How God Breaks Us to Bless Us | Tony Evans Highlight

Dr. Tony Evans preaches on Jacob’s transformative encounter with God. Join him as he’ll emphasize the significance of God breaking us down to build us up, highlighting how our struggles and dislocations can lead to spiritual breakthroughs and blessings.

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Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.

God says I got a new reality for you, Jacob, and that new reality is you’re going to experience what it looks like when I run the show in your life.
God prevails. You’re gonna experience what it looks like when I show up to turn something around because it’s god’s prevail.
You won’t have to live your life with trickery anymore. You won’t have to be a deceiver anymore.
You won’t you won’t have to try to fix it yourself anymore because I’m a change your name.
1st 34. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until they break.
Jacob is alone.
He’s alone because Nobody he knows and nothing he knows can help him.
He’s by himself. You ever been in a situation where you are all alone.
Oh, you you may have had folk around you, but you might as well been by yourself.
Because nothing around you could make a difference. He’s alone.
He’s by himself He’s been stripped. Now watch this.
He’s got a problem. His brothers after him. He prays to god.
After he prays to god, things get worse.
At least talk to god, somebody shows up at night and wrestles him.
Until daybreak verse 25.
And when he, the stranger, saw that he, Jacob, had not prevailed against him.
When this stranger saw that Jacob wasn’t quitting, uh, that Jacob wasn’t throwing in the towel, that Jacob wasn’t given up, that Jacob wasn’t wasn’t just running away.
When he saw he didn’t prevail against him, he touched the socket of his thigh.
And the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated when he wrestled with him.
So the man had to disconnect something and make it worse.
See, when god is trying to break you, He’ll make it bad.
But if you’re not responding, he’ll make it worse.
He’s trying to move your core, the thing that you are counting on to be able to deliver you.
Verse 26. Then he says, the stranger says, I didn’t hurt you now.
Let me go Okay?
That means that Jacob was holding on even with a disjellocated hip.
So he’s hurting and holding. You didn’t miss that, did you?
He’s hurting and holding. It’s easy.
When god is trying to break you to let go of god.
It’s easy when god is trying to strip you to say I don’t want it anymore.
But Jacob said, you hurt me, but I’m still gonna hold you.
He says, I am not going to let you go.
He says, I am not going to let you go verse 26 until somebody say until?
You bless me. Wait a minute there.
All we know, the stranger doesn’t have a name, This guy has come at night when I’m already scared.
This man is wrestling with me.
Now this man has dislocated me and I’ve gone from trying to win a fight to trying to get a blessing.
How do I move from fighting for my life to saying bless me?
Well, the only way you ask somebody to bless you is if you have the, no, they have the ability to do that.
When the stranger dislocates his hip, because it doesn’t happen till then.
When his strength is gone, it dawns on Jacob. This is not a human match.
It’s a man, but it’s not human.
There’s more to this battle than just the fight I’m in.
I’m in the fight of my life, but there’s more to this battle than the fight that I am in.
Something spiritual is occurring here. That’s why he asked for blessing. That’s spiritual.
So he recognizes and he doesn’t recognize it until the dislocation happens that this is a so here’s what I don’t want you to do.
I don’t want you to mistake the hand of god for the hand of man.
See, because he’s wrestling a man but he’s really dealing with god.
If all you see is what you see, you do not see all there is to be seen.
God may use something physical to take you to a place that’s spiritual.
He may use something that you can see, touch, taste, smell, and here when he’s only invaded that to take you to a place that gets him to have your undivided attention.
And if you try to push him off up here, he gonna touch something down there, and he will fight until you hurt bad enough.
I’m not gonna let you go.
Until you bless me.
You know, many times in the scripture, Jesus would pretend like he was going to keep going.
The disciples were on the water. They were struggling. Jesus was walking on the water.
And when he got to the boat, it says, and he kept walking like he would pass them by.
In Luke 24, it says when the disciples on the man’s road walked home and they finally got to their house, Jesus kept going until they invited him back.
What Jesus is asking is, how bad do you want it?
Do you really want me verse 27.
So he said to him, uh, the man says to Jacob, What is your name?
Okay. To follow this, I’m not gonna let you go till you bless me.
Oh, you want a blessing. What’s your name?
Remember, naming in the Bible refers to your nature.
Your character, not just your nomenclature. We do that with nicknames. Like, we call somebody slim.
That means they’re skinny. So the nickname is reflecting something about them.
You call somebody red because it got red hair. You know, the nickname is described.
So we do with nicknames, what they did with names. We make it descriptive. What’s your name? Translation.
Describe yourself to me. Are you willing to admit your name? Wow.
Are you willing to acknowledge you are a deceiver because that’s your name.
