Wresting With Christ

Good morning, everyone. It's good to be with you here in the AM congregation again. It's been a few weeks since my wife and I have been in this particular location with you.

I was a little sad to hear that for the next two weeks you will not have snacks. You'll live. I suppose you could bring in unleavened snacks and enjoy those that will not defile us or the building in any sense, but we have our own family traditions that Debbie has made unleavened breads and snacks and cookies and things through the years that we save only for the days of unleavened bread. She has some of them already made and put away.

I can't wait until sundown on first day of unleavened bread to get into those and eat some of those. She has a little cheese cracker that we call it in our family. We call it a cheesy. I think that's what God made on the first day of unleavened bread was a cheesy.

They are to die for. They are very good. I hope that your holy days will be well and prosperous and enlightening and encouraging for you. We won't be here with you. We're going to be in New York City with a brethren for Passover on the first day of unleavened bread and then in North Canton, Ohio with the members up there for the last holy day.

So we're looking forward to being with family and friends in both of those locations. I should mention before I get into the sermon, several have asked if we finally settled into the area. And I think I can say that as of yesterday, we are official because we finally, yesterday, got our Ohio driver's licenses. And this took over two months of agony and study and multiple trips to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to bring the proper documentation that we indeed were legal United States citizens, refugees from the state of Indiana, and could become legal inhabitants of the state of Ohio.

So getting all of the titles to our vehicles switched over and the information there took a little bit of time. But we're in, we're settled, we're official Buckeyes at this point in time. So we're, for the second time in my life, in her life, Debbie, first time in my life. So she's come back home. When I was in high school, the one intercollegiate sport that I could get into, it wasn't intercollegiate because it was high school, I should say, inter-varsity sport that we had, that I could finally get into at the point in time that I became kind of a junior and senior in high school because being in the church, football, baseball, a lot of those things eventually just encroached on opportunities.

But they started a wrestling program when I was in my junior year of high school. First time for that, for my high school to do that. And so I got in on the ground floor and I went out and it was one of those situations where everybody that went out made the team and we, our coach, pulled together a number of different matches for us. It was my first exposure to that type of wrestling. I had seen some of the, back at that time, the rudimentary wrestling matches that passed for wrestling on television that is more entertainment than anything else and still, of course, it's big business today.

The WWW and all of the various extravaganzas that they go through for wrestling on television. But wrestling at high school, college, and now at the Olympic level is quite an involved and very sophisticated and detailed sport. It takes a great deal of conditioning to do so and you've got to really think smart, you've got to be tough, you've got to be in good condition to succeed at that type of wrestling. And I can remember training and learning the moves and going through the motions, but it was not until we had our first match with another team from another school that I really understood what it took to go the length.

Wrestling at that level, as I remember, we had three two-minute quarters that you went through. And so you started and get two minutes and then a break, come back for two minutes, and then the third session as well. And it doesn't sound like a lot of time. All the men find out how much six minutes really is when you start to give your first speech in Spokesman's Club.

It's very, very short. But believe me, when you start wrestling, six minutes is an eternity. I found out that I couldn't believe how exhausted and how quickly I got exhausted and how tiring it was. To wrestle, to be engaged and locked together with an opponent on the mat, going through various moves, trying to pin the other opponent and resisting and anticipating all the moves they would make was an extremely challenging matter. And you had to be at peak physical condition to endure not only two minutes and not only four minutes, but if you want the distance, six minutes.

I won't tell you what my record was when I got through after a couple of years of that, but I sure did have a lot of fun with my friends and just the conditioning of it. But it was quite an experience and I certainly recommend it as an activity or a sport if a person can participate in it. After high school, that ended my wrestling career in that particular arena. But as for all of us, when we get on out of high school and get on with life, we find that we start wrestling in many other ways.

We start wrestling with life. We find our life's occupation. We may go to college, may go to trade school or enter the workforce, get married, children come along. The experiences of life start to come at us real fast once we get out of the cocoon of high school and get into the real world. And we don't really end our wrestling careers, but we start wrestling with other matters, don't we? We wrestle with life. We wrestle with people. We wrestle with issues. And we make successes. We get sometimes pinned.

