He Who Wrestles With God

0:00This morning, I'd like to share with you something that has been an object of my studies, my personal studies, when I look at scriptures and I try to understand how God works and how what He expects from us. So for a while now, I've been kind of studying different things, different stories in the Bible, and one of the things that I'm looking at right now is to try to figure out what is it that we need to do as children of God? What is the secret of walking with God without failing, without problems, without struggles? I mean, you can, and by that, I don't meet it in a sense of when you walk with God, then all the problems end. No. In the sense that you remain faithful to God and nothing gets you, of course, so nothing destructs you, nothing takes you away from the presence of God.

1:00So I've been studying this, trying to figure out what can make us overcome, what can make us walk and remain consistent without being shaken, without being taken away from the presence of God. And I use, I've been thinking of the children of Israel because the Jews have been our example. The children, the descendants of Abraham have been an example that God used for the world. God went through them to communicate to the world or to make himself known to the world. So I looked at their existence from when they were still slaves in Egypt until when they got into the possession of the promised land. I tried to look in general and find, you know, what really are the keys? What are the things that are most important to God, such that when you master these things, you can never be shaken from the presence of God. Would maybe wonderful if you can be a perfect Christian.

2:01Would maybe wonderful if you can live a life where there's no ups and downs. Like, you know, me, my spiritual life, it's like for those of you who do statistics, my spiritual life, it's like this graph that has a lot of spikes today. You're here tomorrow, you're bound, you're down and then tomorrow, like there's, there's these fluctuations today, you're stronger tomorrow, you feel beaten down, you feel weak. Then you go in the presence of God again. So there's these, these fluctuations in our spiritual lives, but would need be perfect if every day you please God, would need be perfect. If every day you do the will of God, every day you obey God. So I've been studying, I'm like, I'm asking myself, what is it that we can do as people of God that will make us walk on a straight line forever and never fall? So I began to look at the different stories in the Bible and the children of Israel to find clues as to what God says about these things.

3:03What are the things? We did God give us clues for what He's looking for. What did He, in a simple way, what did He say or what did He put into scriptures that can show us the secrets to walking with Him? The Bible says that He not walked with God and He was no more. This is one of the characters in the Bible that fascinates me the most because He walked with God and then God took Him because for some reason He was just perfect and God decided I'm going to remove Him from the earth. You look at people like Elijah, Elijah walked with God, He was serving God, but God decided that He's not going to die. God just took Him, amen. So my story today begins in the book of Genesis, but I noticed one thing that children of Israel have three important seasons in their lives, three major seasons.

4:06So this is how I'm going to divide my teaching into three major seasons. I'm sure when you look at scriptures there are probably multiple seasons with the people of Israel, but I will divide their history into three seasons. The first season is Egypt. This is when the children of Israel were slaves and during that season they don't know much about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because at this point there are just a nation with a promise. Abraham, 30 having children and gave him promises saying that Isaac will be the son or promise and out of him will come out of an entire nation and one particular nation that will come out of him is Israel that will be a blessing to all the nations of the world. The Bible says to us that the God had already announced to him that his children would be into captivity. So that's the season when there are just developing as a nation and then they become a whole nation

5:13but as the nation is born they are born into captivity. So that's the first season. The second season I will consider today is the season when they come out of captivity, now they're headed towards the promised land. I call this the desert season. So in that season they spend most of their time in the desert traveling to the promised land. And then the third season I call it the promised land season. This is now when they are established into their land. They've conquered the land and now they are into the promised land and this includes from the time of the conquest of Joshua all the way through to Jesus' time and even today. Now, saying all of this, part of the reason why I divided into these three categories is because the three categories, the three seasons, indicate three stages of their growth in the

6:15knowledge of God. If you compare a child of God or an Israelite who was in Egypt, they didn't know much about God. They probably heard myths about Abraham and the God of their fathers but they knew nothing about him and most of the Jews or the Hebrews who were in Israel in Egypt most likely were worshipping also the Egyptian gods. Besides the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, they were also idolaters. They most likely also worshipped Egyptian gods. Until Moses came to them and told them the God of your fathers have sent me to get you out of this place. They did not know much about this guy. So we could say that this particular period was characterized by two things. Number one, slavery and number two, ignorance. They didn't know much about God. In terms of the knowledge of God, if we look at this season in terms of the knowledge of God, there were still ignorance. There were still very baby children in the things of God.