Are you willing to acknowledge that you are a trickster, are you willing to acknowledge you are a flawed person who has lived their lives using evil to get by because it’s all wrapped up in your name.
But what god wants to know is are you willing to fess up to who you really are when you’re alone with him?
When you’re wrestling with him. Right. Now your name may not be Jacob. Maybe your name is Leah.
Maybe your name isn’t Jacob, but your name is cheetah.
Maybe your name isn’t Jacob, but maybe your name is Lester.
Maybe your name isn’t Jacob, but your name is Taylor.
Maybe your name isn’t Jacob, but maybe your name is racist. What is your name?
What is that character in your life that is against the will and character of god that keeps him from blessing you.
And he will wrestle with you until you say your name, even if he has to dislocate your hip to get there.
What is your name? He says my name is Jacob.
I’m the receiver. Verse 28.
He says, your name, shall no longer be Jacob.
I’m a change your name, meaning I’m a change your character.
But your name will now be Israel for you have striven with god and with men and have prevailed.
Oh, god says I got a new reality for you, Jacob, and that new reality is you’re going to experience what it looks like when I run the show in your life.
God prevails. You’re gonna experience what it looks like when I show up to turn something around because it’s god’s prevail.
You won’t have to live your life with trickery anymore. You won’t have to be a deceiver anymore.
You won’t you won’t have to try to fix it yourself anymore because I’m a change your name.
See, some of us have a name called education because we think because we got a BA and an MBA and a PhD that my education has made me self sufficient.
Well, I’m a tell you now, god’s gonna change your name. Some of us have a name called Money.
Because we define our sufficiency by our bank account and by our credit cards.
But I wanna tell you now, If you wanna experience, god, he gonna try to change your name.
Some of us have a name called, uh, relationships.
Because we got all the hookups we need to get to where we wanna go, do what we wanna do, but be what we wanna be.
But if you wanna experience god, he’s gonna change your name by letting the relationships fall through and not being able to pull off what you thought they would be able to pull off In order to experience god, he will strip you of your name in order for you to know that god prevails.
That the spiritual trumps the physical and that you and I are not sufficient within ourselves.
First, 29.
Then Jacob asked him and said, please tell me your name.
You ask me my name. Tell me your name. Listen to the man’s response.
But he said, why is it that you ask me my name?
See, a lot of us get like Marvin gay. What’s going on?
God said, you ought to know by now. Everything you didn’t try, I didn’t blocked.
Every contact you made, I didn’t stop.
Every time you think you don’t have have any more debts, I’ll let someone else break down you ought to know my name by now in order to be clear who you’re dealing with.
And so it dawned on him.
So Jacob named the place verse 30 Pennyal for he said, I have seen god.
He knew his name now. I have seen god face to face yet my life has been preserved because he could have killed me.
See, if you only knew what god could do, that he didn’t do doesn’t do.
Some of us should be dead right now.
But because of the goodness, grace, and favor of god, he brought you out, brought you through when you are Thinking you are gonna lose your mind.
He said, I’ve seen god face to face and I’m alive to talk about it.
So if you’re still here, he ain’t finished.
Oh, but here’s where it gets good. Here’s where it gets good.
Let’s bring it to a close. Here’s where it gets good.
Now 1st 131.
The sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel and he was limping on his thigh.
Because Hebrews 11 verse 21 says that when he blessed his grandchildren.
In order to bring him blessing, he had to lean on his staff.
So years later, he’s still limping. Years later, he’s still limping.
So if Jack if Jacob came on the stage today, And you say, why you’re limping?
Jacob would have to say I’m limping because I’ve been blessed.
I’m limping because I’ve been blessed because a few years ago, I was independent.
I was self sufficient. I made it happen all by myself. God broke me down.
He separated my socket. And every time I get up and try to go somewhere, I’m reminded about my weakness.
I’m reminded about my dependency.
I’m at my I’m I’m reminded reminded that I can’t make it without him.
Every step I take, every move I make.
God is reminding me You better not get the big hit boy because you do have another hit.
Uh, I can’t dislocate another one if I have to So you better remember you are totally dependent on me.
And he says, and I’ve been blessed. Yes. But what was the blessing?
When he said I wanted to be blessed, he wasn’t talking about something general.
He was talking about verse 13 where he says you promised that you would make of me a great name and you would give me a great land.
You see, your blessing is something God has already planned to do in the past that he’s not free to do yet because you are not broke down far enough for him to be free to do it.
So the blessing is not something new it’s something old that becomes new to you when you have made made ready to receive it.
So some of us in here need to start limping and say, god, I’m a break my own socket.
So you don’t have to break my socket so that I can be totally dependent on you.