The God who settles accounts before blessing us

Chapter 32 of Genesis, verses 22 to 32. I want to talk about the God who settles accounts and if you are thinking: The shepherd is going to throw stones at us now. No, and I have a hiatus, before we bless each other. The God who settles accounts with us before blessing us. And Genesis 32 is the famous passage where Jacob wrestles with the angel. How many fighters do we have here? How many of us have found ourselves sometimes fighting with God or fighting with the angel at night, troubled, with difficulties in our lives, going through difficult times, and those nights are long and we are praying, crying out, fighting, in agony. That happened to Jacob in a very real and very physical way. It says here that “Jacob got up that night and took his two wives and his two female servants and his 11 children – the man was prolific – and crossed Jacob's ford. So he took them and led them and all they had across the stream – much cattle, many animals, property that he had acquired in 20 years of exile in the house of his father-in-law, Saban, and he sent them first, he sent them before him and was left alone, he says. – So Jacob was left alone.”

When is it that God most likes to meet us? Sometimes when we are alone, when we are in meditation, when we are in prayer, perhaps contemplating a beautiful landscape, or in time of fasting. God loves to meet us, and that is why we have to take time to be with God, to be alone, because sometimes there is too much noise around us and we need those secluded places where God is willing to meet us. Jacob sent his people because remember that he was going to meet Esau, his brother, from whom he had fled 20 years before, having stolen his birthright. And he was afraid that when he saw his brother 20 years later, his brother still wanted to cut off his head. So he sent them to his people first, he stayed there while he joined them. I guess he was looking for a revelation from God or comfort or advice or something, but he was left alone that night.

“And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.” Look, it doesn't say a man, it says a man, meaning, this is a mysterious being. In fact, it is the angel of Jehovah that appears on several occasions in the Old Testament as an expression of God himself, as a projection of God. It is the presence of God but as reduced to a mysterious character called the angel of Jehovah, but it is God himself and we are going to see it in a moment. It says that “a man wrestled with him until the rising of the morning,” until the sun was rising. All night he was fighting with that sacred man. "And when the man saw that he could not handle it, he touched the socket of his thigh..." - that joint where the leg joins the hip, is like a ball that has play, that does like this, like on the shoulder too. That meeting place between these two parts of his anatomy, the supernatural male “…and he dislocated his thigh while he was fighting with him. And he said to him, "Leave me, because the dawn is breaking," and Jacob answered him, "I will not leave you if you do not bless me." Hey me, what a thing. Sometimes we have to be persistent with God. God loves those who persist, those who hunger and thirst for Him, those who seek His blessing, those who don't just settle for mediocre Christianity, those who always want something more, those who don't settle for just coming to church. church and the usual routine. Those people who know that God's call to them is a continuous thing, it is a continuous climbing to new heights.

Brother, never depend on the church for your blessing, please don't depend on the pastors, don't depend on your collective religious life. We have to be agonizing. Each of us has to wrestle with the angel at some point in their life and God loves wrestlers. Sometimes they are a problem but God loves them tremendously because at least they believe in Him enough to fight with Him. I beg Him to be fighters that we are always in search of the blessing. You are not going to get all of it here, it's good, glory to God, wonderful, but the greatest blessings are achieved in the direct fight, hand to hand with the angel, where we cry out, as the servant bellows for the streams of water, This is how my soul cries out for you, oh God. People who are thirsty and hungry for God, people who come to church simply to celebrate their crops that they have had overnight, that's what we come to church for. Not necessarily to start harvests but to celebrate and consummate it. Let's be worshipers, let's be fighters. That was not on the agenda of my sermon, but I am telling you now because God wants that from you and me. God wants more fighters with Him at night, more people who tell him, “Father, I'm not going to let you go. Very sorry. You have already given me a lot, but I want more and I need more from you. I will not leave you until you give me all the portion that touches me." God loves those people.