Sometimes we get exhausted. And sometimes we win. But it can be described as kind of a wrestling match in that sense. And life goes on like that for us. For those of us who've come into the church, we find that we wrestle in a different way. There's a spiritual wrestling that kind of goes on with us in our lives and our involvement with God, with each other, with the church, with God's Word. As we wrestle to endure, as we wrestle to survive, as we wrestle to grow in grace and in knowledge, there are challenges. There are ups and downs. There are moments when we will reach exhaustion. There are moments of exhilaration. But all in all, we know that our ultimate goal is to stay with it through all the entire match and win, or to prevail. That's the goal. There's a wrestling match that we read about in Scripture that I think is important for us to look at in this regard and has some very important lessons for us at this time of year.

If you will, turn over to Genesis 32. Genesis 32 records a wrestling match that took place not just for six minutes, but all night. You're familiar with this occasion, I think, as it involves a patriarch Jacob and a man, the man, it says, in verse 24 of Genesis 32, who we understand to be the one who became Jesus Christ, the Word. This is who he is involved with here. Let's set the stage for this story in Genesis 32. Jacob is on his way back after years of exile from his family and living with his uncle Laban and acquiring in the process two wives, two concubines, and about 13 children and herds and a fair amount of wealth. Now he's decided to go back home. And he's got all this brood with him and all of this movement, and they're heading back toward the land of his father Isaac and his brother Esau and all that will await them there.

And so along the way, they're coming back from the north into the southerly direction back into the land of Canaan. They come to a crossing, verse 22, he arose that night and he took his two wives, Jacob, his two female servants and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabach, the Jabach River, which still runs today in Jordan, the modern nation of Jordan.

He took them and he sent them over the brook and sent over what he had. And so they made this ford of the river, which is a rather at some parts a rather fast moving river. And Jacob was left alone on one side and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. So all suddenly was thrown right into this episode here as he was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the break of day, an all-night wrestling match, which you can imagine perhaps there were moments where they kind of maybe fell back from one another but then re-engaged rather quickly but still an exhausting all-night episode. Now when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he, meaning the man, touched the socket of his Jacob, his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint because he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for the day breaks. But he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Jacob wanted a blessing from the man, from whom he was beginning to see was a little bit more than just a man in that sense. Bless me.

And so he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, which as we should remember from the story of his birth. Remember when Jacob and Esau came out of the womb with their mother, Jacob put his hand upon the heel of his brother and already there in a sense was struggling and kind of wrestling with his brother Esau. And he took the name Jacob, which meant supplanter. And of course, you know the story where he tricked his brother into selling the birthright to him. That's why he wound up having to flee home. And then he had to struggle with Laban all of these years, the trickery and deceit that his uncle put upon him. Jacob's life was really a struggle. He struggled with his brother from the womb and throughout their life. He struggled with his father because he deceived his father when he took the birthright. He came coming in dressed as his brother Esau. He struggled with God because really Jacob's life was a life story of one who in a sense was born in the church, born in the faith, but couldn't come to grips with it. Couldn't live it. Knew it was right, the faith of his father and that of his grandfather, but he couldn't come around to a full obedience to it. And so his life and his decisions caused him to have to go off and learn things the hard way.

Jacob's life was really one long wrestling match, one long struggle. And now he's coming back and he asks for a blessing as he is wrestling all night with the word, with the man as it is called here and the one who became Christ. And so he said, bless me, verse 27. So he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. He said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. This became a turning point. This whole night wrestling became a turning point for Jacob because his name was changed. And we know from the significance in the scriptures and to God of a man getting the right name. And, you know, Saul had to become Paul. We're told in Revelation that one day we will receive a new name, as God says to his people. You know, naming your children when they're born is always a guessing game. You can put a name on them that you hope will define their life or define them, but it's too early to tell. And sometimes, as the years go by, we acquire nicknames that may be more accurately descriptive of what our personality really is, or perhaps some of our character. A few of us change our names. But in this case, and what we see in the scriptures, when a man's name is changed, that is a significant turning point in their life. And for Jacob to be called Israel, this was a significant turning point. It goes on, but your name will be Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.

