Let me ask you a question. Have you ever in your life started something, or, you know, at the beginning of a day, started to go somewhere, do something, and you ended up, because of a situation or a circumstance, having to do something else—sort of like a quarterback that goes up to the line, and the plays come into the helmet from the sidelines, and they get up and they see the formation, and they call an audible and change what's going on? I think all of us have experienced that, and I surely did this week.

But before I tell you about that, I just want to remind everybody that we're in a current series called "The Benefit of the Doubt," and I just knew that, given the circumstances, the environment, just what's going on in our country, the season that we're in, all of the events, I know many of us have had some doubts and anxieties and fears, and maybe we didn't want to say anything about it, but I knew that taking some time to talk about that in this series would be beneficial for all of us, and I wanted to make sure that I had an umbrella or a big idea that sort of covered everything for all of the different things that we would cover in this series. And that big idea has been this: Just because we doubt doesn't mean that we're out. Just because we doubt doesn't mean that we're out with God.

And many of us, let's be honest, we maybe grew up in a tradition that told us if we doubted, that somehow that was almost synonymous with unbelief, and I've tried very hard in this series to make sure that you know, and I know, and all of us know, that doubt is not the same thing as unbelief. Doubt can lead to unbelief, but doubt, many times in Scripture, has been the thing that has pushed people into a greater intimacy and relationship with God, and I want to make sure that all of us know in this series that just because we doubt doesn't mean that we are out with God. And so that's what we've been trying to do over the last couple of weeks.

Now, here's where the whole change came in. Last week, I spoke on Jacob, and if you were here or you listened, or you were part of a live service, you know about that. And we talked about how Jacob was all alone at the Jabbok, and he was, you know, sitting there thinking about what's going to happen with him and Esau—a lot of doubt, a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear—and all of a sudden, God came out and wrestled with him, and I talked about that, and I think we had a really good service, and I think people were touched and ministered to.

And so this week, as I got ready to go, I was going to talk about doubt that potentially can lead us to unbelief, which I had promised that I would do in this series, but I got an email, and that email significantly changed what I felt like I should do, and I want to read that email to you, because you probably can relate. And as I read this email, I said, "I've got to go a different direction this week." So I started off one way and changed to the other. And I really hope and pray that the changes that I made, and the fact that I redid this whole message, a message from scratch, I really hope that it'll speak to all of us and be something that we can look back on that was not only significant and transformational, but hopefully equips us in our lives.

Here's what, here's the email. This is what I got. It said, "You spoke on wrestling with God. I feel as if I'm staring at my issues and don't know how to wrestle. I'm more of a 'get it done, figure it out' person." Wow, if you're anything like me, you can relate to that email. I am too. You ever felt like, "God, if you could just get on my program and get on my train, we could solve this thing really quickly, rather than having to wait and get on your program?" I think we've all felt that to some degree. And as I read this, I felt, you know, "Hey, I can relate to this."

Then the email went on and said, "We read Scripture daily"—this is a couple—"we read Scripture daily, but don't know how to wrestle. Would you consider doing a part two on wrestling with God?" And when I read that, I talked to a few people, and I felt like, "You know, I need to pause. I need to go back and just restructure what I was going to do this weekend. And what I need to do is I need to talk about how you and me wrestle with God, like the nuts and bolts of what does that mean for our life? What does that look like?"

And what was interesting is, I got up at the beginning of the week, and I started thinking through, "How can I best speak to this issue?" You know, I started thinking, "Well, what I can do is..." and I started writing down some things that I felt were important about wrestling with God, and then I found myself having to go to Scripture and trying to find a passage of scripture to support what I was thinking. And I'm like, "I don't want to do that, because that's just, that's just mining scripture to support my point, which should be the other way around. Scripture should be informing my points."

Then I went to Luke 18, you know, it is the passage where the widow was persistent with the unjust judge, and I was going to talk about that and struggling in prayer. And I actually put together an entire message. And then I scrapped that, and I started praying. And I said, "God, you know, the world we live in today, there's political unrest, there's social upheaval, there's all kinds of violence, there's destruction of buildings and all kinds of other things." I started thinking, "Is there anything in all of the Bible that speaks to that moment where someone actually had to wrestle with God in that moment?" Because I think that's what we're thinking about when we read that email. It's like, "Hey, how do I deal with what's going on in the world today? How do I wrestle with God with all the things that are going on?"

