do you ever wrestle with God do you struggle with god listen if you don’t I have serious doubts if you’re a Believer or not to be honest with you every every child of God struggles with him in the sense of hearing from him or getting direction from him or maybe he gives us information or he gives us marching orders or whatever it might be there is always this dynamic in the Christian Life of you and I struggling with God you know awto are called that a time where we have our crisis with God everybody’s got to have their crisis

so again let me ask you do you struggle with God are you wrestling with god well this message is designed in such a way to get you to think about grabbing hold of not only God but the promises of God and I hope you don’t forget in fact I I want to I want to encourage you to get into this message to get ready to rumble we all think about the great matches and the wrestling or the fighting scenes but allow me to do it this way the mic drops down and I say to you get ready to rumble because God wants to what wrestle with you so that

actually you might win by giving up that’s when we win God bless you guys let’s get into this study [Applause] according to the plan of God Romans 8:28 mark it down put your names next to it this is that famous verse God has a purpose the question begs purpose for whom the answer is to those who love God and I know I’ve told you before I share with you the same deficit I love God and the moment I say that I’m sick to my stom St as to how little I love God because he’s so amazing I should love

him even more but I struggle with the fact I don’t I want to he’s worthy but I find Within Myself a profound weakness to get as close to God as I want to because I’m dragging this carcass of my body and this life that gets in the way of my relationship with God but that’s why there’s the great promise that someday you and I will be set free from our bodies that’s going to be a great day and so when that word tells us that we know it is a knowledge of the issues it means that God knows about the issues of the past

in your life there’s no but there’s no yeah but no none of that he knows about the issues of your life watch this he knows about the issues of your life now and he knows about the issues of your life in the future though you and I do not know them yet he already knows you can trust him he knows and by the way mark this down by the way this knowledge that God knows all about us and thus we know about God we can take a great rest in knowing this that this knowledge is not a cerebral knowledge it’s not

analytical it’s not limited by that it’s not theoretical it’s not a dream oh you Christians and your no no it’s not theoretical knowledge it’s not philosophical knowledge either it’s not one of those possibilities it’s not a knowledge that is just to be studied you can get this doctorate degree in this knowledge we’re not interested in that in all truth we are interested in the knowledge of God to where it’s experiential this book The Bible lays the foundation for you and I now to live

with our feet as it were on this word and live an experiential Faith as a Christian that makes a difference in this world around us we don’t talk about Christianity we are to do it and there’s a big difference in all of that thus he says in verse 28 all things work together for good everything that is arriving in our lives is ordained by God we are about to find out very important the Bible tells us it is to those who love God we’re talking about this now those who are called according to his purpose I love this God’s got a purpose

for your life so we live in a bizarre time right now we have a we have a world that is rejecting God wholesale and it’s it’s bringing itself to an interesting conundrum to a interesting point of difficulty which is this the evolutionary theory has almost allbit dried up nobody runs around today pronouncing that they’re an evolutionist because then if they do you got to ask them why do you think that tell me why you believe that and then they’ve got to struggle to try to prove why they believe it the more they talk about it

the more foolish they look no seriously scientists are embracing now at the very least intelligent design but they’re saying now that’s not even enough there’s evidence of a personal designer you know that right now all of us know that there’s evidence of a personal designer but if you press it you’ve got to come to the conclusion that there’s things in this world and in this existence of yours in mine that is not only personal but it is deeply deeply internal that there’s a whole new world

as it were inside of us that is spirit and that is soul and it’s been the long desire of man to find himself who am I and so man goes on his Pursuits well I want you to know and be reminded that according to the Bible God created you with his purpose in mind every one of us who are believers in Christ Jesus are to know the purpose as to why we are living if you say I don’t know yet well then you know what then do the Jacob thing remember Jacob Jacob in the Old Testament Jacob the Bible tells us was I’ll just say it this way he was

minding his own business it was at night he might have even been sleeping if I remember right and the Bible tells us the angel of the Lord came to him now the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is a statement of a theophanes if you don’t know what a theophanes is a theophanes is a christophanies which is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ when Christ appears prior to being born in Bethlehem it’s throughout the Old Testament and the Bible says he shows up and this is kind of cute the angel of the Lord the Lord picks a fight with