7:19Now then this next season, the season that I called what again? The desert. Now in the desert, they are learning. They are beginning to learn the things of God. The Bible says that Moses speaking to Pharaoh, told Pharaoh, let my people go so they can worship God in the desert. So one of the things that they went to do in the desert is to worship God and to learn about this God, to discover this God. So they went to that time of the desert where they were receiving the 10 commandments and they were learning about how to offer sacrifices to God. So we could say that in terms of the knowledge of God, their knowledge increased a little bit more. Would you agree with me? So their knowledge increased. They are learning about the laws. The book of the Leviticus is given to them during the desert. The book of Deuronomy is given to them in the desert. The book of numbers is given to them in the desert.

8:19The book of Genesis, Exodus, all of this is compiled during that season, during that period when they are in the desert. Now, one thing we can say here is that the knowledge is not perfect but they are growing at least. We know that they are growing. So that's what we can say. But they are also free at the same time. In Egypt there were slaves and ignorant, but now in the desert they are free and growing. The last season, the Promised Land, which is really where we're going to sit today, is a place where they've arrived now in the land that God has promised them. They have all the knowledge, all the knowledge that they need to have in order to serve God. They have it in their possession. The books of the Lord have been written. The Ten Commandments have been given to them. God even wrote the Ten Commandments himself on tables of stone and gave them to Moses. So they have all the information that they need to have.

9:23They have supposedly all the knowledge that they need to have. And they are free. However, when you read their history from when they enter the Promised Land to now, it's been a battle. You would think that these would be the most glorious times when they really know God, they've matured, they can stand firm and no more falling. But unfortunately, the period in the Promised Land is when they struggle the most. Because in the Promised Land, that's where you see them beginning to worship other gods. And then God would reject them. And then God would restore them back again. Revival would come. God would send judges and kings and different types of people. But then they would fall back again. So in terms of the characteristic of what what characterized this this time, this season of the Promised Land, they struggled with God.

10:25They wrestled with God. God would reject them. Then they would come back. They would hang on to him again. They would cry out to him. God would have mercy. At some point they would lose their way again. God would kick them out. Then they would come back again. And this struggle we as children of God can relate to it. It's such a powerful depiction of the relationship between humanity and God. And I think God spoke of this. He foresaw this before it happened. And he already announced it in the life of a man called Jacob. Amen. The Bible says that when Jacob was leaving Laban going back to his to his father's place or into his country, when he was running away from from his brother. On his way back, he spent the night in this place, in the place where God visited him before.

11:27Like when he was still traveling back, a traveling to to Laban's place. So now he's coming back from Laban's place and he stops there. Because he knew God visiting him there. So he stayed there that night to pray and to seek God. And in the middle of the night the Bible says that he's struggled with an man. And the Bible tells us that this man was an angel of God, was God himself. So he wrestled with him. This is like physical wrestling. He was like grappling with him. The guy is trying to escape. He's holding on to him because he didn't want the man to leave. Without blessing him. Can you imagine God appears in your bedroom? And God didn't realize that you noticed that he was there. Well, let's just make it hypothetical, right? Because God knows everything. Let's pretend that God didn't know that you noticed that he was there. And then right before he leaves, you grab him. It's like you're not going anywhere.

12:31God is like, look, I got to go. And I bet he probably didn't say anything. He was just trying to get away. He's trying to get away. Jacob is like, you're not going anywhere. You have to bless me. And they wrestle and wrestle and wrestle until God broke his hip. He broke his hip to release himself from Jacob. And the Bible tells us that once he successfully released himself before he leaves, he asks Jacob, what is your name? And Jacob says, my name is Jacob. And says, from now on, you shall be called Israel because you wrestled with God and with men. And you prevailed. Hallelujah. He who wrestles with God. That's my topic this morning. He who wrestles with God. So God is announcing.