So, he says, “I won't leave you if you don't bless me. And the man said to him, "What is your name?" This persistent guy was missed, I think. God knew who it was. God sometimes asks us what is your name? What's in you? What do I have to recognize in you? What do I have to deal with you? "And Jacob answered him, 'My name is Jacob.' And the man said to him, "Your name Jacob will no longer be said." Do you know what the name Jacob meant? Deceitful, a twisted, sinister guy, you couldn't trust him, you didn't know what was going to come out. It says, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but will be called Israel." Israel means the one who fights with God or God fights. They changed his name. Today, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but is actually Israel. Israel today is named after this man who was initially a suspicious guy. "Your name will not be called Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and you have won." Now you can actually put the image of the painting. Jacob was defeated in one sense because the angel dislodged his thigh, but in another way, he was victorious because he persisted and held on tooth and nail until he received the blessing.

Then Jacob asked him, "Tell me now your name." Now it is Jacob asking the angel what his name is and the man replied, “Why do you ask my name?” In other words, hey, that's not up to you. My name is mysterious. When Moses asked the Lord, What is your name? He told her, “Look, I am who I am, I am what I want to be. I don't have a name. No name can contain me. I am who I am. I am what I am and be content with that." But Jacob was always looking for something more, a greater blessing, knowing the name of God would have been something incredible. No other man knew the name of God. The Jews do not mention the name of God, they do not even write it out completely because it is so sacred. They don't really know. "Why are you asking my name? And he blessed him there.” You see, I won't leave you until you bless me and the angel, okay, I'm going to bless you. I am going to bless you with a direct blessing and I am also going to bless you with a new identity, a new impartation, a new nature, a new walk before me. “And Jacob called the name of that place, Peniel, this is the face of God. That is what the word Peniel means, the face of God, because he said, "I saw God face to face." That angel, as I say, was the very presence of God but in a consumable form, a form that a man could digest, because if it had been God himself, he would have killed him there. No one, says the Bible, has seen the face of God.

Moses saw their backs, their sky. And Jacob in a sense fought, imagine you are fighting with someone and you see his face many times over a whole night. But what he saw was that face of an angel that projected the presence of God. “I saw God face to face and my soul was delivered. – in other words, he did not kill me – And when Peniel had passed the sun came out and he limped on his hip.” Jacob limped his whole life because of that encounter he had with God. "For this reason the children of Israel do not eat to this day from the sinew that contracted, which is in the socket of the thigh because he touched Jacob this place of his thigh in the sinew that contracted." So when you eat a chicken, a chicken thigh, look for that lace and don't eat it. Wonderful story of a man's struggle with God. It brought to my mind this morning as I was working on the sermon a call that I always get, every year, after our annual audit by a company that audits our books, our accounts and all that to make sure that we're doing it right. In a conclusive way, in financial and legal terms, we always send a copy of the audit to the bank that has our mortgage. And always a few days later I receive a call from one of the vice presidents of the bank, Cass Bank, he is a personal friend that I have come to know through all the years that we have business with him and I consider him a personal friend and he too, his name is Lincoln Vermere. Lincoln always writes me an email, says, "Roberto, we have some questions after reading the audit." And it may be a question as to why this entry here says that you received so much from grants, from financial aid for the social ministries that you have, why did it increase so much now from last year? What explains that? Or why such an entry says this and doesn't say the other?

This year, predictably, the questions from Lincoln arrived, one of them was, where is the money that you received from the financial stimulus that was given to non-profit institutions? I can't find it in the audit. Show me where that is. And we searched and certainly there it was because our accountant, the CPA, had put it in a very different place but he understood very well. He said, "Look, every year, this particular entry has caused us a lot of trouble this year because each church puts it in different places, but I can't find it where it is." So we searched, there it was, it was reported to him. But that bank is very thorough and always wants to settle accounts with us. And I tell them this, that Lincoln always tells me, "Roberto, we have complete confidence in you and for me this is simply a duty that I have to do because I have to report to my superiors and I want to know where things are, but I know that you are absolutely reliable people and don't worry. This is simply a question that I ask. You are my favorite church in the entire nation. Don't worry, I'm just doing my duty."

