Frankie Mazzapica - The Lord Picked a Fight
The title of today’s message is «The Lord Picked a Fight.» In high school, there were always a bunch of fights at my school, and there was always somebody picking the fight. In the school I grew up in, it seemed like there was a fight every single week. What would always happen is one person would get nose to nose with the other person, and there would be a split second where you’d think they were going to kiss. They’d be yelling, and if they took too long to throw a punch, one of us would sneak up behind one of them and push them into the other one. Suddenly, it would all kick off after that. They fight differently nowadays. I saw this guy say, «Man, when I was growing up, you just kind of threw hands.»
Now, people practice fighting with kicks against bamboo trees and have cauliflower growing out of their heads. You don’t mess with people like that anymore. But there’s always somebody who picks the fight. Ladies typically don’t throw hands, but they say something like a little grenade, and then all of a sudden, someone is starting it, right?
This passage of Scripture is so fascinating because the Lord steps out of heaven in a physical body and picks a fight—a real one. Let me unpack this; it’s in Genesis chapter 32. I’ll start quoting from verse 24: «And then Jacob separated himself, and a Man» (capital M, meaning the Lord) «wrestled with him until daybreak.» They wrestled all night long until the sun came up. Then He (capital H) realized that He could not prevail against him. They’re wrestling, and the Lord realized, «I can’t prevail against him. I can’t win.» Isn’t this crazy? In John 10:30, Jesus says, «I and the Father are one.» We’re talking about God, Jesus, and God being one. I don’t have time to chase that down, but God is coming down and wrestling a man, and He says, «I cannot prevail.»
So, He touches Jacob’s hip, and it pops out of socket. Then the Bible says that the Lord says, «Let go of me, for daybreak is coming.» And Jacob says, «I’m not going to let go of you until you bless me.» The Lord says back to him, «I’m changing your name from Jacob to Israel because you have wrestled with men and you have wrestled with God.» The Bible says that He blessed him right there.
I have three major points for you. The first is that the Lord wrestled with Jacob. The second is that Jacob became weak; his hip popped out of socket. The third is that Jacob wrestled with the Lord. When the Bible says that he wrestled a man (capital M) who came and wrestled with Jacob, the person who provokes the fight is the one who wants something. So what does the Lord want from Jacob? Jacob was a rebellious young man—a thief—but he also believed in God. When he was out there that night, he separated himself and looked to the heavens asking for help, and the Son of God came out of heaven and said, «You and I are about to get into it. We’re going to wrestle.»
What He was saying is, «I am not the champion of your life. I don’t own your thoughts. I don’t own your life. I don’t own the way you speak. You don’t love what I love, and you don’t hate what I hate. I’m not the champion of your life.» And let me say this: If you haven’t given your entire life to the Lord, you’re not submitted to Him. If you back up and say, «I’ve submitted every area of my life except for one,» you are not submitted to Him. What you do in secret determines whether or not He is the champion of your life. If you only agree with Him and serve Him in the areas you already want to, that is not submission. Submission is when God wants you to do something you don’t want to do but you do what He wants you to do. That’s when He is the champion of your life.
Would you put your hands together for that? That’s when He’s the champion. I had a friend in high school named Andrew, and he was the epitome of cool. He had hair like straw—blonde hair hanging down that would blow in the breeze. When I had hair, it didn’t grow down; it grew out. My curls went out. I’m half Brazilian, half Italian, and I had to use Dippity Doo and mousse. Do they still have mousse? You would rub it in your hair and pop it back and forth; you know what I’m talking about. So that was my hair, while his was straw-like Brad Pitt’s. One time, he was raising it up in the bathroom at school, and it was just dropping real nice. He looked at me and said, «You wish you had my hair, don’t you?»
Well, he showed up to church a couple of years ago, and I didn’t recognize him because he was bald. Thank you, Lord! That’s what you get! He said, «Hey, let’s go out to lunch.» We went out, and he said, «Man, I was listening to your preaching, and I can just tell you believe every word you’re saying. You’re passionate about this.» He said, «That’s where I want to be,» but he still had the filthiest mouth ever—nothing had changed since high school. Now he’s passionate about God, and that’s the only thing that’s different. I wanted to say, «Bro, stop with the filth,» but I didn’t want to talk about his speech because the Bible says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. It’s what’s in here that’s the problem.