13:32He's already foreseeing the relationship that's going to be between Israel and him. He's predicting it that it's going to be a wrestling match. What God tries to get away and Jacob is holding on to him. It's an interesting dynamic. It's as if they're enemies but they're really not enemies. One, one something from the other. And the other one is making it difficult for the other person to receive it. And he's trying to get away but Israel is holding on to him until he prevailed. Even though in the end, God was able to release himself because he broke his hip. But he recognized, he acknowledged that Jacob prevailed and said, because you are Jacob, I'm going to, because you prevailed, I'm going to name you now Israel. It's not that God did not have the strength to get away. But it was a metaphoric picture of figure or image of what was going to take place

14:37not only with the nation of Israel but also with us as people of God, as children of God. Amen. It was kind of announcing a wrestling match between Israel and God. Oh, when you look at the history of Israel, these people have struggled. And until the end, they got to the point where there was so far gone from God that nobody could believe that they could be restored again because God cast them out of his presence. He kicked them out of his presence completely. They were deported, the temple was defiled and all sorts of things. And even now, when you go there, it's a miracle that Israel has been put together again as a nation. And even though it's been put together, right now, they still struggle. They still struggle, not all of them believe in God. There are many, many Jews who are atheist.

15:39There are many Jews who believe who actually are against God. Like they are militant against the things of God. So it's important for us today to kind of meditate on this struggle a little bit. So one thing I learned as I was looking at this struggle is I was trying to figure out what is it that God expects from us. So we wouldn't struggle so much. What is it that God put some sort of a hint into the scriptures to tell us what he expects from us. So I'm going to have Elder Manifield help me and go into the book of Exodus chapter 19. You're going to prepare for us verse 5 and 6. But the foundation of my message is for those who are writing is in Genesis 32, verse 24 to 28. We're not going to read that.

16:39It's a story. It's the story I just told you about Jacob. But I would like us to begin a text reading in Exodus 19, 5 to 6. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priest and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. Amen. So as I was reading this passage, I realized that God hinted into this passage what it is that he expects from us so we can walk with him perfectly. At least it's a secret. Like if you can do these things according to scriptures, then you can walk with him well. I'm not saying that anybody has ever succeeded to walk with him perfectly.

17:43But I'm claiming that he told us what to do to be able to walk with him perfectly. So far so good. All right, would you help me and tell your neighbor wake up and pay attention? Because we are taking off. All right. So in this passage, there are three major things that God is dealing with. For those who are writing here, number one, he says, now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice. So he sets an expectation and this expectation is dealing with something. And I'll tell you what it is. He says, if you will indeed obey my voice, before you can obey the voice, you first have to be familiar with the voice. You have to know the voice, right? So he expects them to know his voice.

18:47And what he's referring to here, he's not referring to the big voice of thunder that Moses was hearing on the mountain. That's not what he's referring to. He says, if you will indeed obey my voice, why he's referring to there, he's referring to the knowledge, the body of knowledge that he has given Moses, and he's provided for the children of Israel to live by. He's saying, I've given you all my audiences and my statues and my instructions. If you indeed will obey my voice, why he's saying by that is, if you will obey my word. So he expects them to already know the word and to obey it. So right now, I think what he's dealing with is dealing with their ignorance. He's saying, I expect you to know my voice and to obey it. That's basically what he's saying. So the first thing, the first challenge that God wants to deal with is ignorance.

19:47And we see this in the progression. From Egypt, they didn't know nothing, they didn't know anything, in the desert, he gives them the knowledge that they needed. In the promised land, he expected them to know him. He expected them to have the knowledge of the scriptures, of the texts, of all the things that he wants, the things that he does not want. So the first thing that God wants to deal with is ignorance. This is one of the first enemies. The first thing that causes us to wrestle with God. Ignorance. One of the challenges in Israel was the ability of the people to just learn and grow and know God. When there is somebody to teach the word of God, they knew him, they walked with him, no problem. But many times, ignorance was also a serious handicap for the work with the Lord. The second thing that God is dealing with in this passage is the individual and national alliances. He says, the next thing he says,

20:53he says, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant. So a covenant is basically an alliance. It's a relationship. It's like we establish a relationship with God and you form an alliance with them. You make a promise like some sort of a contract with him. He says, if you keep my covenant, so he's dealing here now with relationships or he's dealing with the type of alliances that people would form and he establish an alliance with them which will define every other alliance that they will get into. Amen. In other words, if you are in a relationship with me, I will determine what kind of relationship you're going to form with anybody else, whether they're individuals or countries. Remember the teaching I had not too long ago about Jehoshaphat.

