Special thanks to Rick Warren and Saddleback Church for allowing us to be a part of this great series. Life s Healing Choices Part 5 THE TRANSFORMATION CHOICE For five weeks we ve been looking at Life s Healing Choices, which are the eight Beatitudes. They re actually in order for finding freedom. Matt. 5:9 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness People have two kinds of hunger, spiritual and physical. The story of Jacob illustrates all of the first 5 steps we ve been through. Stage 1: Conflict. Conflict leads to the Reality Choice. God uses your struggles with other people to get your attention. If you are experiencing relational conflict in your life, congratulations. You are experiencing stage one in God trying to get your attention to change you for the better. God wants to change you. He starts with conflict. Jacob s entire life can be summed up in one word: conflict. He came out of the womb fighting with Esau his twin. In fact he was holding on. Esau was born first. They named him Jacob deceiver, cheater. Genesis 31:1-2, Jacob heard that Laban s sons were saying Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all the wealth from what belonged to our father. And Jacob noticed that Laban s attitude toward him was not what it had been. Jacob takes his family, 11 sons and 2 wives, both Laban s daughters as well as his possessions. When Laban hears about it he is angry. Why? He s taking the grandkids. He has been estranged from Esau his entire life. Jacob decides to send some gifts on ahead to Esau. He hopes if he sends enough Esau will just forget about his lost inheritance. The messengers returned to Jacob and said, We went to your brother Esau and now he s coming to meet you with an army of four hundred men. Jacob was terrified at the news.
Jacob has run from conflict in his family his entire life. Now he can t run any more. His father-in-law is coming after him one way and his brother is coming after him another way. He s reaping a life of choices. Out of fear Jacob prays, Oh, God! I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you ve shown me. Save me, I pray! For I am afraid. When you come to God and say I don t deserve your help. I m a cheat, no doubt. And I ve run from conflict all my life. But, God, I ve got to have Your help because I m going under for the last time! Here is the Reality Choice. Mathew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit. God blesses those who realize their need for him. Nothing happens in your life until you get out of denial and you realize I cannot solve this on my own. You must stop denying. You must stop running. You must admit you have a need. Now we come to stage two in Life's Healing Choices. He stays behind and spends the night alone. Jacob knows his brother and 400 men are coming after him on one hand and his father in law is coming after him on this hand. He gets in a wrestling match with God. Stage 2: Crisis. Crisis leads to the Hope Choice. Stage two is you move from conflict to crisis. In crisis, the crisis is a struggle with God. If you can relate to these 2 stages you re moving forward. Genesis 32, Jacob got them [his family] safely across the brook Jabbok along with all of his possessions. But Jacob stayed behind and he s left alone in the camp. A man came and wrestled with him until dawn. Ever wrestled with God all night? He wrestled with the man all night until dawn. When the man saw that he couldn t win the match he struck Jacob s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket.
His biggest conflict is not really with his brother or anybody else. His biggest struggle is really with God which, by the way, is yours too. God shows up in human form and has a wrestling match with Jacob, because wrestling is a contact sport. It means you re up close. God would rather have you up close wrestling with him God, I don t like this in my life! He doesn t want you distant and apathetic. Hosea Chapter 12 says, Before Jacob was born he struggled with his brother. And when he became a man he even fought with God. The problems you re having in your life, the crisis, the conflict, the difficulty. That is the symptom. Your real struggle is with God. That s why you have to move from phase one conflict with others to crisis struggle with God. And you ve got to realize it and admit it. Regardless of what the problem is in your life it boils down to 2 things: (1)Will I trust God? (2)Will I obey Him? ***I don t really think God will take care of me. I ve got to take this into my own hands. I m not going to wait and I m not going to trust and I m not going to believe. The root of all your conflicts in life is because you want to be in charge. You want to be God. You want to call the shots. You want your life. The root of all your problems is you want to be in control. God is waiting for you to say, I give up. If you wrestle with God, you are not going to win. The fight is fixed. You cannot win a battle against God. God loves you too much to let you win. He loves you just the way you are. He loves you too much to let you stay the way you are. Thank God our conflict is not with others but it is with God. If you give everything to God, what will happen? God I m going to wrestle with you. When the pain exceeds your fear you re finally going to give up. Now you may take the second step.
Week two is the Hope Choice. Earnestly believe that God exists and that I matter to Him and that He has the power to help me. Stage 3: Commitment. Hope leads to the commitment choice. In phase three I finally cry uncle and I commit to God s changes. I hang on and I hold on and I don t give up and I say I am going to go with God s plan if it kills me. God, I m going your way, PERIOD!!! Then the man said Let me go, for it is dawn. But Jacob panted I won t let you go unless you bless me. Ok, God, I m serious about this change. You ve got to help me. I m not going on in this marriage the way it s going on. I can t get out of it. I can t get on with it. I m not going on with this habit. I can t get out of it. I can t get on with it. I m not going on with this relationship or this career. God, I won t let go until you bless me! That s commitment. Notice the verse that says Let me go, for it is dawn. They had been wrestling for hours. Why is that? God could have overpowered him, just like that! Why is God letting this thing go on? God obviously has the answer to every one of your prayers. Why doesn t God answer your prayers immediately? (1) God wants to know if you are serious. There s a difference between a desire and a whim. God says I don t answer whims. If you don t care about praying about it more than once it s a whim. It s not a desire. (2) God is not a vending machine. A vending machine will give you things that can harm you, that can kill you. God doesn t serve you, you serve him. God is not your genie. (3) God strengthens your faith by demanding that you have staying power. Here s the real reason why God lets you struggle. You don t build a problem in your life for twenty years then instantly end it with a pill. You got into the problem over a long time. It takes time to get out. You must make it till dawn! Recovery is a process. Healing is a process. It s not a one-time event.
Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness to be used for sinning. Instead, you give yourself completely to God. Since you ve been given new life. And use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God. Stage 4: Confession. Commitment leads to the confession choice. This is the breakthrough step. I admit I am the problem. Not my mom or dad or husband or friends or kids. I am my own biggest problem. Then the man asked him, What is your name? Jacob he answered. God knows Jacob s name. But He says, What is your name? Why? He wanted Jacob to admit what he was. His parents named him based on his character. It became his brand or label. Jacob told you his name, you knew what kind of person he was. Jacob s name means deceiver. His entire life he lied because he was a deceiver. When God says what s your name He s saying I want you to confess who you are. I m broken. I am a manipulator. I am a liar. I am prideful. I am a gossip. I m a worrier. I m an addict. I can t control my temper. If you were named after your biggest character flaw what your name would be? Hi, my name is Bitter. Hi, my name is It s-all-about-me. My name is Gossip. Hi, my name is Angry or Temper or Lust. There goes Greedy! Look who s with him, Fearful! When Jacob says, I am Jacob, he s saying I m willing to take a step of confession the Housecleaning Step. Openly examine and confess my faults to myself [I ve got to be honest to me], and to God, [I m honest to God] and someone I trust. [I m honest with somebody else.] It s an act of confession. It s self-revelation. He owns up to all of his ways. He says I am a manipulator and God is not shocked at all. God already knows everything bad about you. Even things you don t know about yourself. And he still loves you. God says Jacob have I loved. That verse gives me hope.
Lasting change starts with this humility and honesty. Brokenness is saying God I admit it. I am the problem. How does God respond to our brokenness? The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Stage 5: Conversion. Confession leads to the Transformation Choice. In conversion I get a new identity. God picks up the pieces and replaces the pieces with peace. I move from conflict with others to crisis with God to commitment that I m going to change and trust God with those changes and then comes my confession that I am the problem. Now God gives me conversion. God gives you a brand new identity. Then the man said, Your name will no longer be Jacob. Your name will be Israel. Then he blessed him there. Jacob called the place Peniel saying, It is because I saw the face of God. What happens in phase 5 in your life? When you get to the conversion phase? This is the recovery stage! You start following these Beatitudes step by step and the healing choices as we have just seen them outlined. Jacob gets a new identity. He becomes Israel. It means prince of God. Everybody else saw a defeated, cheating, lying manipulator. God says I see deeper than that. God says beneath all your sins I see a prince. When God does His deepest work in you, He does his deepest work in your identity. In who you are. He changes your identity. How you see yourself. Why? Because the way you see yourself affects everything else in your life. You act according to the way you see yourself. Some of you were given an identity by your mom or your dad you re a looser, you re a phony, you re a fake, you re worth zip! And the world has given you labels. And they were lying. God sees beneath all that and He sees a prince or a princess. God sees what you can be.
Finish this sentence. It s just like me to be And I ll tell you your old identity. God says that s what you ve been all your life, but if you ll go through these steps of recovery I ll give you a new identity. You re not going to be Jacob. You re going to be a prince or princess. Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature. The old is passed away. The new has come. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Let me say it another way. I m not letting go of you until you bless me, God! That s what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. I m not letting go. I m not taking second best. I want your blessing. This is the Transformation step. Voluntarily submit to every change that God wants to make in my life. [He s going to change my identity. He s going to bless me.] Ask him to remove my character defects. I m not what I used to be and I m not what I m going to be. God isn t finished with Otis Moore. I m getting better. And you are too. Hang around. I m not what I used to be. I m just not. I m not what I m going to be either! That is the transformation process. In the Conversion step when God gives you a new name He gives you a reminder that you will carry the rest of your life to remind you to trust in Him. You remember that when God and Jacob are wrestling, the Bible says that God dislocated Jacob s hip. The Bible says this, The sun rose as Jacob left Peniel and he was limping because of his hip. What is the significance of his limp? First, for his entire life Jacob had run from conflict. He d run from his brother. He d run from his dad, his wife, his father-in-law and from God. God said, No more running. I m going to touch your hip so you will limp the rest of your life. You ll never solve a problem by running from it. So he touches his hip.
Second, it was a daily reminder to trust God. He touched him on his thigh. Your thigh muscle is the strongest muscle in your body. God touched Jacob at the point of his greatest strength. And he said, You re no longer going to rely on self-strength any more. You re going to rely on me. You re no longer going to rely on your cuteness, or cleverness, or lies, your old identity, your ability to talk yourself out of a situation. Third, when he walked with a limp Jacob became both stronger and weaker. He was weaker because he couldn t walk on his own power any more. And he was stronger because God said you re going to walk in my power. You ll never walk the same again. You have a new identity. God s giants, the men and women that God has always used greatest in life have always walked with a limp. There may be an emotional limp, a physical limp, a mental limp, a relational limp. But there s going to be something in your life to remind you that it s about God, not about you. Paul said it like this: To keep me from becoming conceited I was given a thorn in the flesh [a limp] to torment me. Three times I pleaded with God to take it away from me. But he said, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I boast about my weaknesses so that Christ s power may rest on me. The reason why you can t boast about your weakness in small group is because you re not at Stage Five yet. You re still trying to hide your weaknesses. But to get to five, the change, the blessing, the new identity you ve got to admit it.