And Jacob asks, saying, Tell me your name, I pray. And he said, Why is it that you ask about my name?

And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place, Pentiel, for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And then Jacob went on himself with the rest of his family and back to reunite with his brother and father, and the rest of the story goes on. But this episode here is a very instructive one for us. Jacob goes the distance all night with the one who became Jesus Christ. And he prevails, and he gets his name changed. He receives a blessing.

You know, I detailed a little bit of Jacob's life in a quick overview. And for many of us, we can relate to Jacob to one degree or the other. We have had our lives. And isn't life, in many ways, a struggle? A struggle to survive for some. A struggle with health, at various points in life. A struggle to make ends meet. A struggle to deal with certain emotions, certain situations that sometimes we bring upon ourselves or sometimes come by others because of actions that we haven't done, but just because of fate, chance, or other circumstances that are beyond our control. We struggle, as we go through life at times with people, we can struggle with issues. We can be like Jacob. We can run from God until he finally gets our attention or we finally mature. And then we come back just as Jacob came back. He came back home to his father, and we too come back to ours. For us in the church spiritually, success is really to be able to submit to God. The first step in spiritual success is submission to God.

Another word for that is repentance. We have to believe, and certainly we go through that as we are counseled for baptism. But then we have to continually relearn that as we come to the Passover every year. We examine ourselves and our lives. We determine what we have learned from the experiences of perhaps the past year or maybe just the weeks leading up to Passover. Certain things may be impressed upon us because of a trial we go through or certain situations that are brought home to us. And again, as our mind turns to the examination of this time of year, we learn continually submission to God, repentance. But getting to that point, for any of us, is always a struggle. When it comes to God, that may take us a long time and a long journey.

Jesus Christ knew His followers would need that help. Christ knew on the very evening that He sat down with His disciples, washed their feet, changed the symbols of the Passover service to that of the bread and the wine, which we observe and use today to commemorate His death, to observe His death, as Mr. McLean was bringing out in the Scriptures, until He come. And remember that and take those symbols very, very reverently, very soberly as it comes to us wherever we may find ourselves setting on that night of Passover service. And we take that small piece of unleavened bread, that small amount of wine, and we think about it. We understand what it represents, what it means for us spiritually, and we take that. We renew our covenant and our commitment and our dedication to God. We recognize the suffering of Christ. We recognize His death and what that means for us today and ultimately will for the entire world. But on that night, as we will also read when we go through the Scriptures there in John, Jesus understood that His disciples, and by extension, all who would come after Him, would also need help to meet the challenges of life as part of the body, the spiritual body that would begin to be formed, the church. And He promised help. And that is one of the most encouraging, comforting messages that we take as we, after we take the symbols, we go through the foot washing service and that ritual of humility and service toward one another. And then we sit and listen to the Scriptures being read. And we think about them. We go through a number of Scriptures from John chapter 13 through chapter 17 on the night of the Passover. I want to cover just a few here for a moment to help us understand what Jesus focused on repeatedly. There were several key areas that He did want to impress upon His disciples that evening before His arrest. One of them was that He would not leave them without help.

He would not leave them without the spiritual ability to wrestle, to endure, and ultimately to prevail. Let's turn over to John 14.

John chapter 14.

And let's look at verse 15.

He said, If you love Me keep My commandments, and I will pray the Father, that He will give you another, another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. And again, you can imagine their minds kind of swirling, what does this mean?

This understanding? You've not spoken quite this way to them before. I will come to you, I will not leave you orphans, you will receive the Spirit of truth.

Now, let's notice in chapter 15, where he repeats it again in verse 26.