21:54The things that causes revivals to fail, I think something like that. One of the points in that teaching was ungodly covenants. So God wanted to deal with alliances or covenants that the tune of Israel would form. And then he tells them, lastly, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The last thing God was trying to deal with was idolatry. He says, you will be a holy nation. To be holy is to be set apart. So he wanted them to be just his people. In other words, you cannot worship any other God. So three things. Number one, ignorance. Number two, individual and national alliances. What country? What are the countries to be allies with? And then number three, idolatry. So ignorance, individual and national alliances and idolatry. Now let's dig deep into these three issues. So now they're in the promised land.

22:55One thing we notice is those three things I just mentioned to you. These were the major problems, the major issues that the children of Israel had. Every time the children of Israel were cast out before God, every time God punished them, there was an issue either of ignorance or of alliances or of idolatry. Either they were too ignorant to know what to do or they knew enough but they just disobeyed which is basically you know this happens with alliances. God told them you can't marry the people, you can't marry the people from other countries. Just stay among yourself because I didn't want you to marry people from other countries who influence you into idolatry. And thirdly it was idolatry obviously with the word the pursuit of other gods. Now there are three things that I identified here that are very important

24:01for the children figure and these things are tied to these three elements I just mentioned to you. And what I'm going to talk to you now about these three elements, this should be the secrets, the secrets of a perfect work with God. If any human being can master this, if any human being can maximize these things in their lives, you are guaranteed to work with God. The challenge that we have as human beings is it is very difficult for us to master these three things. So we know that God is trying to deal with ignorance, he's trying to deal with alliances, he's trying to deal with idolatry but he deals with them in a specific way. He sets some expectations and those are the expectations that I want us to look at. So number one, I mentioned to you, so this is now the secrets you can start writing down. So number one, he deals with

25:03knowledge. So he says, if you keep, if you indeed obey my voice, then he's setting an expectation, says you have to know me, you have to know me, that would deal with ignorance. He has to remove him because the only way you can work with God, you have to know what he wants, you have to know what he desires. And knowledge has different dimensions to it. It's like you and I today, we are expected to know God. Could you have me until the name of God expect you to know him? People think that I can just leave a chill, you know, Christian life where, you know, I'm just saved and that's enough. No, it's not enough. You need to know God. God expects you to know him because if you don't, the trouble will come. Amen. So knowledge has different levels. He has different dimensions. And I think I taught this in one of the teachings that I've given

26:06on the Holy Spirit a few months ago. The four dimensions very quickly, you, some of you, if you go back and find, I think, the nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit, you're going to find those four dimensions of knowledge. The first dimension is just information. Knowledge can just be information in you. I mean, you can have knowledge, but it's just information. As far as that knowledge is concerned, it's not really sufficient. It's just information. It's not useful yet to you, if it's just information. Then the second dimension, when that knowledge becomes complete, if you know something fully, it becomes truth. Now every knowledge is necessarily truth. Knowledge becomes truth when it's complete. When you, when you begin to develop discernment in you, that's when knowledge becomes truth. You can say there that you've reached understanding. Amen. The third level of knowledge, I think for those of you, remember, it's a place where

27:16knowledge becomes a conviction. And I call it the level of witness. Knowledge becomes a witness in your heart. So whatever, so first is just knowledge. It's just a piece of information, but it's incomplete. It's not fully. When the knowledge becomes complete, it becomes what? It becomes truth. Now when that truth gets to a place where it becomes a conviction in your heart, then it becomes a witness. It becomes a truth upon which you stand. It's a, you, you can say then that you stand in truth. That's when you can begin to share that truth with other people. It's like, you know, for you to really begin to teach what you know, the truth, you know, that truth has to become a witness in your heart. You have to get to a place where you believe in that truth, to really effectively teach it to other people. So God does not want us to just have knowledge of Him in sufficient knowledge, just little knowledge. It needs to become

28:19complete where you really know what He's about. And then that knowledge should stop there. It should get to a place where you become convinced of it, like you are convicted. Your heart knows it well. You've reached mastery of it. When you get to that place where it then it becomes a witness, then you can share with other people. And then lastly, the last dimension of knowledge, I call it liberty. Amen. The Bible says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. How does the truth make you free? The truth makes you free when you have knowledge that has become a conviction and that conviction begins to produce obedience. There's a place where knowledge begins to change your behavior. Amen. You know when people believe in certain things, they can begin to take action. That's how you see people going on the street with little panels and advocating