And so as I started thinking, I started praying, all of a sudden, I remembered the story of Nehemiah, and I went to chapter one, and I started reading it, and I was like, "This is where I need to go this weekend. This is the passage." And so I want to sort of set the passage up. I'm going to read a chunk of it. So I'm going to read a little fast. I'll make a few comments, but I have a lot of things that I need to say at the end about how Nehemiah wrestles with God, and how that affects you and me. And I believe that not only will I answer the email questions, but I think I might help all of us to get equipped to better wrestle with God. At least that is my prayer, and at least that is my hope.

So let's, let's start off here. I'm going to start off in chapter one of Nehemiah in verse three, and I'm going to read through the remainder of the chapter, and once again, I will make some comments, but I'm not going to go super in-depth, because I've got a lot of things to say where we will go back and go more in-depth as to what we just, so we just read. So let's, let's get to work here.

Nehemiah says, and they said this—they said, it says a delegation that has come from Jerusalem to talk to Nehemiah about what they've seen in Jerusalem—they said to me, "The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame." In other words, when the Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem, years had gone by, but many people didn't get taken into captivity. They stayed. But then, as you know, the Persians conquered the Babylonians, and they gave the Jewish people the right to go back to Jerusalem and to start to rebuild.

And so this delegation comes to Nehemiah talking about what's going on and says, "Hey, listen, you know, bottom line is, there's some people, you know, that survived the exile. They're there too. And, man, it's, it's, it's pretty bad. And there's shame." And shame in the Bible is it appears that God has not done what God said he would do, that you're like, ashamed because you stood up for God, you believed in God, and it's not happening the way you thought that it was. And so they're in shame, like, "I mean, this is God's place, this is God's city. You know what's going on." So they come back and they say, "Hey, listen, there's some real trouble." And people are in shame. "The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire."

Now, this had all happened years ago, but when we read in Ezra 4:23, Artaxerxes, what he did is, well, first of all, the Jewish people had been sent by the Persians. They had been allowed to go back to Jerusalem, and they started to rebuild. The stuff that had been broken down. In Ezra, we find out that Artaxerxes had sent a delegation to forcibly stop what was going on. So they probably tore down some of the wall that had been rebuilt, set some fire to some stuff, made sure that they didn't do the rebuilding project.

And so this delegation has come to Nehemiah and says, "Man, it's bad news. Man, I mean, there's stuff being destroyed, there's fire, there's stuff. People are despondent. I mean, there's just, it's a desperate time. There's a lot of stuff. I mean, the wall's been broken down, and the gates are destroyed by fire. I mean, this, this is a bad, this is a bad time." It's very similar, if you think about it, in many ways, some of the reports that we get from some of our cities, in some ways.

And so, what does Nehemiah do? What does he do in a situation where there's political upheaval, there's all kinds of political issues going on, there's all kinds of problems, there's all kinds of difficulties? There's stuff being burnt down, stuff being destroyed. There's economic collapse, there's problems, there's, you know, all kinds of stuff. People going without food, in many ways, similar to some of the things that we're going through, not exactly, but a lot of the similar things going on here in this text. What does Nehemiah do? Because I think when we find out what Nehemiah does, we read through this and then we talk about it in depth, I think we're going to be really prepared to wrestle with God in the ways that we need to.

So let's, let's continue through the passage here and work through it. "As soon as I heard this"—this is Nehemiah—"As soon as I heard this, I decided to go fix it." No, it doesn't say that. "Soon as I heard it, I got a plan to get…" It didn't say that. He says, "As soon as I heard this, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven."

He just entered into what was going on. He just got real with God. He just sat down and started to pray, started to wrestle, started to deal with what was going on. And I said, "Oh, Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep his commandments, God, I know who you are. I know you're a great God, I know you're the God that created everything, and I know that you keep your covenant. Let your ear be attentive to this word, God, I need you to hear me, like I need you to hear this prayer. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you, day and night, for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you, even I and my father's house have sinned."

Now, that's interesting, because the sins that had created the problems were before Nehemiah. But somehow Nehemiah enters in to confessing sins for everybody else, and joins in as if he's right there. Part of it—not saying that Nehemiah had not sinned in his life, because all of us have—but he enters into this thing. We need to, we need to hear this prayer, because we're going to come back to it. So just make sure you're making some notes here. These are really important words that are being said. "We have acted very corruptly against you." He's just joining in with all the things and all the sins and all the problems that people have done. Just joins right in, says, "We have acted very corruptly against you and not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember, Lord, remember here. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the people.'" Lord, you've been faithful to that. They weren't faithful to you. And you scattered everybody. You had the Babylonians come in and clean house. You kept your word.