But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me, and so again, another reference to the Spirit of truth. And he's talking about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, as it may be translated. And you may have certain notes in your margin that tell you that this is talking about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. You may have even the Greek word that this is brought from, which is a word, parakletos, P-A-R-A-K-L-E-T-O-S, parakletos.

I used to pronounce it parakletos, and then I talked to somebody who knew Greek, and they said parakletos. So, however you have heard it, however you may have understood it, it's a very important word, but it is talking about God's Spirit, as He is using it here, a Spirit of truth, a Comforter, what will come and proceed from the Father. In chapter 16 and verse 14, he speaks of it again. He says, He will glorify Me, the Spirit of truth that He mentions in verse 13. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

Let's read verse 13. When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak of His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will tell you things to come. And so, again, through these verses here, this section of this very important discussion that Christ had with the disciples, He tells them that they will not be alone, they will not be orphans, that they will have the Spirit of truth to be with them, and to, really, He's saying that, I will come to you. We go back to chapter 14, verse 18. He says, I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. Now, we understand the fullness of what the Holy Spirit does for those who are converted, baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We understand that to be the life of Christ, God within us. It joins with our human spirit, Paul talked about in Romans. And it begins that process of growth toward the resurrection.

But it is the very life of God, of Jesus Christ within us. That is the essence that is at the heart of this. Now, I mentioned the word paracletos, often translated comforter. And you may, I think in my, not this Bible that I have with me today, but in my Bible on my shelf at home, that I used when I was in college. I think I have in there in the margins comforter, which is a way that it is often translated. But sometimes, as with many other Greek words, and the way words were used at the time of the writing of the New Testament, and the way the Bible was translated into English many centuries later, and then coming down to us today, the meaning of words in the original setting often lose some of the impact as they go through centuries and from one language to the other. And this is one of those examples, where the meanings that we put on those words don't tell us the whole story at times. And there are a number of words such as that, this one from the New Testament especially, where it does help to have kind of a layman's armchair knowledge of the words, and many sources and helps are available to really help us get into it, dig out the meaning of these words to more fully appreciate the understanding that God has had for them in the original, and in the way that, in this case, Christ is using it, and the way it is coming across. And in this case of the paracletos, the word comforter doesn't convey the true full meaning that we're talking about. The word comfort, the word comfort that is sometimes used here, today means something far different from when it was first used in the earliest English translations of the Scriptures among some of the early translators such as Tyndale or John Wycliffe. Today, when we use the word comfort, you and I, in our modern language, we typically mean sympathy or help or solace in time of sorrow or distress, something that will or someone who will console us, which is typically the way we would mean a comforter. We will go and give aid and comfort to someone in a time of struggle or trial, sickness or spiritual or emotional need, and it consoles us. We even talk about we have our own comfort food today. What's your favorite comfort food that you have to go to? Is it meatloaf? Is it pot roast? Is it whatever it might be? For some, it's chicken soup.

Chicken soup is kind of a comfort food, but there's a whole series of books called Chicken Soup for the Soul that kind of became a marketing series. But one thing, brethren, we should understand the Holy Spirit, the paracletos, is not chicken soup.

It's not chicken soup for the soul. It really is far, far more than that when we fully understand it. The word, as Christ is using it here, has to do more with power, with courage, the power and the courage to cope with daily life. And when we look at this word, it's really having the effect of helping us with our daily struggles, to help us stay on our feet. It really brings us closer to the real meaning that I think Christ wanted to convey on this night when He told His disciples, I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. I will lead you into the truth.

The Spirit will be with you. It will help you. God wants us, and Jesus wants us, to stay on our feet to win, to endure, to finish. That's what He wants. And the Holy Spirit is really that constant, illuminating, strengthening, enabling presence of Jesus Christ within us.