29:27for things. And that place, that particular knowledge has grown to a place where it begins to shape their behavior. And when the Bible says, you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. It's when the convictions of the knowledge of God, when you've been convicted of the knowledge of God, of the things of God, such that they begin to produce obedience in you. There's a point where the knowledge of God in you will produce obedience where you don't just listen to the word anymore. You begin to obey it. You begin to walk in holiness. You begin to control what you say. You begin to control what you think about. You begin to make decisions. That's knowledge. That's no longer just knowledge. It has taken a form. It has taken a form in your heart. It becomes a conviction. You are convinced of it. You believe in it. Amen. Now the thing with knowledge, the Bible

30:31says in Romans are 10-17. So then faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God. The Bible promises us that once you know God, something else will happen. Is that knowledge will produce faith in us. It will produce faith in us. That place where you believe and that belief begins to shape. It begins to produce obedience in you. That's really what the definition of faith is. Faith is mature knowledge. Knowledge that has reached that place of liberty. You know the funny thing is the word liberty is a eluteria in Greek. And eluteria, it's also a Greek God. They call her the God of freedom. She's the materialization of freedom. When freedom wears a body according to the Greek freedom is a woman. Amen. It's this woman. And the Romans have another

31:38version of that same woman. They call her Libertas. Libertas. Well, for those of you who don't know who Libertas is, she lives in New York City. Amen. And an older name for that goddess is also called Artemis. Or for those of you who read the Bible, you've heard of Ashtaret. It's the same God. We have a giant statue of her in New York City. Amen. Amen. Her name is Libertas or eluteria. That's a topic for another day. I know I just provoked some people. You're going to go online and start googling things. So knowledge, when it reaches maturity, it produces faith. And that's the goal of God. The purpose of God is that we grow to a place of faith. A place where knowledge of grown has matured inside of us, such that it begins to change our behavior. It begins to cause

32:41you to do certain things. You begin to act a certain way. You begin to think a certain way. Amen. That's a place of liberty where you act out of conviction. You don't act because you are forced anymore or you are pushed, but you act out of conviction out of eluteria, out of freedom. I do this because I believe in it. Not because my mom is forcing me to wake up in the morning and go to church, but you get to a place where you know God for yourself and you begin to do things. Not because of peer pressures. If I don't go, people will pressure me. They'll look at me as somebody who is less adequate in society. But you begin to act because you believe in these things. Amen. I wrote down all knowledge requires faith. There is a place that all knowledge takes you. Even on godly knowledge, there's a place where that when that knowledge matures, it takes you

33:46to a place of faith where you begin to, you believe in something so much that it begins to shape the way you act, the way you do things. This is what people you know kill themselves for causes that they believe in. Amen. These are people can be humiliated in the name of what they believe in. Because there is a knowledge that has reached maturity inside their heart. It has become a conviction and that becomes the conviction has reason to a place of liberty where shackles don't stop them anymore. You can throw them in prison, but it's too late. They're already free because they believe so much that they've reached a place of liberty, a place where you can control them anymore because that knowledge has become a conviction and that conviction have developed a faith, an entire belief system. Amen. So knowledge is one of the keys to walking with God. God says

34:50to the Son of Israel, now therefore if you will indeed obey my voice, the prerequisite for being the voice of God is to know the voice of God. Somebody say no the voice of God. The second thing, if some of you remember what was God trying to deal with in that verse, what was the second thing God was trying to deal with? In the visual and national alliances, now you all know how God punished the sure of Israel many times for mingling with the nations or the surrounding nations, whether it was to marriage or through just military alliances. So alliances are important. Now why is it important for God to deal with alliances and alliances for the children of God because he wanted to control what influence is them. Amen. God wants to control what could potentially influence our lives. Therefore he

35:57cares about alliances that we make. The first thing I want to share with you on alliances is that we are creatures of alliances. Human beings want to create, to enter into alliances all the time. Now let me use the simpler words instead of calling them alliances we're going to call them relationships because that's all they are. We want to enter into relationships. Now one might think why are we creatures of relationships? There's many reasons. We form alliances or relationships to overcome limitations. Amen. Why do you need friends? Why do you need connections? Why do you need people? Because we are stronger when we are into relationships. When you have friends they can help you. They can back you up. When you broke they can lend you some money.