So, I told him: «Look, you’ve got to really devote a part of your day to pray. Get your cell phone, put a countdown clock on it, and go in there and pray. Don’t come out until that countdown clock buzzes.» I kept saying that over and over, «You’ve got to pray, you’ve got to pray.» And he kept saying, «I got it, I got it. But what else do I do? You’ve said that like five times. What else do I do?» And I said, «That’s really it.» This guy was the epitome of cool. He could dance like MC Hammer. Some of you have no idea who MC Hammer is; let me show you a little clip of MC Hammer. Can you imagine a white kid with straw hair doing that?
He said, «I want God,» but here’s the trouble: God is wrestling with him. He wants something from God, but God is not the champion. God is wrestling with him saying, «I want more,» but he’s thinking, «I’m the champion of my life. I make the decisions on how I live in my private life.» Jacob, chin up, eyes up—he believed in God, but he was going to keep making decisions. Jesus says, «Okay, enough of this. We’re going to wrestle now.»
The Bible says that the Lord could not prevail; He wasn’t winning. It’s when the Lord keeps saying, «Hey, look, you want more of me? You want me to be in your life to fix these problems? But I can’t win with you because you won’t give.» They’re saying you’re not going to stop because you think God loves you; it’s going to be okay. He’s not saying you can get away with this. Okay, here’s what I’ve learned: What you do in secret eventually catches up to you.
The Bible says this in Matthew 6:6: «When you pray, go alone by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in secret. Your Father who sees everything in secret will reward you.» What you do in secret ends up catching up to you. You prayed in secret, and that blessing catches up to you. However, if what you’re doing in secret is sinful, that will catch up to you, too. That’s good.
Then when you come before the Lord and say, «Lord, I need you to be the champion of my life and deliver me,» He says, «No, no, you are the champion of your life—you’re the one who makes the decisions on how you live.» So if you’re the champion of your life, go ahead and fight your battle.
The Lord says this, and this is point number two: He touches Jacob’s hip—bam! His hip gets knocked out of socket. Now he’s weak. He realizes his weakness. There comes a moment we all face where we step back and say, «I’m in trouble now. I have been making my own decisions, living how I want to, but now I just got hit, and now I realize how weak I am.»
Listen, it’s caught up to me. Now he can’t move. I remember going through high school, and I think Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this in «The Tipping Point,» but he says this: «Many people grow up with the curse of charisma.» The curse of charisma is when you’re the man in high school—like, you’re the cheerleader or the quarterback. You’re the person in class that everybody listens to. It’s the curse of charisma. People want to be around you, and everything comes easy because you’re that girl or that guy.
But when you graduate, none of that matters anymore, and you’ve been riding on charisma your whole life. When you throw the cap, it’s like: What can you do? What do you know? This was a jolt for me, Frankie Maipa. I felt useless. I had a study buddy in college, and as I was struggling, he was ready to go eat lunch while I had no idea what I was looking at. Then I found out I could speak; I could preach, and it felt easy. Thank God I finally found something I was strong at. Thank God!
And then a guy I admire—the best preacher I know—looked at me and said, «I don’t think you’re called to do this, buddy.» Bam! I felt weaker than I had ever been in my life. I stepped back and thought, «God, this is the only thing I feel I could do, and if You don’t help me, then I’m done.»
I felt the Lord come back to me and say, «I will help you, but Frankie, I’ve got to be the champion in every area of your life. When you don’t want to forgive somebody, I’ve got to be the champion. When you want to be mad and bitter, I’ve got to be the champion. When you don’t want to worship me, I’ve got to be the champion. Can you worship me when things are not going well? Anyone can worship me when things are going well. Can I be the champion in that moment? In that moment of temptation, can I be the champion? If I can be the champion in every area of your life, don’t worry about your weaknesses, because in your weakness I will make you very strong and very effective.»
Has anyone ever been in that season of life where the Lord is telling you to just let Him be the champion? I’ll tell you what: that was probably the best day of my life. Has anyone ever hurt you, and you look back and think, «Thank you for hurting me»? I almost punched you; I almost died—but actually, you made me. Thank you, Felicia!
You know when you bump into someone who didn’t believe in you? They say, «How are you doing?» It’s like, «I’m successful, how are you?» It’s that moment of weakness. Now, the Lord shows up and wrestles Jacob, and then all of a sudden, it says, «And Jacob,» He says to Jacob, «Let go of me.» The script just flipped. The Lord showed up to wrestle him, and now He’s saying, «Let go of me.» At some point, Jacob’s like, «I’m not giving in,» and he has this breakdown moment. And now he’s like, «Okay, I have to have you. If I don’t have you, I can’t even walk without you.»