As Paul said in Galatians 2.20, that is the life we live and should be living. But He does so through the Holy Spirit, this parakletos. And it is indeed in us to exhort us to the most noble of spiritual deeds and to stay on our feet and to win. Let me explain it from the way the theologian John Barkley explains it in his writings. This is part of the daily study Bible by Barkley, and this is a volume that they put out called New Testament Words. And it just focused on the many words that you find in the New Testament, one chapter at a time. And the chapter on parakletos is very, very informative in terms of the meaning of it and the development of it, how it was used in the original Greek, in the ancient Greek, and how it made its transmission into English. But he starts out here and Barkley says that there's difficulty in bringing it into full meaning into the English out of the Greek. And he says, in fact, we find that the word means so much more that there is no single English word by which it can be adequately translated, the word parakletos. The function, he goes on, of the Holy Spirit was to fill a man with the spirit of power and courage, which would make him able triumphantly to cope with life. This is what he's bringing out here, and he goes on and has several pages about it. But he goes on to also say that it is the comfort, the word is that which makes a man able to stand on his two feet and face life. To make a person stand on their two feet and face whatever life throws at them, and to remain standing, to prevail, if you will, kind of like Jacob did after wrestling all night, to stand and to stay with it and to prevail and to go through a complete name change even.

He goes on here and he says, again, the word parakletos is the word of the rallying call.

It is the word used, and he's speaking in ancient Greek usage, it is the word used in the speeches of leaders and of soldiers who urge each other on. It is the word used of words which send fearful and timorous and hesitant soldiers and sailors courageously into battle.

A parakletos is therefore an encourager, one who puts courage into the faint-hearted, one who nerves the feeble arm for fight, one who makes a very ordinary man cope gallantly with a perilous and dangerous situation. The Holy Spirit makes men able to cope with life.

The Holy Spirit is, in fact, the fulfillment of the promise that Christ made in Matthew 2820, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. And also what he said here in John 14 verse 18, I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. It's the fulfillment of that promise.

He goes on to say that it is essentially the helper of men. It is the comfort which enables a man to pass the breaking point and not to break. When we describe the glorified Christ as our parakletos, we mean that He is there to speak for us before God. The word parakletos is the word for exhorting men to noble deeds and high thoughts. It is especially the word of courage before battle. Life is always calling us into battle, and the one who makes us able to stand up to the opposing forces to cope with life and to conquer life is the parakletos, the Holy Spirit, none other than the presence and the power of the risen Christ. This is how Berkeley really describes what that word is really talking about. And when you understand that, it really makes Jesus' statements here come alive with comfort and encouragement to us, especially as we come up to the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread and this wonderful Holy Day season that is upon us.

Time and again, we find this word used to encourage God's people. And as we see, it was used anciently to encourage people to go forward into battle, to remain standing.

You know, there's a movie I know most of us have probably seen.

We've all seen probably one or all of the Rocky movies.

Remember, Rocky won, in my estimation, the best one. If you've never seen any of them, and you're only going to see one, be sure to see the first Rocky movie. But the story of Rocky Balboa, who gets this broken-down, worn-out Philadelphia street fighter, who, by circumstances and chance, is kind of chosen by Apollo Creed to get his one shot at the heavyweight championship of the world in this staged fight. And so, Rocky Balboa goes through a period of training, which, the scenes in that were always encouraging and kind of motivating for anybody. You see those from time to time, replayed. They get to the fight, finally, and Apollo Creed is the heavyweight champion, and he's giving this one nobody a chance to knock him off of his throne.

And throughout the fight, you see Apollo Creed basically knocking Rocky Balboa time and time again to the mat. Sometimes Rocky Balboa gets his punches in and stuns Apollo Creed, but as it moves down toward the end of the fight, Rocky Balboa is still standing, and he's still taking the punches. And at one point, he takes a real haymaker from Apollo Creed, and he falls to the mat right in front of his trainer. And he's bloodied, and he's swollen, and yeah, some of you are already there with me. His trainer says, stay down! Stay down! You know, we're kind of a fool, we'll get back up and take this pummeling. And he kind of looks at him, bleary-eyed, and he gets back up. And you know the story. He stays until the last bell, and finally, I think the fight is called. And Apollo Creed wins, but Rocky Balboa wins by staying in the fight and enduring and getting back up. And that's what we love about the movie. That's what made it so endearing. He lost his chance. He didn't become a heavyweight champion. He got the girl, but he also endured, and he stayed on his feet. He kept getting back up. And in a sense, that really describes what we're talking about here with the power, the help of the periclatos of God within us, the Holy Spirit. It is a power to get back up, no matter what life throws at us.