37:01When you need a babysitter they can take care of your child. And vice versa. And this is true not only from the individual level but it goes up to the national level. Nations need alliances because if you get attacked your allies can fight with you. Have you heard of NATO? Yeah. So this is the North Atlantic Alliance. Many, most Western countries form a military alliance if one of them is attacked and all of them will go to war. And this is the deterrent for anyone who may consider attacking one of the NATO countries. So we need alliances. That's why we need to form connections with people. It's important to have connections with people. Now the Bible shows us that God intended to control the kinds of alliances or kinds of relationships not only every individual in the nation of Israel will enter into but also alliances that the nation will try to enter into. Because there is a

38:07potential of them being influenced away from God to these alliances. That's why you need to watch out for your relationships. Relationships can influence you positively or negatively. So you can never, you can never just trivialize or think, oh, you know, I mean, I'm my own person. You know, I'm not going to let myself be influenced. Oh, yes, you will be influenced. Whether you like it or not, the people surrounding you will influence your life, they'll influence your beliefs, their influence, what you like, what you dislike, they'll influence what you do with your life. Amen. Amen. This is why relationships can be both strategic but they can also be detrimental to our lives. Amen. I pray that God creates wonderful relationships in your life in Jesus' name. Every relationship demands vulnerability. Every relationship that you enter

39:11makes you vulnerable. It makes you stronger but it opens up vulnerabilities. Amen. If you want to kill me, contact Pastor Sarah. She knows very well how to end my life. She can end my life publicly, secretly and in every other way. Because me wanting to connect with her, to enter and to marriage with her, it's a vulnerability that I automatically create in my own life. I take my life, I put it into someone else's hands. Trusting a person is being vulnerable. This is why most people who struggle with relationships, the first problem is vulnerability. If you want to improve your relationships with people, just allow yourself to be vulnerable sometimes. Amen. People who are guarded all the time, who can never show vulnerability, will have a hard time making friends, or have a hard time making long lasting relationships with people. You may make relationships that

40:14will be shallow, but to make deeper relationships, you need to open yourself up and be vulnerable. Now the Bible is showing us that these vulnerabilities can introduce, compromise if they are not godly, if the relationship is not godly. Because when you enter a relationship, you will compromise. You will be soft when it comes to that friend. You may go where you didn't want to go, just to maintain that relationship. Now let's just hope that wherever that friend is taking you is a godly place. Because in the name of protecting the relationship, you can do certain things that you don't really want to do. Amen. So relationships are the second thing to watch for. What was number one? Knowledge. Number one was knowledge. Number two is relationships. You can also call them covenants or alliances. God addresses the individual and national alliances by telling them to keep

41:18his covenant. In other words, my relationship with you must be first. It must be the relationship that defines any other relationship. That's the way God intended, intended is to be. Your relationship with God should define your relationship with your friends. It should define your relationship with other people, with groups of people. For Israel, that relationship with God had to also define their relationship with other nations, which was just don't enter into any other relationship. Don't mingle with the nations that surround you because most of the other nations were living in idolatry that were practicing all kinds of wickedness. So God told them, do not enter those relationships. And the reason for that was he was warning them that these nations were influenced. You told them, don't give your daughters to their men in marriage and don't marry their daughters

42:19either because these marriages will cause you guys to influence each other in terms of worship or how you seek me. So far so good. All relationships require faithfulness. There's no relationship that you can enter if you don't have some sort of a guarantee or some sort of understood guarantee that there will be faithfulness in that relationship. Even friends, when people agree to be friends, there is an implied reality. That implication is that we will be faithful to one another. I will never betray you. I will never harm you. That's what is implied. Would you agree with me? Would you get into a relationship with somebody who is promising you, I'm going to betray you like in a couple months? So faithfulness is a requirement for relationships. The same thing is true

43:21in the things of God. Your covenant with God requires faithfulness. It requires faithfulness. So ultimately, just like knowledge ultimately produced what faith, relationships with God will ultimately produce faithfulness. So once that relationship mature, you will become more faithful to Him. Relationship makes you stronger. They increase all of success. They create security around us. And many times, the children of Israel pursued these things outside of God and they got in trouble for it. When they pursued strength from other nations, they pursued success from other nations. They pursued security from other nations. They compromised their relationship with God. Number three, so number one was knowledge, number two relationships.