Jacob I don’t know how he did it it did he kick him in the nose did he poke his ear did he take a feather and rub it underneath Jacob’s nose we don’t know but the Bible says that they got that Jacob got up and they started wrestling he said well that’s ridiculous oh yeah have you ever wrestled with God are you wrestling with God now and they’re wrestling and the Lord could have killed them the Lord could have done anything he wanted but the Lord had a plan the Lord had a purpose and the Bible says

that they wrestled all night man what is this jacob made of and the Bible says seeing that the angel of the Lord could not Prevail against Jacob that the angel of the Lord struck his hip and his hip went out of joint and he limped all the days of his life from that moment on but that’s he still wouldn’t let go and then the angel of the Lord says I got to leave the day is coming I’ve got to go and Jacob said and this is what I want you to have Jacob said I will not let you go until you bless me I will not let you

go until you favor my life okay read listen are you hearing me everybody this is the angel of God the Lord himself allowing himself first of all the Lord picks the fight the Lord comes in picks the fight Jacob’s fighting with the Lord and here’s what happens the Lord allows himself to be in this entanglement with Jacob because God’s got a plan with Jacob or for Jacob and then for Jacob to say I’m not letting you go so wait a minute who started this fight well the Lord did but who’s in control here well the Lord is

in control but he allows Jacob to take the upper hand listen Christian this is what God wants you to do when you come to the Lord in prayer and you’re seeking his face for something guidance direction is it for school is it for that guy or for that girl is it for what go after the Lord and listen you will wrestle with him in prayer but don’t let him go he allows himself to be caught he allows himself to be in this dialogue and he allows himself to have you and I say to him Lord I will not let you go I

think God loves that when we say I’m hanging on to you Jesus and I’m not going to let go I think God loves that and God blessed Jacob and you need to remember that God’s got a purpose in your life and if you don’t know what it is then it’s time to go wrestle with God and get an answer don’t let go of them are don’t answer out loud are you a bornn again follower of the Lord Jesus Christ if you say yes then I that it’s it’s incumbent for me to ask what is the purpose of your

life and if you cannot answer it’s time for you to go wrestle and God will give you the answer the Bible says in Galatians 1:1 15 but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb this is Paul speaking and call called me through his grace why how come to reveal his son in me that’s a tremendous statement look at that verse look at all the pre-existing mechanisms that have to be there but when it pleased God that is in some point in history past who separated me from my mother’s womb Paul’s now an

old man saying this God had a plan back then and not only that it was God’s call that he placed upon me through Grace to do what Paul to reveal his son in Me God wants the world to know that through my life Jesus is Lord and Savior that’s true for every single one of us if you’re a computer engineer or a contractor a stay-at-home Dad or Mom or a rocket scientist it doesn’t matter do you understand God’s got a purpose for your life and we need to get hungry and passionate to pursue him as to what that

is last service we had two awesome beautiful men of God in their 80s US Marines fought in Vietnam and they came to service I got to meet them and it just led me to think about how God has a a deployment for the believer God’s got a mission for the believer you you learn you read you pray you talk out to God he talks back into you and you say Lord here I am send me and God will commission you he’ll deploy you and uh by the state of our nation God needs a lot of you to be deployed into this country this whole nation has become a

mission field now but I have to tell you there’s a verse that somebody gave me I was a brand new Christian and they gave me this verse because they had heard my story that I had been a a survivor of an abortion in 1957 and they heard me say that and they came and they said listen you need to look at this verse and I remember marking it in my Bible and keeping it forever to this moment and uh it has served me well for these years and it’s Jeremiah chap 1 veres 4 and 5 now I’m going to ask you right now to wrestle