No matter what struggle we go through, it is the power to get up and get out of bed every morning and to go to work and to face whatever we have to face and to succeed and to do noble things and to do good things of service, of obedience, of overcoming, and yes, of struggling and of enduring and staying with it. Those are noble, too, and those are the things that we need.

And that's what he's talking about. That's what Jesus is talking about here as He uses this to illustrate to us the power to meet the challenges of life and to cope with these matters and to conquer and to succeed. This is the real power that we are given here. This is what he's talking about.

The Holy Spirit is the presence and the power of God, of Jesus Christ within us, as a gift to those who obey. As Acts 5 tells us, we receive it through repentance and belief, through the laying on of the hands. It is for the mature. It is not for those who don't fully understand what they're getting into. And when God gives us the gift of His Spirit, it begins that process of life and growth toward the Kingdom of God. And it becomes a journey. We're on it. Many of us have been on it for a long, long time. And we don't have any intention of veering off the path and giving up.

And when certain things knock us down or tempt us to quit, we stay with it. Sometimes, even when we don't fully understand why, we stay with it. God always gives us the understanding. That's part of faith. But it's a struggle. And if you will, it's like a wrestling match. But it is a very power of God. In Ephesians chapter 1, we can give many, many sermons regarding the power of God's Spirit.

But it is the power. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 19, sometimes as we think about what we have access to, what God has given us, and whether we do need to ask us that, you know, as part of that examination at this time of the year, are we really using the power fully that God has given us?

Are we yielding to it? Are we letting God work in us? Chip off that old man. Develop his character and his righteousness within us. Are we letting that come through more and more this year as we come up to the Passover service? A multitude of questions that we ask, depending upon, again, what we've gone through and where we are in our life. But here in verse 19, as he speaks of the glory, the inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us, who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. The power that we have is the power that was used to resurrect Christ from the grave. And that is the power that is available to us. That power which resurrected our Savior, whose death we remember when we come together here next Thursday evening. That is the power that is available to us. Let me go to another scripture and kind of bring this down to explain this kind of a nitty-gritty fashion that may help us to really understand how we all in the church of God need to yield ourselves to this and wrestle with this as we work ourselves through this process of salvation and life and this journey toward God's kingdom. In 2 Corinthians chapter 13, there is a chapter here at the end of these two long letters to the church at Corinth where Paul has had to struggle with this church because of issues of heresy, immorality, obstinance, challenge to him, his role as their pastor. Remember, Paul had started this church. He stayed there for about a year and a half in Corinth. God appeared to him when he first came into Corinth in a vision at night and he said, you hang around here. I have a lot of people here that I'm going to call. So he stayed and it seems a sizable church in a rather loose, immoral, profligate city was established. Then he left and then he heard of other issues that were coming in there. So he had to write 1 Corinthians and tell them to put somebody out and correct a problem they had about the resurrection and deal with other issues dealing with their observance of the Passover service. It was a very hard, corrective letter, 1 Corinthians. Then he writes 2 Corinthians to commend them for their response and to also deal with certain lingering issues that come down to it. Here in chapter 13, 2 Corinthians, and this is a section that we inevitably turn to and read as a part of this process of examination prior to the Passover every year. Let's get that examination in context and really understand what Paul is dealing with and how it applies to us in a lesson I think we can learn this year. He says in verse 1, This will be the third time I am coming to you. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established. There's a question as to whether he wrote another letter that we don't have or somehow he made another trip back that is not recorded.

But you could take the first letter and this is the second letter. In his mind, it was the third time that he was addressing them. He said, I have told you before and foretell as if I were present the second time and now being absent, I write to those who have sinned before and to all the rest that if I come again, I will not spare. And so he kind of threw down a challenge. He said, if I come again, I won't spare. I'll deal with what has to be dealt with.