"But remember," remember this, "because you kept your word, but you also said, 'If you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.'" God, this is your servant, Nehemiah, and I'm joining in with all the sin and all the issues, and I'm entering into what's going on. I'm weeping and I'm praying and I'm mourning, and I just want to remind you that you're the same God that said, if we did all these bad things, this is what would happen. But you also said, if we returned, you would do certain things. "They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name and give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." "Now, I was cupbearer to the king." Nehemiah was a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, who had called to forcibly come in and shut down the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

This is an incredible text. There's a lot in here, and so we're going to make a number of points, going back to this text over and over again, but I want to answer the question: How do you and I wrestle with God? Like, what does it mean to really get intimate? What does it mean to have a moment with God? What does it mean to really connect with God? What does it mean when we're going through difficulties and we look at our issues and we look at our problems, and we look at our world, and we look at all the things that are going on, and sometimes we're paralyzed? Sometimes we don't know what to do, sometimes we don't know what to say, sometimes we don't know how to feel. How do we have that moment where we really wrestle with God, and our doubts and our fears and our anxieties are put in a situation where, rather than moving us towards more doubt and more unbelief, they move us towards a closer relationship with God as we wrestle with him?

We've got seven things that I want to pull out of this text. So if you've got a pen or paper, or if you've got an iPad or you've got a phone, this would be a great time to get your notepad out and write these down, because I want you to go back long after this message and read and reread these points, because they will help you and help me. They will help our church and help any of the listeners that are listening in to better wrestle with God.

First thing is, we start to wrestle with God. We start that process of really getting intimate with him, of really having a moment with him. We start to wrestle when we come to terms that our faith will always be a mystery. The email said it well. I've said it to God, "God, if you could just get on my program. I just, I just want to fix it. I just want to be somebody who gets it done." Well, our faith is going to always intersect with that in a head-on way, because our faith is a mystery. There are just some things we don't know.

Let me show you here in the text. It says, "The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire." And I want you to think about this. If you'd been in captivity for 70 years, and you knew that God had promised through the prophets that he one day would deliver you, he would get you out of there, that he would confirm his word, and then the Persians had come in and defeated the Babylonians, and they had given you now the ability to go back and start to rebuild everything, you can imagine how everybody was like, "God's working. God's at work. He's doing what he's doing. He's fulfilling his word and everything." But then all of a sudden, a delegation goes in there and destroys everything that they've done. How's that work? Like, "God, come on, like, aren't you supposed to do this? Why is this not happening?" Let me just be straight up. Listen to me here.

Our faith is always going to have moments like this, where we go, "God, what are you up to? How's this going to work?" Learning to embrace that, not fight it, is where we start to learn to wrestle with God. Because what we want to do is we want to fix everything. We just want an answer. We don't want to have to wrestle. We don't want uncertainty. We just want to know. But the reality is, things like this happen. In other words, this is the way I would say it: We're to believe God is good, you and I know that. But so often, everything in our lives will tell us something different. What we see doesn't look like what we know. We know that God is a good God. We know that he's a merciful God. We know that he's a God who can do anything. What happens is, he gives us a set of circumstances that looks anything but that. Abraham gets called to go to the promised land. It's going to be this great place, going to be this awesome place. He leaves everything to go because he's figuring this is going to be awesome. And what happens when he gets there? There's a famine. Why does God put that in his path? Because what pleases God is faith, not knowledge. God wants you and me to have faith. So he's going to put us in situations where it doesn't look like he's going to do what he said he's going to do, and we have to trust him. That's where wrestling starts, because what we want to do is we want to have a faith that doesn't have tension, but our faith will always have tension. There's always going to be that tension of "it doesn't look like what I see doesn't look like what God has promised to me," and when we try to fix it, because that's what our temptation will be, what we actually are doing is moving ourselves away from wrestling with God, rather than actually wrestling with God and struggling through the fact that your and I's faith will always be a mystery. It starts there. It starts by just embracing that somehow, some way God's going to work it out, but you and me will not always know that. We always won't be privy to the knowledge, but we trust him, and that, in and of itself, is a tension that many of us don't want. What we want is we want the quick fix and the quick answer. We don't want the struggle, but the struggle is real. The tension is real, and the mystery is real.