See, that’s a beautiful place when you realize you can’t walk without Him—when you say, «Lord, I’ve tried to walk by myself, but every time I run, I run in the wrong direction.» The thing with Jacob is that he always had this tendency to run in the wrong direction. So, the Lord touches him, and now he can’t run anymore. Absolutely! The hardest moments of our life are when we get slapped with insecurity. You think, «How did that person know I was insecure in that area? How did they know? Nobody knows that except for me, and you just happened to put your finger right on it!»
How did they know? I’ll tell you how they know. The little devil came up and said, «Talk to them about this,» and then you’re like, «Boom!» You back up and go, «God, this is a great verse. It’s in Philippians 3:12 where Paul says you have apprehended me; you have taken hold of me.» Then he backs up and says, «But I want to take hold of you. You’ve grabbed my heart; well, guess what, I want to grab your heart!»
In Psalms 139:1, it says, «Oh Lord, you have searched my heart; you know everything about me. You see me when I sit down, you see me when I stand up. You know my thoughts, even when they’re afar off. You see me when I travel, or when I stay at home and rest. You know everything I do. You know every word I’m going to say even before I say it.»
So, when Paul says, «You’ve apprehended me,» in other words, «You know when I sit down and when I stand up. I want to know when you’re standing up; you know my thoughts; I want to know your thoughts. You’ve apprehended me.» But guess what? «If you don’t, I’m going to Psalms 5:3.» This is a good verse, so you might want to write it down: «Every morning I wake up, I will be back at it again, laying the pieces of my life on your altar, waiting for the fire to fall.»
Every morning I wake up, I’m going to take everything that’s important to me—the person I don’t want to forgive, that person I hate, that addiction, that worry, that fear—and I’m going to take it and lay it out before you. Now guess what? This is really cool. When Jacob refused to let go of the Lord, listen to this: If you only pray for something one time, you don’t really want it. You don’t really want it. Jacob would not let go of the Lord. He would not stop praying and calling out for Him. What is it that you want? What is it that you refuse to stop praying about? Because if you only pray for it one time, you don’t really want it.
It’s got to have that attitude. Psalms 53: «Every morning I wake up, I’ll be back at it again. You’re going to hear me every time I wake up.» I’m going to wait for Your fire to fall. Good.
But what is it in your life that you’re not going to let go of? If God does not answer you, are you going to bug Him for the rest of your life? This isn’t something you’re letting go of. Are you with me? Say yes! Come on, put your hands together. Why don’t you stand up on your feet for me?
It was at that very moment of surrender that the Lord said, «I’m going to bless you.» It’s at that moment. Have you ever been in a wave pool before? Like there’s some kind of big paddle under the water that pushes water to you? Forget that! Have you ever been in the ocean before? These waves are coming, and you see this big wave coming. You don’t know if it’s in 30 seconds, if it’s in a minute, or if it’s in 10 seconds. You can’t time waves, but it’s coming to you.
When you’re in that spot of surrender and obedience, I don’t know when, but it’s coming to you because whatever you do in secret will catch up to you. If the Lord feels distant from you, you can trace that back to something you did or didn’t do in secret. If you feel close to the Lord, you can trace that back to something you did in secret.
My encouragement to you is from this day forward to find the secret places—in your car, in your house, in your office. That’s the secret place where the Lord says, «Here, I will bless you.»
I’d like for you to hold your hands out like this. Look at me for a moment. This belt represents everything that I want to rule. I don’t want to give up. I want you to hold your hands out and ask the Lord if there’s anything in your life that you need to let go of now. It’s time to let go of that now. It’s time to stop doing that now.
I want you to take a moment and hold that before Him. Now I just want you to tell Him what you need; pray that prayer that is so scary to pray. It’s a scary prayer because you don’t want to set yourself up for disappointment. That’s the prayer I don’t want to ask because if you say no, I’m going to be depressed, so I don’t want to ask.
That’s the prayer I want you to pray. What do you need? If you’re in this room and know if your heart were to stop beating in the next five minutes, you’re not ready to see the Lord, raise your hands. Imagine your life and just say, «I surrender to you, Lord. From this moment forward, I will worship you and serve you. When I stumble, I want to prove my devotion just like I have to stand up and say, 'Lord, I’m sorry. I’m still Your servant; I just stumbled.'»
Holy Spirit, just begin to rest on every person here. I’d like the worship team to come up, please. There’s going to be no official dismissal—you can leave whenever you feel ready—but it’s this moment right here that is why you came to church.
I’m going to ask that before anybody leaves, I know this is a good time to beat the traffic and all that stuff, but before anyone leaves, let’s just sing this song one or two times through. Before anyone goes, may the Lord bless you, may He keep you, may His face shine down upon you and be gracious to you, may His countenance be lifted up on you and bring you peace. In Jesus' name, amen.