44:22And then the last thing that God was dealing with was what? Idolatry. Now, here to understand how to deal with idolatry, you have to watch out for number three, your pursuits. Your pursuits. So number one, you need knowledge. The knowledge of God, number two, you need to be in a relationship with God and you need to watch out for your relationships. Number three, you need to watch out for your pursuits. I wrote down, pursuits are what we live for. You know, maybe if you live for God, that's your pursuit. If you live for your family, that's your pursuit. You know, you can live for your career, that's your pursuit. And what makes a pursuit, a very important thing is because, to know what you are pursuing, most of the time, it will require you some sort of a discipline. You don't, everything you pursue,

45:28you sacrifice for. Amen. Anything that is a pursuit in your heart, you will sacrifice for it. If you're pursuing friendship or connection with someone, you will make sacrifice for that person. You make yourself available to go hang out. You will pick up their phone call when they call. You know, you can lend them some money when they ask for some. You give them time. So that's a sacrifice that you're making because you're pursuing a relationship. You want to maintain that connection. So another example I can give you is if you're pursuing, let's say, an Olympic medal, you will need to discipline yourself, you know, sometimes to practice. So you will make sacrifices. So I wrote down, your pursuits are powerful enough to end some relationships. Your pursuits are powerful enough to end certain relationships. For example, if you're too focused

46:32on your career, you can end your marriage. Amen. There are people like this. There are marriages that die like that. Somebody is consumed so much by their career. They have no time for their spouse and the marriage ends. Many marriages suffer from this because spouse is too busy for the other. I also notice something about pursuits. Not only you make sacrifices, but you set things apart when you're pursuing something. So when you are pursuing a degree, for example, you set time apart to study, right? So in a biblical language, you have made that time holy. You have made yourself holy during that time. So when somebody comes looking for you during that time, you are studying,

47:34you're busy. You're not picking up your phone calls. Why? Because you have set yourself apart. Every pursuit has holy things. Amen. If God is your pursuit, you will set yourself apart for that pursuit. Amen. If a family is your pursuit, you will set yourself apart for family. Because you can have a family, but family is not really your pursuit. There are people with families, but they have no idea what to do with their families. Yes. There are people with families, but they never that they do nothing. Like the families, they're just like decoration in the house. Last time you had time to sit down with your family and talk to them was like in 1988. Amen. So the fact that you have a family doesn't mean that you are pursuing family.

48:37In fact, many people are families and are pursuing family. But those who are pursuing family, who knows the value of family, many of them don't even have them. Amen. God gave you children, but you never spent time with them. So they are really not your pursuit. Or maybe they were at some point, but there was another pursuit that took over such that it killed the relationships, it sacrificed all the other things in your life. So you have to watch out for your pursuit. The children of Israel had to watch out for their pursuit because their pursuits were basically determining or identifying idols. Pursuits, the pursuits of our life will identify idols for you to know what could potentially turn into an idol, identify your pursuits. The things that you really give your life for, the things you love the most, the things you spend most of your time on,

49:41those things can identify potential idols in your life. Amen. What some of you are pursuing careers, some of you are pursuing family, maybe some of you are pursuing better health. There are people who are pursuing entertainment. Them their pursuit is really joy, their shows and tea and movies. Amen. When you are consumed by these things, they become your pursuit. Hallelujah. And finally, your pursuits will ultimately produce holiness. All pursuits require holiness. Anything you pursue, you will have to set yourself apart for that thing. And the same thing is true for God. God needed to deal with the pursuits of the children of Israel because this is how they can allow idols in their lives. Amen. God needed to control

50:47what they pursue, what they desire deep down inside of them. What are they pursuing? Is it a job? How are they pursuing it? Are they pursuing it to God? Are they hoping that God is the one who is going to give it to them? Because if it's not God, then they will probably go find someone and most of the time it's an idol. When you are pursuing family, for example, you will tolerate the inconveniences of marriage. In other words, pursuits make relationships tolerable. There are things that you will tolerate because of your pursuit. Amen. If you want a family, you can't say you want a family, but you don't, you can't stand a wife. You can't say that because otherwise, you're going to have to fabricate a family. You're not going to create one. You're going to probably, like, I don't know what time to use here.