Second thing, we wrestle with God when we enter into difficult situations. See, once again, we want to fix them. We don't want to have to work really hard at times to deal with stuff. But look what happens here. This really difficult report comes back to Nehemiah. What does he do? Well, what he does is he enters into the situation. How does he enter? How does he wrestle? Well, we're told, he says, "When I heard the words, I sat down and I wept and I mourned and I fasted." In other words, he allowed himself to get into the situation. See, so often for you and me, the reality is we want to solve issues from afar, rather than see transformation through struggle. You know how you change things? You don't change things by yelling at people. You don't change things by posting on Facebook. You don't change things by hoping that you just vote a certain way and everything will go back to the way it needs to go. No, we change things when we enter. We change things when we put ourselves in the struggle, and this is part of wrestling with God. Like, if we really want to be godly people, then we're going to enter in, and rather than trying to solve everything from afar, which is what we would like to do, let's be honest. We'd like to point at things that are going on in our world and say, "If they just do this and just do that," but the last thing that we're going to do is actually get in a car and drive there and get involved in all of the stuff and really put some skin in the game and really enter in. But if you want to wrestle with God, if you genuinely want to have that intimacy with God, you've got to get in the midst of it. That's what Jesus did. He came and got in our junk. He came and got in our mess. He came and got into our issues. And what does Nehemiah do? He enters in. See, we often want to win arguments more than we want to care for souls. And when we wrestle with God, what God does is he starts to whittle away at all of our stuff and starts to get us to see what's important to him, which is people. But the only way that happens is when we enter, and the only way that we can enter is to wrestle, because it's going to take intimacy, it's going to take vulnerability, it's going to take weakness, it's going to take tears, it's going to take all of those things. And let's be honest, many of us would rather just deal with it from afar, but you want to know how to wrestle with God? You've got to enter. You've got to listen. You've got to get involved. That's why people come to me all the time and say, "Well, why aren't we doing this, and why aren't we all doing this, and why aren't we doing this?" Because I found in my life, there's only very few things that I can enter personally and really give my best to. There's only so many things that a local church can enter into and give its best to. There's only so many things you can't do everything. And what's the easiest thing to do is to just sit and point at all the things that are going on from afar, but you're really doing nothing to solve anything, and we surely aren't wrestling with God.

Third, to wrestle with God is to own our part. This is really difficult for many of us, because it's always the other people that have the problems. It's always the other side that has the problem. It's always the ones that want to do what we don't want to do that have the issues. It's always the ones that we feel are making the bad decisions. But we have to own our part. Look what Nehemiah does. He says, he started, he confessed the sins of Israel. Says, "Which we have sinned against you, even I and my father's house have sinned." Nehemiah realizes that sin is not just what I do or what you do. It's pervasive. And the sins of one affect the many, and the sins of many affect the one. That there's something in the way God does things where everybody affects everybody. And so what he does is he just owns it. He just goes, "You know what? Maybe I wasn't there when the Babylonians came in, and maybe I wasn't doing some of the things that they're doing, but I know that I have probably put my part into some of the things that are going on right now. I'm sure I've said some things that I shouldn't have said. I'm sure I thought some things that I shouldn't have thought. I am sure I didn't pray when I should have. I am sure that I did some of the things that I shouldn't have done."

And so he steps up to the plate in this here. Listen to me. I love you enough to tell you this. And for some people, this is going to be really difficult, because it's so easy to want to blame everybody else on the other side. That's what we do. But we're not wrestling with God when we do that. We're just pushing it on somebody else. Wrestling with God says, "God, search me, look inside of me, find my wicked ways." And I believe if we did that, this is the truth that we would realize, and it's a truth that's a hard pill to swallow for all of us: the violence and the hatred in our country is simply a reflection of all of our tongues. Because, see, we've all said bad things against the other side. But, see, it's the other side that's bad, isn't it? It's never us. But that tongue that's saying evil things—Jesus said, "When you say evil things about someone, it's the same as murdering them." James says that from our tongue can't come cursing and blessing. You can't curse someone that God created and bless them at the same time. We have to have tongues of blessing, and we need to own it.

And the church needs to own it. We Christians need to own it. We have been very nasty in so many ways towards all kinds of groups that we don't understand, or people that we think are living wrong, or people that are doing activities that we think are wrong, or political groups that we don't agree with, or whatever else. And we have no problem getting on Facebook. We have no problem getting around the cooler at work. We have no problem getting in small groups and trashing people. You and I both know that. And then we look around and go, "Why is our country so full of hate and so full of violence?" Well, maybe we need to own our part. Maybe change starts here. You want to wrestle with God? Start to own some of this.