And I say that because God is like the bank, like Cass Bank, God settles accounts with us. God is a God of clear accounts and it is good that we understand that when we serve him, that God is like Lincoln Vermere, but always his inquiries and his settlements with us occur in a context of grace, mercy, goodness, love and ultimately trusted in us, because He knows our hearts. And he knows that we love him. Sometimes we are naughty, sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we sin, but at the end of the day He loves us and his love is irrevocable and his appreciation for us is irrevocable too. but he is a God of clear accounts. And I see that continually throughout all of Scripture. God expects from us confession, integrity, and sometimes he knows that in our life there are accounts to settle, accounts to pay. Sometimes there are things from the past that we have even forgotten sometimes, and we have put them under the pillow or under the bed thinking that if it is not seen it does not exist, but they are there.

And those things sometimes contaminate our heart, our mind, our subconscious, so many things that happen in life. A woman raped as a child often represses that and forgets it. A child who lost his mother at 12 or 7 years old says, oh, that happened, it doesn't matter. He doesn't think about it again but his whole life he lives with melancholy and a huge depression and he doesn't know where it comes from. Another person had a failure of some kind or did not come to fulfill a dream that he expected and that wound goes inwards and is inserted, suppressing downwards, and it is there but it smells bad and it is like garbage that we forgot in the house and there is something that poisons the air and we don't know what it is, but we know that there is something that is not right. Sometimes it can be a sin committed that was not confessed, recognized. Sometimes it was an offense against someone, the years went by, we forget it, we move on and the devil does not forget anything and if it is not God who calls us to account, the enemy often tries to accuse us.

And sometimes there are things in life that hold us back and that hold us back in life and we don't know why we don't move forward, why we don't give our footing, but there is something that needs to be fixed. Because the spiritual world is a judicial, legal world. The devil is a first class legalist. The devil is the prosecutor of the church, he is always accusing the church. And God many times not because He wants to, but sometimes God is forced by his justice, by his integrity to put up with things that He wants to give us because we have not settled accounts and He wants to but his law prevents him, his integrity prevents him and So, He says, "First you have to fix this, you have to bring it to light, you have to confront it." We are already forgiven but many times we have to go to an even greater step. And I believe that this is the story of Jacob. Jacob had a number of accounts to settle and God had a destiny for him. Jacob was the patriarch of Israel, the spiritual lineage of the future people of Israel was to run through him. But how did Jacob get to that birthright, to that dignity? He had practically stolen from his brother, in a ruse. He had taken advantage of his brother's weakness when he was ravenously hungry, and bought his birthright for a sancocho, a stew, because his brother was careless. Jacob had an appetite for the things of God but his brother was a careless man, all he was interested in was the hunt, sensual, the appetites of the moment. Jacob took advantage of that, stole his birthright. He obtained the blessing but in an illegitimate way and had to flee. He had to go into exile for 20 years, far from his brother who wanted to kill him because he realized what had happened to him and what his brother had done to him.

And Jacob had always been a deceitful man, a man who always left a trail of unresolved things. He went into exile and God put him there in the house of his father-in-law, Laban, and there in exile with his father-in-law, he found the match for his shoe, another deceiver, his father-in-law, who made him work for the two sisters for 20 years that they were his daughters. And he would always tell her, “I'm going to pay you that much,” and then I wouldn't pay her anything. He forced him to work 20 years. 20 years, imagine yourself with a promise and you didn't keep it. They say out there that a thief who steals from a thief has 100 years of forgiveness. Well, Jacob ran into another deceiver. But the paradox of this story is that while God disciplines Jacob and deals with him, he also blesses him. Because there in his exile, Jacob prospers and God gives him cows and sheep and cattle, and money and possessions, because He has a destiny with that man and says that the gifts of God are irrevocable. But God also blesses us but settles accounts. That is the thing, that is the mystery of that God that we have.