51:53You can have a make-believe family, not a real family. So, it's important for us as children of God to watch out for our pursuits. Our pursuits can create idols in us, but they can also help us draw closer to God. In what way do your pursuits help you connect with God? For your information, as children of God, God should really be our pursuit. He should be our pursuit. All these other things that we can give ourselves to should be secondary to God. When God becomes your pursuit, that's what's going to produce holiness. How? Because holiness is just to set yourself apart. It's to say, I belong to God. That's all it is. Many people confuse holiness and the absence of sin. Holiness is not the absence of sin. Holiness is when you are separated and dedicated for something.

52:58Now, holiness will produce the absence of sin because you have set yourself apart for God. Because I've set myself apart for God, I'm not going to touch this. I'm not going to do this. But you have to have that mindset that you have set yourself apart for God. Because when you see it like that, then there are things that may not be necessarily sin that you will not do because you have set yourself apart. Just like an Olympian, when you're preparing the Olympics, there are places that they're not going to see you anymore because you are busy training. Those things may not be a sin, but you don't have time for them anymore because you are training for a medal. Amen. The same thing is true with God. So in the nutshell, if you want to walk with God, there are three things to watch out for. Knowledge, relationships, and pursuit.

54:00These things cause the tune of Israel to wrestle with God. They were falling and standing back up. Sometimes ignorance will get to them. They do things that God doesn't want them to do out of ignorance. And then God rejects them. Then they will return to God and learn about him and draw closer to him. And then they would get into alliances that are ungodly and they will get influence out of their walk with God. Then God will reject them again. Then they'll remember and come back again. At some point, because they desire their heart, they will be pursuing different things and this will lead them to get into idolatry to begin to pursue maybe the God of money so they can get money or the God of fertility to get something in particular that would go worship other gods for getting that he should be the source of everything. Amen. So this morning,

55:02the Lord wanted to draw our attention to these three things. These are universal. Anyone who walks with God, if you can master this, if you can rise to no God to place where you begin to produce faith, you will succeed in your work with God. If you can build your relationship with God such that you become faithful, you become faithful, you don't struggle anymore to obey God, you don't struggle anymore. Your relationship with God is now one of those things where you feel like you're carrying a heavy burden on you where you are faithful in your heart. It's normal for you to praise, normal for you to seek God. You are convinced in your heart that this is the right thing to do. I bought into this, I've signed up for this and I'm staying here, I'm not moving. You've reached a place of faithfulness, then nothing can shake you. And if you can control your

56:04pursuits, you control the things that you want in life and watch out for them such that they do not surpass God, such that God remains the top of your priority. Then you will live a perfect Christian life. In the book of, I believe first Timothy chapter 6 verse 12, the Apostle Paul is talking to Timothy, says, fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life. Lay hold on eternal life. Hang on to it, says to which you are also called and if profess, have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. He says fight the good fight of faith. This morning you are the person who struggles with God, who restores with God. He wants to get away but you will hang on to him, you don't let him go because if he leaves, then you lose. Could you help me

57:11tell him you cannot afford to let him go? Hallelujah. Everyone of you today represents Israel. We are those who wrestle with God. We can never allow ourselves to get to a place where we have given up completely. We have to wrestle with him until he's done something to us, until he's left a mark in that such that we can never get away from him. Amen. Amen. Until we prevail, because the Bible says that your name shall become Israel because you wrestle with God and with men and you prevailed. May God give you to prevail today. It doesn't matter what challenges comes into your life. Say, stay locked in on God. He should be the object of your pursuit. Amen. He should be the object of your pursuit. Every single day you should pursue God in your actions,

58:14in your thoughts, in your relationships. Even your relationship should be defined by God. Everything. It's okay to leave some friends if they're not godly. Amen. If you preach to them, you've invited them to church. They don't want to come but they just want you to go and go to clubs with them, go party with them. It's okay to leave them in the name of Jesus. Hallelujah. You can be like, I break up with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. It's okay to do that. It's okay to detach yourself from someone who is influencing you in the wrong things. Watch out for governance. Watch out for relationships. Watch out for relationships. Be careful with relationships. Would you stand with me so we can pray?

59:14He who wrestles with God. He who wrestles with God. You cannot afford to quit wrestling with God. You have to hold on to him and continue to fight. Don't let him go. Be like, I'm going to stay here until you bless me. I'm going to stay here until you change me. I'm going to stay here until you transform me. Hallelujah. You are highest today. Today be church. God. I am going to be here until you change me. Until you transform me. Until you help me overcome. We build relationships to be stronger to create a sense of safety. Listen, there is no relationship more important than the relationship you have with God. God.