Do we want to wrestle with God? We need to own our part and say, "God, I've contributed to the mess. I've contributed to the problems. Start here. Start with me." Can you imagine if the church in America got to the place where we refused to speak evil about other people, we refused to wag our tongues at those on the other side? Can you imagine if all we did was speak the things of God towards people, that we spoke dignity and respect towards everybody else? We'd have a move of God that we wouldn't even know what to do with. We've got to own our part.

You want to wrestle with God? We have to remind ourselves and God of what he's promised. There's something about... For a long time in my life, I never understood why these people pray and remind God, like, like he doesn't know. Like, why are they telling God, "Hey, God, you said this"? Well, Nehemiah does that. He says, "Remember..." But see, what happens is when we start praying God's word and reminding him, you know what happens? We start to realize what he actually wants to do. We start learning what God's will is. We start learning what God's plan is. The reality is this: if we're ignorant of God's word, then our prayer life is going to suffer. We're not going to be able to wrestle like we should, because when you and me start praying Scripture, when we start praying, "God, this is what your word says. I believe this is what you're going to do. I believe this is how you act," it starts to change us.

See, when we wrestle with God, God's not the one who changes—we are. He starts to expose things, he starts to show things, he starts to move in our life. You want to wrestle with God? Start praying his word, start reminding God of what he said, and what you'll find is that God starts to read you and me, and we start to change, and we start to transform, because that's what he wants to do. Why did he want to wrestle with Jacob? Because he wanted to change him. He wanted to move him from who he was to who he wanted him to be. He wants to move you and me from where we are to being the true Israel, the people and princes of God.

Next point, number five: To wrestle with God is to learn prayers are answered as we pray for the whole, not just for us. Let's be honest for a second. Most of our prayers are pretty self-serving, right? "God, teach me to be this. God, show me this, God. Bless me in my life. Bless me in my job. Bless my family. Bless this stuff." Maybe we throw in a little blessing on the church and a little blessing on some other stuff. But as a general rule, probably most people's prayers are not totally focused on other people. Well, look how Nehemiah prays. He says, "They're your servants." He says he's God's servant too, but his focus is on others in his prayer. "They're your servants. They're your people. They're people that you care about." As Nehemiah starts to pray for the whole, not just him—I mean, he's got something that he... he's going to realize as he's praying for everybody else, he's going to have a moment in his prayer where he realizes he's in the right place to be to get done what God needs to do. But it takes praying for others to start to sense what God wants for us. It's never the other way around. "God, what do you want to have for me so I can go bless others?" It's "Lord, as I pray for others, then you start to speak to me." You see here, see wrestling with God takes our eyes off of us when we start to wrestle, and we start to pray, and we start to struggle through this stuff, we start to pray for the whole. We start to realize how important all the other things are. And when we do that, it takes our eyes off of us. It changes us.

Next point: To wrestle with God brings us to see where we can best be used. This is so important here. As Nehemiah has entered in, as he's struggled, as he's prayed, as he's confessed, as he's owned his part, as he's prayed for the whole, guess what happens? He starts to realize, "Hey, you know what? I'm right in the spot that I need to be. I'm a cupbearer for the king. God, bless me right now that I can be used for this man, Artaxerxes. You can use me right now to do something great." This is, this is always transformational. As we wrestle with God, we realize the way God wants to use you and me is in the positions that we are to serve. He's a cupbearer to the king. See, we need to be positioned in a place of service to others, not service to self. So counterintuitive, isn't it? But we'll never get there unless we wrestle with God, unless we struggle with him, unless, unless we get in there and get intimate with him. We're always going to want to think about what's best for us rather than what's best for others. The natural thing that we want to do is serve ourselves, not serve others. But as we pray and as we enter in, and as we own it, and as we pray for the whole, what we realize is that we're in the place to be used. We can be... we can serve.

And here's the truth here: most of the arguments today aren't because we're pouring into others. It's simply because we want it our way. Let's own that. Most of the arguments that you hear people saying today, even Christians, it's not because we're pouring into others, not because we're serving others. The arguments today are the way we want it. "Well, I want my freedoms or my rights or my principles or whatever else." But see, that's... that's not the way Christianity does it. That's not what Jesus did. Read Philippians 2. He didn't cling to what he could have clung to. He didn't clamor for his rights. He didn't clamor for his equality with God. He gave it up and he became a servant, and he served. And what does Paul say? "Let the same attitude that Jesus had be in the church." See, most of our arguments today aren't because we're pouring into others. They're really because we just want it our way.