There is a titanic struggle between Laban and Jacob. Read the story, it's fascinating. There comes a time when Laban realizes that he is not stealing from Jacob, but that Jacob is stealing from him in a sense. Laban's smile gradually turns into a grimace of anger and annoyance and Jacob realizes that his father-in-law no longer loves him too much and decides to leave the house and run away from home. God tells him, "Go, come back." But it does it the wrong way. Again, that's where Jacob's modus operandi as a deceiver comes in. He calls his women to the field, prepares everything and flees from Laban. He doesn't say goodbye, he doesn't say anything, he leaves and leaves accounts to settle. He leaves a man angry, upset with him who feels violated and runs off. That is his modus operandi, that is how he works in life. Leave a trail of broken relationships. But God doesn't want him to go that way. Because? Because Jacob is already a man of weight, Jacob is a patriarch. God has blessed him. God has given you gravitas, has given you spiritual weight. So such a man must not be a fugitive. And so, when Laban realizes that Jacob has fled three days later, he sends after him with his men. And note the interesting thing, I believe that God is promoting this meeting but God finds Laban in a dream one of those nights that he is chasing Jacob. He tells him, “Look, be very careful with that man, don't talk bad to him. Treat him with the dignity he deserves." That is something mysterious.

This God who is taking Jacob to account also says to his opponent, "hey, that's my servant, treat him with respect." There is a paradox there that God often confronts us but is also a God of mercy. His grace is always with us. He is working in our lives. God does not humiliate us. God is not a God who despises us, even when he sees our flaws. We have to deal with each other with mercy, even as we confront each other, we have to have mercy with each other, because God does. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians, “If any of you is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual – you who are so holy – restore him.” He says as remembering who yourselves are too, lest you also fall into the same mistake. That is the God… and that is why I say, “Lord, help us to be a congregation of mercy, love and justice, that we be clear but that we are also merciful and understanding.” Because sometimes God is dealing with people that you don't even understand and we have to be very human, very humble and very generous and pastoral when we deal with one another. Because the way you treat others, that's how you will be treated. I will have mercy on the one who has mercy, he says. So, I am captivated by that fact that God, while sending Laban to confront Jacob, says to him, "Be careful not to speak badly to that man because I have dealings with him."

And the other thing is that it allows Jacob not to go out as a fugitive. That allows Jacob to act with integrity. So when Laban finds him and says, “Look, why did you do that to me? You have robbed me." Jacob has the opportunity to explain his perspective, and between the two there is an interesting dialogue that ends in an eternal friendship pact between the two. And Laban now treats Jacob for what he is, a man of spiritual weight. And Jacob can then separate from Laban having already fixed that chapter of his life, giving him closure and now free to continue what God has for him. And I say that many times, brothers, we have to do the same in our lives. If we have offended someone, let us leave our offering at the altar and go and settle accounts. God is telling us today if there is something in your life that needs to be fixed. Now, it does not necessarily have to be an offense that you have done against someone, it can be something that is in your heart as well, a wound, something that you have not confronted, something with which you have not made your peace, some habit, some offense, some accident, some trauma. There are people who have not forgiven God for something they think God did to them, a loss. Sometimes we have not forgiven a loved one, or a teacher who even died 20 years ago but we still have to forgive him because he hit us in front of everyone else and humiliated us, or whatever. We have to clean up. God wants clean hearts. God wants settled accounts. God wants clear spaces inside and out. God wants us to walk clean before Him.

When Looting is visited by the Lord, Looting knows he has scores to settle. He has robbed a lot of people. And Jesus has nothing to say to him except… he himself says, “Lord, I have robbed many people but today I want to return double what I have stolen from anyone, or quadrupled I think it is.” Four times, yes. "If I have offended someone, let them come and I will settle accounts with them." You have to settle accounts in life, you have to walk cleanly before God and as I said, those accounts do not necessarily have to be serious sins, they can be things that are within us as well, things that we have to confront and with which we have to deal with. struggle. Finish that dialogue with Laban and so, Jacob is now free to continue his journey, why? Because God took this deceitful man, put him in the oven for 20 years, now he is taking him out, he is going to lead him towards his new life, reconciled with God and with his enemies, and he is preparing something. That is why I say that Jacob's journey, those 20 years, is an internal psychological journey, God's journeys. That is the journey that Elijah took when we talked about him. He went into the desert and then traveled, he says, 40 days and 40 nights. It was a psychological and physical journey. God takes us on journeys, brothers, through life, all of us are involved in a journey. When you enter the ways of the Lord, you enter a journey. It is a long-term journey where God is going to be dealing with you in mysterious ways, because God is a thorough, careful God, and sometimes things will happen in your life that are part of the divine accounting. Many times the devil will accuse you even if you do not pay certain debts. And God in his mercy and love, deal with you so that the enemy does not take advantage of your weaknesses. And sometimes he puts you in the oven so that by means of that oven fire, your impurities are burned in the crucible, in the oven, in that place of purification by the heat of God. And that will be part of the Lord's treatment for you. And if God loves you, you will go through situations like this.