with God as it were and grab this verse and tear it off the video screen and make it your own right do this then the word of the Lord came to me Jeremiah saying behold this is God speaking behold or before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you were born I Sanctified you I ordained you a prophet to the Nations that verse is for every single human being not just Jeremiah are you hearing me you say I don’t know how God would don’t talk to him like that don’t don’t Define how he’s going to do it

just say Lord this verse is in the Bible if you want to live that verse out in my life here we go can can you do that can you just be there and sayl I’m asking you to do whatever that means in my life and God will go to work in your life a purpose called according to his purpose God’s got purposes he’s got a absolute plan that is charted in Ephesians chapter 2:10 the Bible tells us that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them listen the good

works come out of a life that is now under the control of Christ okay very very important these things that are for the purposes of God bring God honor Advance the gospel and bring reality and meaning to your life and then that word good all of these things to be worked out for the good the word in Greek for good is generous the ending listen everybody the ending is to be generous if you’re a Christian you and I are going through troubles we’re going to go through more troubles don’t worry don’t don’t be

afraid of that in fact as a Christian the more you learn about how God brings you and I through troubles the more you look for God ordained trouble it’s a good thing difficulties draw Us close to God and it’s in that moment we see the power of God I’ve noticed that people who criticize Christianity and claim to be Christians and they think it’s boring are people who’ve never gotten off the couch they’ve not they never made themselves available to him but he’s got a generous plan and it’s good it’s

generous kindly the word means only that which is a good thing even in your marriage that might be breaking up or that note from that physician or maybe that grade you thought you were going to get into Stanford thank God you did and you wound up not getting in by the grace of God to protect your life only thing worse than that would have been Harvard but the exact same reality of God’s purposes you and i’ love to read about them and and know about them so what do you mean how about this God’s purposes you

think God had a purpose for Noah you would never doubt that but did you know that Noah is no different than you and I see do you believe that the Bible says that all of us that there’s there’s no one greater than the other that we are all just like Elijah we have the same passions that the great Prophet Elijah had the Bible says that God doesn’t esteem one man higher than the other that means we all come to the foot of the cross level I love that by the way that’s the message that needs to be shouted across

this nation right now to to shut up this talk about racism and division no come to the foot of the cross there’s no color at the foot of the cross if there is it’s red it’s the blood of Christ CU all have sinned and come short of the glory of God we all come there’s nobody better than the other lesser than the other and so think about Noah I wrote down job job by the way you know all of us that sometimes will have job moments in our life that’s why God put the Book of Job in the Bible Joseph what about

David and what about Peter I thought about Luther the great reformer Luther George Whitfield one of my heroes Love George Whitfield read everything I can about George Whitfield Charles Spurgeon a big fan of mine my my an a guy that I just think the world of I I I’d love for you to read about him too to find out who he really is is Samuel Adams not not the beer guy that by the way that was his dad Samuel Adams was a malt Brewer Samuel Adams Jr was an incredible lover of God profound insights into the word of God he just happened to be not

only one of our founding fathers but the Bible uh or I should say our nation’s history tells us that without Samuel Adams there never would have been been a revolution at all because he understood that Liberty came from God and could not be taken away from man what about Billy Graham did the God have a purpose for Billy Graham by the way did you know that Billy Graham found his purpose not far from here in the sanino mountains Billy Graham took a midnight walk not knowing what he should do if he should quit

ministry as a young man or not and God spoke to him just miles in the Southern California mountains and God told him that you’re going to be an evangelist and you have the gift of evangelism and go do it and he said from that moment on his life was never the same wow I think of Chuck Smith who wanted to be a medical doctor and God said you can be a medical doctor or I can call you to be a doctor of The Souls of men and Chuck Smith said I’ll go with the souls of men what about Dr Ed Hinson what about Charles