And the last thing is, to wrestle with God is to learn to lose. It's where we get broken. It's where we get touched in the thigh. It's where we walk with a limp. We learn to say, "Uncle." We learn to say, "Your will, not mine." And you know what's crazy is, when we learn to lose, we win more than we could have ever won in any other way in our life. We become Israel. We become the prince of God.

We become the people of God. We become those that God has called, like Peter says in 1 Peter 2, he says, "You're a chosen generation. You're a royal priesthood." You didn't used to be because y'all were a bunch of Gentiles, but Jesus has brought you in, and now you're his people. And what happens when that goes on? We change. See, to learn to wrestle with God is to learn to say "Uncle," is to learn to say, "God, you know what? I'm going to get in here and I'm going to wrestle. I know I've got my ways I want to do it. I know I've got my agenda. I know I've got my plans, but Lord, I'm going to wrestle with you till you break me. I'm going to wrestle with you till I say, 'Uncle.' I'm going to wrestle with you till I can say, 'Not my will, but Your will be done.'"

See, wrestling with God is where we're confronted with who we are. We start to realize, "Wow, I am selfish. Yeah, I am a little egocentric. Yeah, you know, I am a little bit negative towards others that I don't like. Yeah, I probably don't love my enemies, maybe even at all sometimes. Yeah, I really don't want to turn the other cheek. Yeah, I really don't want to wash feet." What happens is, we wrestle with God. He starts to show us who we are. And what happens is, is we realize there's so many areas in our lives that we just simply don't look like Jesus. And that's not to be negative, that's not to make anybody feel bad, that's just to be honest. You want to wrestle with God? It's a breaking moment, and it starts with us embracing the tension. It starts with us being honest about what's going on. It starts with us owning our part and praying for others and realizing how to serve. But when all these things happen is we're wrestling with God and praying to him and seeking him. The ultimate aim is to be broken, and when we lose, crazy as it is, we win in ways we could never even imagine.

God breaks us when we wrestle with him so that we can truly realize he's the only one who can. When we wrestle with God, we get to the place we realize, you know what, he's enough. If you and me wrestle with him, we do all the things that Nehemiah has done, we'll get to the place where we realize we are broken. Our will is gone. Selfishness is gone. And when we get to that place we're really broken, where we actually win, what we realize is, is that Jesus is enough, that he's the only one that can turn bones into armies. He's the only one that can, that can take mourning and give it joy. He's the only one that can take depression and fill you and me with incredible joy. But it's as we learn to lose, we also learn to win.

Listen. I hope that what I've said here is helpful. I hope that it encourages you. I hope that it challenges you, and I hope, most importantly, that it inspires you and me, especially in the season that we're in, to try to actually start to adopt some of these principles in our lives as we learn to wrestle with God. And I can tell you this, if you and me will wrestle with God, and we will be intimate, and we will do the things that Nehemiah did, I can tell you this, we will never be the same. Ever.

Will you pray with me, Father? I thank you for everybody who's watching this, and for those who will watch this. I just pray, God, that wherever a family's at, a couple's at, a single's at, a man's at, a woman's at, a child's at, a teenager's at, a young adult's at—wherever they're at as they're hearing this, I pray that they would just take a moment and ask you to search them, ask you to really begin to wrestle with him. Lord, I believe that if we, as your people, will wrestle with you, if we'll own our part, if we'll pray for others, if we'll serve, if we'll be willing to be broken, Lord, I believe the win on the other side is so incredible. In fact, it will be exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think. I pray that in our church and in the lives of everyone listening to this, that we would open ourselves up to really wrestling with you and watch you change us and transform us in our lives for your glory, Father. We thank you for it in Jesus' name. And everybody said, Amen.

Listen. I care about every one of you all. I know it's a tough time. I want you to know if there's anything that we can do for a church. Listen, if you're wondering if you're really a Christian right now, if maybe you're struggling with where you're at in your life, we want to help you. You can email in to [email address removed]. You can type into the chat box on YouTube and say, "I need some help." We'll reach out to you, because we care about people, and ultimately, we want people to not just become Christians, but we want people to be equipped to be the Christians that God wants us to be, so that we can reach the unchurched by being those intentional neighbors that reflect Christ. Listen, I know it's a challenging time in our world, but I can tell you this, because it's biblical: The best is yet to come.


Last modified: Tuesday, February 4, 2025, 7:41 AM