He passed through Paul with his goad. It says, “And so that the great revelations that I received would not fill me with pride…” because it seems that Paul had a tendency towards pride, “…they should not fill me with pride inordinately, he sent me a thorn in the flesh,” a messenger from Satan, because God sometimes uses the negative things in life, and even the attacks and accusations of the devil, God uses them to bless you. Sometimes Satan ends up doing God's work and sometimes God's instruments are very sharp and sinister when you look at them, and sometimes they will cut off part of your being, but it will be because those parts are already old, ugly, dead. , and if he withholds them from you, they will contaminate your life. Then God surgically steps in and cuts them off because he wants to bless you. And that is why we can never, brothers, underestimate the complexity of God's treatment.

And then, Jacob goes on his way and is dreading the meeting he is going to have with his brother because the brother he knows in an era where there was no internet, no newspapers or anything, is a brother who wanted to kill him 20 years ago. And he thinks that this is the brother that he is going to find, an angry, offended Esau, who still wants to cut off his head. He fears what he will find there and that is why he makes a plan to divide his family in two, he says, because at least if he attacks a group and kills it, at least one will be left alive, another group , a wife. And he sends him a quantity of... he prepares a whole ritual of gifts that he sends little by little to calm him down. He doesn't know that God has already worked in Esau's heart because God already did what he had to do. But on the way, I think he was so afraid that he sends all his strategic plan that he has, he sends his servants, he sends his wives, he sends his children, all very well coordinated and perhaps he is left alone to pray and cry out to God and in that solitude, God has an encounter with him.

How many encounters did God have with Jacob? He had four. One was with angels that came his way. I had to study that because I had never thoroughly studied that chapter of Jacob's life. Four encounters, each mysterious and beautiful. And in that encounter that night, this man comes and fights face to face, hand to hand with Jacob. Can you post that image again, please. One wonders why this meeting. What value was that? I think it has an incredible, sublime value. It is one of the most eloquent and artistic images in the Bible because that fight represents Jacob's fight with himself, with his demons. Jacob's struggle with his insecurities, his flaws, his imperfections, sins, bills to pay. The mixture of grace, kindness, love, that was in him but also the sinister part of his personality. Because many times we have gifts and we also have shadows of those gifts. And many times we have a great appetite for God but sometimes there are a lot of things in our life that have to be worked on. There are defects that we have not addressed and we think that since we tithe so much and serve the Lord so much, there is no problem. That which we work and give, that is our deodorant and God says, "No, boy, if you stink, I have to put you in the bathtub and take a dip because I am not bribed."

So, God wanted to heal this man. God didn't want him to always be leaving a trail of destroyed bodies everywhere. He wanted this man to walk cleanly before Him and it brings him into terror, it brings him into confrontation. And I believe that that fight with the angel was God's way of giving Jacob effective psychotherapy. And what is the equivalent of our fight with the angel, brothers? Situations that we face in life, dramas in which we find ourselves, predicaments, tragedies, losses, struggles, humiliations, moral, physical and financial failures and of all kinds, places where God finds us. Peter had his encounter, his fight with the angel that night that he denied Jesus three times. That was bitter for him, it was a crucifixion. This man who loved Jesus so much, so much he thought, no one can love him like I love him. And yet, the Lord looks at him in his great self-confidence and smiling sadly tells him, “Peter, you don't know what you're saying. You say that everyone is going to leave me and you are going to be the only one. Look, I am going to tell you that you are going to deny me not once, not twice, three times before the rooster crows." Peter couldn't believe it. He said, well the Lord is surely saying that because he doesn't know who I am. But indeed three times he denied the Lord. He says that he cried bitterly. When the Lord looked at him. Can you imagine that look? The Lord is being questioned, he is being practically tortured by questioning, and when the rooster crows three times, the Lord knew what had happened and looked at him from afar, because Peter could not get closer, he looked at him, I imagine he smiled with a look of mercy and grace and amusement almost, and Peter saw it and says that he wept bitterly. A total defeat for that man, to deny the Lord in his moment of greatest need.