Certain things have been corrected, but there were evidently certain other issues that he as their pastor, their founding pastor would have to deal with. Since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, stop and think about that. What is the condition of a group of members of the church of God who want proof of their pastor that Christ is working within them, in him?

This is what he's saying. You seek a proof of Christ working in me. You talk about a breakdown in relationships, but Paul's dealing with it head on. And this was part of the problem at Corinth. And this was a letter, letters written at the time of the spring festival season.

And so it does have its application here. Since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you, for though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God, for we also are weak in him. But we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. Examine yourselves. He challenges them as to whether you are in the faith. How many times do we read this every year prior to this time of year to encourage all of us to examine ourselves? And we should. And it's an ongoing process. You ever looked at that examination process as a wrestling match? Kind of a struggle? If we really approach it right in prayer, through relationship based on study and faith in God, and we do due diligence to it, it can be an emotional, internal, spiritual struggle that we kind of need to put ourselves through. Examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. Perhaps no greater challenge is ever made by a minister to a group of people here than what Paul says to them. And it speaks to us today, test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you are disqualified, but I trust that you will know that you are not disqualified? So this is the the acid test. This is the proof that Christ is in you or you're disqualified.

That He is in you as He said that He would be in John 14, verse 18.

That I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you, Jesus said through the Spirit.

And so Paul says later on, decades later, to a group of church members, test yourselves, find out whether He is in you or you are disqualified. This is a very strong section of Scripture of a discourse between a pastor and the congregation.

I want to read it to you from another translation that I discovered. Actually, I rediscovered this translation, and it puts it in a way that I think is remarkable. It's the J.B. Phillips translation.

Years ago, this used to be quite often referred to in the church, and it kind of just fell out of use as other translations came on, but you can still find it on the Internet. It's a translation of the New Testament. But the way He puts this section, I think, is very, very good.

Let me just begin in verse 2, reading from the Phillips translation.

My previous warning, given on my second visit still stands, and though absent, I repeated now as though I were present. My coming will not mean leniency for those who have sinned before that visit and those who have sinned since. It will, in fact, be a proof that I speak by the power of Christ. The Christ you have to deal with is not a weak person outside you, but a tremendous power inside you.

The Christ you have to deal with, He said, is not a weak person outside you, but a tremendous power, or the parakletos, inside you. He was weak enough to be crucified, but He lives now by the power of God. I am weak, as He was weak, but I am strong enough to deal with you, for I share His life by the power of God. And in verse 5, He says, the Phillips puts it, you should be looking at yourselves to make sure that you are really Christ's. It is yourselves that you should be testing, not me. I think that that puts the meaning that Paul is really trying to get across to the members at Corinth and what Christ wants us to learn about as well as anything.

It is yourselves that you should be testing, not me, Paul said. We should be testing to see whether Christ is in us, lest we be disqualified. We should be examining ourselves to see if indeed Christ is in us. We should be wrestling with Christ, in other words, in our life.

Here's what Paul is saying, and he's saying, stop wrestling with me.

I'll deal with what needs to be dealt with. Don't look at it as weakness if I let something slide for whatever reason, or I don't deal with it in the way some think that it should be dealt with, or whatever. You can well imagine the complexities of human relationships at that level, just because quite frankly, brethren, we've all lived through every one of them in our own experience today within God's church.

When I read this, and I think it through, and I come to this conclusion, that for all of us in the church of God, it's about time that we start wrestling more with Christ and stop wrestling with ourselves. How many times more will we need to wrestle among ourselves? I hope no more. But this is the whole point. At whatever level we wrestle, to create another rift, to create another challenge among even members because of hurt feelings or issues that arise within a congregation or between members, or to a level that it causes a split. What Paul is challenging them to is stop wrestling with yourselves. Wrestle with Christ in you. Overcome, endure, find out indeed whether he is in you and submit to that. This is the point. This is the point we must come to. Use that Spirit of God, that parakletos, to meet the challenges of our everyday life that are more than ample to take up our time every day. When the temptation there comes to express because of envy or jealousy, some statement about somebody or some situation that we may or may not know about or have full understanding about, we stifle it. Like Archie said to Edith, stifle it, Edith.

