could have stopped this fight at any given time, but God was trying to teach Jacob a lesson by calling him to surrender. We see this all throughout scripture. God uses hard circumstances to call people to submit (Jonah, Sampson, Paul, the list goes on and on). He does it for our own good. God told him “Let me go”, because Jacob was the one who had to learn to stop fighting with God and give in to God’s call on his life.

When God calls us, we fight, we struggle, and we even try to ignore it. However, God’s call will not go away. He’s not going to force it upon us, but God can create circumstances in our lives where we see it’s going to take TOTAL surrender in order to answer God’s call. Jacob had to quit fighting God to answer His call. Jacob had to surrender, and so do we.

Jacob had to be honest

All throughout Jacob’s life, he had seemingly done everything dishonestly. Now was the time to get honest with God and honest with himself. God asked him what his name was and if you remember this wasn’t the first time the Bible records someone asking that very same question. It was back when he was trying to deceive his blind father into giving him Esau’s blessing. He had his dad’s favorite meal (which his brother had gone hunting for), had stolen his brother's clothing so he would smell like his brother, and had even tied young goat skins to his arms and neck so if his father touched him he would feel like his brother. Jacob had done everything to fool his father into thinking he was Esau, but he couldn’t disguise his voice. His father asked, you feel and smell like Esau, but you sound like Jacob. What is your name? It was at that time, Jacob lied and said, I’m Esau. Now Jacob was faced with the same question. God asked him what his name was to see if Jacob was done playing games and ready to carry out his calling. Jacob answered truthfully this time. He then proceeds to ask God’s name and God doesn’t reply. It seems like the contrast between the answer and the non-answer is on purpose, Jacob had changed, but the God who was calling him doesn’t. Jacob was no longer serving himself and pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Instead he was who God called him to be. God, on the other hand, never changes. He was the same God who called him 20 years before and was the God he was wrestling with now. I think that contrast was very evident to Jacob. He was now not his own, but he was fully God’s.

Many times we have “mountain” moments in our lives with God, where we experience His presence in ways we never had before. It’s in those moments we hear from God and we start to understand what He is calling us to do. We might even make promises to God in those moments. When we come off of those mountains and make our way into the valley, we seem to forget all those things God called us to and those promises we made to Him. We can not forget that the God of the mountain is still God in the valleys. We need to get honest with ourselves and honest with God we must surrender to His will and start doing things in His strength, not our own.

We can’t just hear our calling we must live it - Genesis 32:28-31

²⁸ “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” ²⁹ “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said. “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. ³⁰ Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” ³¹ The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip.

We know that just hearing the voice of God and His call in our lives is not enough. James 1:22 tells us to be doers not just hearers. It was at this point, at the point of complete surrender that God changed Jacob's name to Israel, which means “you have struggled with God and overcome.” How did he overcome though? Jacob surrendered, that’s not overcoming. Jacob surrendered and that gave him the victory. It’s paradoxes like these that are all throughout the Bible (Matthew 20:26, Matthew 16:25, Philippians 3:7, Matthew 23:11, 2 Corinthians 12:10), and all these verses call us to do something that is against our nature in order to experience victory in our lives. Obedience is required and that’s what Jacob did

Jacob names the place he wrestled with God “Peniel” because he realized the grace and mercy God has poured out upon him there. That’s when Jacob gets up and goes to meet his brother Esau. Not in his own power anymore. With a limp reminding him that it's not his power that he is standing in anymore, but rather he is standing in God’s power. Jacob could no longer rely upon himself in these situations, he could no longer use his own strength, and he could only rely upon God. This would make all the difference. Even though it had taken 20 years, Jacob had now heard and responded to God’s calling in his life.

When we are saved God meets us in that place, for it’s in that moment we are given the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, and a calling. There are some callings that are given to all Christians, such as making disciples and loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then there are other callings God gives us individually based on our spiritual gifts and talents. Some are called to stay in the vocation they were in before being saved (1 Corinthians 7:20). Others are called to leave those vocations behind and answer God’s call to be something else (preachers, teachers, evangelists, etc). Like I said when we opened, my prayer is that you would hear that calling once again. You would struggle with it, you would surrender to it, and you would get up from this place and walk in God’s strength to carry out the calling God placed on your life.

« Previous 1 … 123 124 125 126 127 … 191 Next »

Sermon Notes

Hearing Your Calling

Genesis 32:22-31

GATHER | GROW | SERVE | SHARE

MENU

RESOURCES

MINISTRIES