But I tell you, brothers, that the Lord sometimes uses terrible weapons and instruments that inflict terror on us, crucifixions. But the Lord had already told him, "Peter, Peter, Satan has asked you to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed that your faith does not fail, and once you have returned, go and strengthen your brothers." The Lord knew that Satan was behind that attack. Sometimes Satan wants to destroy us and the Lord for a moment removes his defense from us but he is always careful of what is happening. He controls the process. And Satan says, let me touch him, let me hurt him, let me destroy him, like with Job. The Lord sets limits for Satan because Satan is sometimes God's coach. What thing. mysteries. And Jesus knew that Peter was going to be a great man of God. Peter was going to be the supreme, main Apostle of the church in his time of formation. Peter had to play a priestly, apostolic role, but he could not use it as Peter was constituted, with his character, his defects, he needed to train him, and for this reason he allowed the enemy to instill supernatural fear in Peter so that Peter would be punished, treated, was hurt, was humiliated, was diluted, was bled and recognized that only by the grace and mercy of God. Because if Pedro had maintained his strength and integrity at that time, perhaps he would have become even worse in his impulsiveness and pride. So, the Lord needed to bleed him dry.

I tell you, brothers, God never uses a man or a woman greatly until he disqualifies him, until that man, that woman knows that only by the grace of the Lord can she be used. That is something incredible but I assure you that this is a reality of God's mysteries towards us. “So that you may be recognized in your word and counted pure in your judgment,” says the psalmist. "Against you, against you only have I sinned so that you may be recognized just in your word and considered pure in your judgment." What a mystery that God sometimes allows us to be humiliated and to reach the bottom of our humanity so that it is clear to the angels and demons that God is just, faithful and that only He deserves glory and honor. No one can be used by God until they are willing to give all the glory and all the honor to the Lord. If God is going to use you greatly, He is going to make sure that you are a prisoner of His grace and that you never believe that it is because you earned it, because God has a controversy with man because of his pride, because of his way of being. , God does not play with that.

So, God is working with Jacob. Jacob is his servant. He has to treat him according to his rank but he also has to train and strengthen him. And that wrestling with the angel is God's way of dealing with Jacob. That fight with the angel is a confrontation with everything that Jacob has inside of him, the good and the bad. The man with a great appetite for God who appreciates spiritual things but also seeks them in illegitimate ways. The man who does not have total integrity and needs to be brought to the point of recognizing what he is. The man who fights tooth and nail for what he wants, has to do whatever, but gets things no matter what, but he is also a man… because God uses people like that. Sometimes if God is going to use us, he needs us to be strong, to be enterprising, to be dynamic and aggressive in life. God doesn't use a wuss, oh blessed, everything is fine, if it happens, it happens. No, God loves agonizing, struggling people. But many times, again, the endowment has its shadow, the entrepreneurial character many times has its negative side that we are insistent and sometimes God tells us, "No, wait," but no, we rush like a runaway horse and look for the things, we are impulsive, we are quarrelsome, we are critical, we get angry easily, we hold grudges, we lose heart quickly.

