Wrestling With God

I felt a little like Jacob from the Old Testament (Genesis 32:24-32) this past week. In preparing my message for Sunday, I had to do some wrestling with God. Have you ever argued with God? As a pastor I should know better, but sometimes I don’t like giving up control.

John Waller was in town for a Sunday night concert, so we had him lead worship for our Sunday morning service. I knew we would have a lot of guests and that I wouldn’t have a long time to share, so I wanted to do an “uplifting and encouraging” message. One that  challenged everybody, but nothing too controversial. God had other plans. We are in a series titled “Love Is …” and we have been going through a Biblical definition of unconditional love. We have gone through 1 Corinthians 13 and shared about unselfish living and forgiveness, but there was one message that I knew must be part of the series. God wanted me to share it this weekend. It was a message on purity and intimacy.

So with all our guests, I ended up preaching a message from 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 about sexual purity and how that purity will pave the way to intimacy. It was a little uncomfortable at times, but I know I was obedient. Even if no one comes back next week, I’m fine. I went to sleep happy and relieved. Because my preaching is not to please the people who are in attendance, but to share truth from the Bible and please God. We need to be challenged to confess and repent when sin creeps into the church. I hope next time I will just trust God completely and skip the wrestling part. It’s definitely not a fun process.