And we just let it and we take it to God. Or we let Christ deal with it.

Or we just say, you know, I've had enough of this. I've got enough to wrestle with in my own life.

I'll work on my attitude here and I'll let someone else whose job it is or wherever deal with that. This is perennially the issue that all of us need to come back to.

It's a struggle and it's a wrestling and it's a life long. We may not be wrestling all night as Jacob did, but we're going to wrestle all our life spiritually, sometimes physically, with the challenges that will come when illness or other trials come upon us that we continually hear about, that we go through in our midst and we pray for one another. And we certainly do want to comfort one another in those matters and pray for God's healing and His grace to comfort people and help them draw closer to Him as they go through and endure a trial that we too would be able to when it comes to us. And by that process, we are knit together and joined together by what every one of us is able to supply. And we grow in the bonds of love for one another, rather than in the bonds of envy or acrimony or jealousy that divide us. And this is all Paul is saying, stop wrestling with me, he says. We can just say to each other, let's stop wrestling among ourselves and let's start wrestling with God in a spiritual sense and overcoming like Jacob did.

So that we can begin to take on a new name even today of one who prevails with God.

And we yield ourselves to that power that is within us. And we use that parakletos to do noble things, to do good things that aren't always heralded, known, or acknowledged by human beings, but are known by God. And we know, and there's how we build the integrity, the spiritual integrity that binds the church together in the image and in the vision that Christ wants it to be. That's what we need. There's another movie scene that I like to often go back to that I think illustrates exactly what this parakletos means as it was used in the Greek language to exhort people into battle, to exhort people to noble deeds. And I've used this over the years to kind of gear up for some of the things that we have had to deal with spiritually and within the church. There's a great scene from Shakespeare's play, Henry V.

The English king is leading his troops on French soil against the French, reclaiming cities that once belonged to the English. And they get trapped and they get into a major battle. Historically, it's true, but Shakespeare wrote this very famous speech. It's called the St. Crispin's Day speech that probably didn't happen, but it really is good English literature. And Kenneth Branagh really had a very good scene in his version of Henry V that he did a number of years ago, and that was one of those that I had to buy for a DVD just to have to be able to sometimes go quickly to that scene to listen to the way he did it and portrayed it.

But it's a rallying call because they're facing the French, and the English are outnumbered five to one. And annihilation looks imminent. And one of the English lords is wishing for more Englishmen to be with them. And the king, Henry, hears it and he launches into the speech and he says, don't worry about it. Let them stay at home in their beds where they belong. We're here, and we'll win the day. And years from now, he says, and I'm paraphrasing, years from now, when this day comes, in the memory of this day, those who were here will be glad that they were and they will show their scars. And those who were not will slink away as cowards because they weren't. And it's from that speech that we get the famous phrase that's been immortalized in more recent times called Band of Brothers because he says, we few, we band of brothers. And he urges them into battle. And literally and historically, the English did win that day. Again, without that speech, perhaps. But it's a wonderful speech. But I think it epitomizes, again, what the word parakletos was meant to do and the way Christ wants us to use it spiritually. To encourage us and to inspire us to go forward each day in our life and to win the struggle, the spiritual struggle, to do good things, to do good works, to overcome spiritually, to use that power within us to not fight each other, to not fight against one another, but to support, to encourage one another.

And in that way, we will be joined and we will be knit together. And we will one day come up to the vision that Christ has for the church of a body that is prepared as a bride, that is knit together, and that truly does love one another. If we use that power that is within us and we quit wrestling against one another, we start wrestling more with Christ. That's the challenge before us.

That's where we are as we face the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread this year.

May we wrestle with Christ and may we prevail.