This very morning I was talking with such a person, after the sermon he came up to me. This person has a lot of gift, a lot of talent, a lot of things but there is a side that immediately became clear. There is an impulsiveness, there is a superficiality, there is a fragility that endures and God is going to have to take that person and tell him, "Come, sit here," and bleed him for a while, draw blood, because he has too much blood for him to walk then. slowly. And God can take her where he has to take her, because if that person with all his defects is put in a position of authority, he will be a fool, as we Dominicans say, he will be a disaster. Everywhere he will leave bodies rolling and God has to bleed us sometimes so that we can be that suffering servant, that meek and humble person that God can inhabit and that acts, not with his own strength but with the strength of God within him. Sometimes God has to hollow us out and empty the vessel to then place his anointing because otherwise what is working is the carnal, human vessel, and with that the devil feasts.

And I think that the angel's fight…they were fighting all night. Do you think that was necessary? That angel had all the power he wanted, with a little touch he simply dislodged his hip and made him lame for the rest of his life. That angel could have destroyed Jacob in the first instant. Look at the painting, that's why I like it, because these paintings of the angel fighting with Jacob or vice versa, have been painted by artists through the centuries. That one in particular is by a painter called Gustav Doré, from the 19th century and what I like about that painting is that… look at that angel. The angel is sure of himself. That angel is not sweating at all. Actually, Jacob is like a three-year-old boy who has a dog and the angel is holding him by the arms telling him, "Don't worry, I'm not going to let you go until you..." It's not Jacob who doesn't let go of the angel, it's the angel who will not release Jacob until he is defeated. Because sometimes God defeats us to give us victory. Sometimes God humbles us to get up. Sometimes God hurts us to give us more strength. Sometimes God brings us down to get up. Sometimes God crucifies us so that we have a resurrection and enter into all blessing and all authority. And many times before God blesses us, he slaps us lightly, but he slaps us.

You know that in the Middle Ages when a man was going to be declared a knight by the queen, when he came to be consecrated as a knight, as a knight, the king or queen would take a glove and give him a symbolic slap across the face wanting to say, remember that I am the boss here. I have the right to humiliate you if I want, but I am going to make you a knight of my court. And many times before blessing us, God crucifies us. I want to tell you that I have been crucified several times in my life. I have experienced crucifixions. I already have it as a working principle [sic] in my life, that God, before a promotion to get me up, always puts me down, always humiliates me, always disqualifies me, always puts me into the dark night of the soul, always puts me into the desert , and always forces me to recognize that only by his grace, his goodness and his mercy.

Yesterday I was giving a class with a church here in Boston and he told me, - I'm not bragging about anything, I assure you, because I'm going to tell you what I told him - he told me, “How do you stay humble? How do you fight the tendency to pride? I told him, “Very easy, I know who I am. I do not delude myself of who I am. God has confronted me with myself." And when one confronts oneself and one knows what it is, what pride can there be, brothers. And so it is with all of us, God is going to confront us in life but his confrontation is a loving confrontation. After that fight in which the loser ends up winning and the winner ends up defeated, Jacob has another name, another identity, another destiny, he has fully entered into his calling as patriarch of Israel, and now he is free for his next stage of life. And when he settles with his brother at the end of the day, he joins his family again, he goes to where Esau is thinking that Esau is going to cut off his head. But no, Esau now treats Jacob as the patriarch of the family. Esau tells him, “Don't worry, why are you sending me all these people with all these gifts? That is not necessary." And she even wants to reject it and Jacob says, "No, please, take it." Jacob ends up honored because when one submits to God's discipline, brothers, then God blesses us, he is free to bless us. When one arranges his life with the Lord, then God can enter us at the level that He really wants to enter us.

So, Jacob is reconciled with his brother, he is blessed, he can reunite with his family, from his father, he can be Jacob, Israel the son of God, the prophet, the priest, the man through whom the blessing of God until today in this incredibly great humanity, because God told him that. When he was fleeing from Esau He told him, "I am going to bless you and your family is going to be huge." Because even while he was putting him in the discipline, he was already blessing him and preparing the blessing that was to come. That is the God in which I have believed and in which you should believe and which you should also serve. Today when one sees Jacob on his deathbed, decades later, after several crucifixions as well, that Jacob is now ready to meet with his Creator, what dignity Jacob has when he blesses his children and each one gives them a blessing or a pointing, whatever, but that Jacob would never have been able to do that with that dignity if he hadn't gone through that trajectory. And so God has called you into your life for something.

My brothers, now I see you here, I focus on you, I cannot enter the mystery of God in your lives, that is a sacred place where only you and God. God is doing things. It's not disciplining because I don't think that… but there is something that God is doing, because God is always doing something in us. God is always struggling with us. It is dealing in some way with losses, with struggles, with pain, and sometimes we will not be able to answer those questions that are going to come up on this side of life. But our plan is to say, “Lord, I can't understand everything that you do, but I know that what you do is good, it's intentional, it's merciful, and you're going to bless me in some way. I believe that and I'm going to hold on until I see your blessing, until I see your restoration."

God is honored when his children kiss the hand that slapped them and the devil is defeated, because he says, "hey, they serve you because you give them blessings, because you make their lives easy," but God says, " No, no, my children serve me because I am who I am. They serve me because they love me. They serve me because they know that I am good even though they cannot understand me, but I am good." What God does by definition is good in your life. God has not called you to curse you. God has called you to bless you. God has not called you out of embarrassing you. God has called you to honor you. God has called you to rise up. God has called you so that at the end of your life you honor him with your mere walk on earth. God has disciplined you, dealt with you so that when others see you, they see an angel, not a man crawling on the ground, or a woman. That is the mystery of God. We are all Jacob. I am Jacob. I thank my Father because he is such a sublime God, so mysterious that he takes us seriously and deals with me, with you, in a beautiful, sublime, important way. I want you to receive God's call to your life this afternoon and adapt yourself to what He is doing in you, whatever it may be.

Let's lower our heads for a moment, I say goodbye and I say goodbye to all of us. Take a moment. The angel is in front of you right now. Realize that you are in a loving struggle with the angel, a non-violent but exhausting struggle and ask yourself, what do I have to give to the angel? And what things are going to make me limp a little for the rest of my life because when God touches us, he also makes us limp a little. But imagine, being able to say, "I saw the angel face to face." I personally would limp for the privilege of seeing God, seeing his face. Give the angel whatever, what you have in your life, there is a wound, give it to him. There is a loss, give it to him. There is an unresolved offense, give it to him and decide that at some point you are going to do what you have to do with it. Is there something that has to be fixed in your life, is there something you have to forgive, something you have to let go of? Give it to the Lord. It will hurt a little but afterwards the blessing will be so great that it is worth it. Give the Lord everything you have to give right now. I'm with you there doing it myself, God knows. We are going to surrender to the Lord, we are going to be clean, we are going to be free. We are going to be released from what we owe to someone or something. Let's take a walk. And if someone wants to make the most powerful pact of all, which is with Christ Jesus, and they owe it to God... to say, "Lord, I receive you as my Father, my Savior, my Lord," if you haven't done it before, if you want to do it now too.

Raise your hand or acknowledge in some way that you are inviting Jesus into your life. If you haven't done it before, I invite you now. Do not leave here without settling the biggest account of all, which is our sin that only Christ can take and give your heart to Jesus, your life to Jesus. Do it and I'm going to let you do it as you want, privately, stand up, raise your hand, God knows, all I ask is that you live in light of that confession, that at some point you make it public and that others can know that you are a follower of Jesus Christ and that you do not depend on yourself but on God. But confess to the Lord this afternoon as your God, as your Lord and Savior, the one who forgives your sins, the one who heals your ailments, the one who rescues your life from the hole. Give the Lord what you owe him. There is no shame in it. Father, I bless my brothers and I ask that your grace be with them this afternoon. Don't let us underestimate the importance of walking straight ahead of you. I give you what I have, I give you all that I am. Help us to walk with integrity before you, Lord, and our brothers. Heal us. Heal our hearts. Heal our souls. I bless this people, Lord, who loves you, families, individuals, and I thank you for what you are doing in this congregation. Take us to the most intimate place of your presence, Lord, to an encounter with you at night, an encounter with the angel, and make us more and more like Christ. Thank you Lord, thank you God. We adore you, we bless you. Brothers, I bless you. May the grace and peace of the Lord be with each of you and may we enter the new level that God wants for us. Amen.